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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Future Me Saves the World
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.leahcypess.com/
CITY: Silver Spring
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 403
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married Aaron M. Cypess (a physician and researcher), 2005; children: three daughters, one son.
EDUCATION:Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, B.S.; Columbia University, J.D., 2003.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Attorney and author. Debevois & Plimpton (law firm), New York, NY, attorney for two years; freelance writer. Presenter at schools.
AVOCATIONS:Hiking, travel, biking, reading, spending time with family.
MEMBER:Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.
AWARDS:YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults nomination, 2012, for Nightspell.
RELIGION: Jewish Orthodox.WRITINGS
Also author of the story collection Changelings & Other Stories, 2012, and the novella Timshala, 2018. Contributor of short fiction to anthologies, including The Mythic Dream, Sword and Sorceress XXIII, Timeshift: Tales of Time, Unidentified Funny Objects, Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2013, and Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015; and to periodicals, including Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Cast of Wonders, Daily SF, Galaxy’s Edge, Helix SF, Kaleria, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Odyssey, Persistent Visions, StarShipSofa, and Strange Horizons.
SIDELIGHTS
Although Leah Cypess began her writing career in the first grade, she sidestepped into a biology degree and eventually embarked on a career as a lawyer. Cypess started work on the manuscript that would grow into her first novel, Mistwood, while in law school, and she alternated her job at a New York City law firm with writing and publishing short fantasy fiction. During the seven years it took to complete her debut novel, she traded her job as an attorney for the more challenging job of parenting her young children. This choice allowed her writing career to progress, and Cypess’s published works have grown to include a companion novel, Nightspell, as well as the related fantasy novels Death Sworn and Death Marked. She is also the author of the “Sisters Ever After” middle-grade fantasy series.
Cypess grounds Mistwood in the kingdom of Samorna, where an immortal creature called a Shifter is charged with protecting Samorna’s kings. Isabel is the Shifter, and while peace reigns in Samorna she enjoys a quiet life in the Mistwood forest, as yet unaware of her special gifts. Then Crown Prince Rokan arrives and captures Isabel by encircling her wrist with the powerful Shifter’s Seal. Rokan knows that a Shifter can change from human to animal form and even into a mist, and he also hopes to benefit from Isabel’s great strength and speed. As she learns about her inner powers and attempts to use them, the teen also learns to navigate the politics of the Samornan court, ultimately discovering why Rokan’s requests leave her feeling uneasy and threatened.
Recommending Mistwood to fans of the novels of Megan Whalen Turner, School Library Journal contributor Jessica Miller added that Cypess’s novel “unfolds gracefully, mirroring the slow path Isabel must travel to begin understanding herself and her place in the world.” “The greatest magic is the power of choice in this lush, romantic debut fantasy,” proclaimed a Kirkus Reviews writer, and in Booklist Lynn Rutan described Mistwood as “an unusual, suspenseful fantasy that is propelled by well-placed clues.”
Set in a similar fantasy kingdom, Ghostland, Nightspell involves threats of a spectral nature. Callie, a princess of the nomadic Raellian people, was betrothed to a Ghostland prince as a child and she has lived in that kingdom since girlhood. Like others of his kind, her fiancé is long dead but can move among the living, drawing his energy from the intrigue and excesses of the palace court. When Callie’s older sister Darri and brother Varis now enter Ghostland in the hope of rescuing her, they find her strangely reluctant to leave. Soon Darri recognizes that she must make a crucial decision: to save her sister, she must take the girl’s place and wed this strangely compelling prince.
Praising Nightspell for its “elegant, allusive prose,” a Kirkus Reviews critic noted of Cypess’s second novel that it effectively evokes “both the claustrophobic horror and overripe allure of the decadent [Ghostland] court.” In Booklist, Lynn Rutan listed plot elements that would appeal to fans of sword-and-sorcery novels, writing that “swordfights, blood, and double-dealing” help to fuel the author’s “action-filled story … to a surprising conclusion.”
Evoking a dark and gloomy world suffused with magic and murder, Death Sworn focuses on Ileni, a teenaged sorceress whose magical potency has begun to fade. Spurned by her people and sent into exile, Ileni enters a violent and male-dominated world when she is given the task of teaching magic to a secretive cult of assassins dwelling in secluded caverns. When she learns that her predecessors have died under mysterious circumstances, she decides to endear herself to the cult’s putative leader, a secretive young man named Sorin. After Sorin promises to protect her, Ileni begins to investigate his assassin followers and study their murderous exploits, but romance and hidden secrets soon surface. Reviewing Death Sworn in Kirkus Reviews, a critic dubbed Cypess’s novel “a thoughtful exploration of identity and responsibility wrapped in a twisty, suspenseful mystery and set in a gorgeously realized fantasy world.”
In Death Marked, Ileni and Sorin are separated when the sorceress decides to perfect her skills at the Imperial Academy. Located in the Empire, the Imperial Academy trains the most skilled sorcerers in the world, and the teen hopes to gain eldritch knowledge, a skill she can use to erode the Empire’s power. Amid a society known for corruption, decadence, and mindless violence, she gains loyal friends and finds both acceptance and tolerance. As her knowledge grows, another choice faces her: Will her actions will be dictated by her long-harbored preconceptions or by the maturity and wisdom she has now gained. According to Voice of Youth Advocates contributor Amy Cummins, Death Marked “infuses ethical questions about battle tactics and life purposes into an exciting fantasy plot,” and a Kirkus Reviews writer dubbed it “somber and disquieting but alight with flickers of hope.”
Cypess offers a second look at Sleeping Beauty—and her oft-overlooked little sister—in her middle-grade novel Thornwood. Eleven-year-old Briony has always resented the attention showered on the doomed Rosalin. When the evil queen’s curse is overcome, Briony is the first to awake and witnesses the prince kissing her sister. Yet the thorns besieging the castle stay put, and the prince seems to be hiding secrets. With help from village savant Edwin, Briony might be able to figure things out, but only if she can get people to heed her ideas.
Hailing Cypess’s “talents for delicate prose and dark, twisty plotting,” a Kirkus Reviews writer especially admired the “utterly authentic relationship between the sisters,” who antagonize as well as help and love each other. The reviewer deemed Thornwood “effervescent, thrilling, and practically perfect in every way.” In School Library Journal, Amanda Toth called it “a fun, compelling story that will keep readers engaged.”
Cinderella’s youngest stepsister is the protagonist in Glass Slippers, the second book in the “Sisters Ever After” series. Tirza is eleven years old and lives in the castle with Cinderella’s family. Because of their history, Tirza is often unsure of her standing and she is not treated like other family members. When Cinderella’s glass slippers go missing, Tirza is blamed for stealing them and the story focuses on solving the mystery of who the culprit is. Calling the novel “engrossing,” a Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that Glass Slippers “injects originality into a familiar medieval European setting as it explores sibling rivalries of different stripes.”
The series continues with The Piper’s Promise, an adaptation of the story “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” featuring Clare, the piper’s little sister. Clare sets out to rescue the children who followed her brother, Tom. The book provides a backstory of the siblings who live in both the Faerie Realms and the human world. They were adopted by the queen of Faerie and soon begin to take on fae characteristics, including indifference to caring about humans. Clare is caught between the two worlds, especially as she relates to her friend Anna. Described as a “psychological retelling,” a writer in Kirkus Reviews took note of the “suspense and magical descriptions” in The Piper’s Promise.
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Future Me Saves the World (And Ruins My Life) is a standalone illustrated middle-grade novel that has an unusual premise. Ten-year-old Ethan wakes up one day confronted by his older self—his much older self. Thirty-nine-year-old Ethan has traveled back in time with a very specific task: Ethan has to convince his class to be nice to their substitute teacher that day. This is not the first time Ethan has been visited by his older self, but this time the advice comes with a warning. If young Ethan is not successful, the substitute teacher will become an evil dictator. A contributor in Kirkus Reviews loved this novel, calling it an “energetic and hilarious mix of light sci-fi and the daily dramas of kids’ lives.” They particularly appreciated that the story is “infused with plenty of humor.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 1, 2010, Lynn Rutan, review of Mistwood, p. 34; April 1, 2011, Lynn Rutan, review of Nightspell, p. 70; March 1, 2014, Stacey Comfort, review of Death Sworn, p. 70; August, 2025, Milena Durek, review of Future Me Saves the World (And Ruins My Life), p. 119.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2010, review of Mistwood; May 1, 2011, review of Nightspell; February 1, 2014, review of Death Sworn; January 15, 2015, review of Death Marked; March 1, 2021, review of Thornwood; February 1, 2022, review of Glass Slippers; February 15, 2023, review of The Piper’s Promise; April 1, 2025, review of Future Me Saves the World (And Ruins My Life).
Publishers Weekly, May 17, 2010, review of Mistwood, p. 51.
School Library Journal, May, 2010, Jessica Miller, review of Mistwood, p. 108; August, 2011, Kristina Weber, review of Nightspell, p. 98; March, 2014, Necia Blundy, review of Death Sworn, p. 155; January, 2015, Clair Segal, review of Death Marked, p. 108; January, 2021, Amanda Toth, review of Thornwood, p. 64; February, 2025, Heidi Dechief, review of The Truth about the Tooth Fairy, p. 61.
Voice of Youth Advocates, June, 2010, Marlyn Beebe, review of Mistwood, p. 162; August, 2011, Susan Hampe, review of Nightspell, p. 287; February, 2015, Amy Cummins, review of Death Marked, p. 73.
Writer, June, 2011, “Leah Cypess,” p. 14.
ONLINE
Book Smugglers, http://thebooksmugglers.com/ (May 11, 2010), Thea James, review of Mistwood; (December 28, 2011), Thea James, review of Nightspell; (May 29, 2012), Thea James, “Nightspell Giveaway: Leah Cypess on Inspirations & Influences.”
From the Mixed-Up Files, https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/ (November 11, 2025), author interview.
HarperCollins website, http://www.harpercollins.com/ (September 15, 2011), “Leah Cypess.”
Leah Cypess website, http://www.leahcypess.com (November 11, 2025).
Washington Jewish Week, https://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/ (December 5, 2024), Zoe Bell, “Leah Cypess Makes Reading Jewish History Fun for Children,” author interview.
About Me
CONTACT INFORMATION
To find out when I have new stuff you can read, please subscribe to my newsletter (on the left)!
My direct email address is LCypess@gmail.com
For questions on rights, please contact my agent:
Andrea Somberg
Harvey Klinger, Inc.
300 West 55th Street, Suite 11V
New York, NY 10019
MY LIFE (abridged version)
I wrote my first story in first grade. The narrator was an ice-cream cone in the process of being eaten. In fourth grade, I wrote my first book, about a girl who gets shipwrecked on a desert island with her faithful and heroic dog (a rip-off of both The Black Stallion and all the Lassie movies, very impressive).
After selling my first story (Temple of Stone) while in high school, I gave in to my mother’s importuning to be practical and majored in biology at Brooklyn College. I then went to Columbia Law School and practiced law for almost two years at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, a large law firm in New York City. I kept writing and submitting in my spare time, and finally, a mere 15 years after my first short story acceptance, I sold my first novel to Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins).
I live in Silver Spring, Maryland (right outside of Washington, D.C.) with my husband and four children.
Leah Cypess
USA flag
Leah Cypess has been writing since the fourth grade, but before becoming a full-time writer, she earned her law degree from Columbia Law School. She worked for two years at a large New York City law firm, then moved to Boston, where she now lives with her husband and two young children.
Genres: Children's Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy
New and upcoming books
June 2025
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Future Me Saves the World (and Ruins My Life)
August 2025
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The Discovery of Dragons
(Miriam's Magical Creature Files, book 2)April 2026
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The Mystery of the Mermaid
(Miriam's Magical Creature Files, book 3)
Series
Mistwood
1. Mistwood (2010)
2. Nightspell (2011)
2.5. Buried Above Ground (2013)
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Deathsworn
1. Deathsworn (2014)
2. Death Marked (2015)
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Sisters Ever After
1. Thornwood (2021)
2. Glass Slippers (2022)
3. The Piper's Promise (2023)
4. The Last Rose (2023)
5. Braided (2024)
6. Sea Swept (2025)
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Miriam's Magical Creature Files
1. The Truth About the Tooth Fairy (2025)
2. The Discovery of Dragons (2025)
3. The Mystery of the Mermaid (2026)
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Collections
Changelings & Other Stories (2012)
Awakenings (2018) (with others)
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Novellas and Short Stories
Timshala (2018)
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Chapter Books hide
Future Me Saves the World (and Ruins My Life) (2025)
Interview with Author Leah Cypess
I’m a huge fairy tale lover, and I just discovered Leah Cypess’s Sisters Ever After series. How did I miss this?! Her latest book in the series, BRAIDED, is coming out May 28. I’m so excited that I got to interview her for our Mixed-Up Files readers!
Please tell us a little bit about your upcoming novel, BRAIDED?
BRAIDED is the story of Rapunzel’s little sister, Cinna, who grew up longing for the return of her kidnapped older sister. The book starts right after Rapunzel’s rescue from the tower. Cinna can’t wait to help her sister take her rightful place as the heir to the throne. But Rapunzel is not what anyone—including Cinna—expected. And whoever took her might still be lurking in the castle…
I’ve always loved the story of Rapunzel (and have recently been looking at some of the origins of it myself). What kind of research has gone into writing this book (and your others)? Have you fallen down any interesting rabbit holes?
I started out by reading The Rebirth of Rapunzel by Kate Forsyth, which you’ve probably come across if you’ve been looking into the origins of Rapunzel! I found the book fascinating, but ultimately I decided to make BRAIDED more of its own story (and more related to TANGLED, despite Forsyth’s dislike of that movie). The previous book in the Sisters Ever After series, THE LAST ROSE, got about as dark as I want to go with these retellings; for BRAIDED I focused heavily on the question of, “What would make this story fun for my readers?”
I ended up doing a lot of research to flesh out the magical system in BRAIDED, since Rapunzel and her sister do magic by braiding spells into their hair. And that let me down a pretty intense rabbit hole about braids and hairstyles. For a while, Instagram was showing me nothing but hair reels all the time. And for a while, my youngest daughter’s hair was very fancy every day.
I’ve found myself drawn to fairy tales these last couple of years, and I absolutely love the idea of looking at the stories from the point of view of the siblings. Can you tell us what inspired you to write fairy tale retellings, and how these unique points of view came about?
I have always loved fairy tale retellings. There’s something about playing with a very familiar story, one baked into our cultural memory, that is both incredibly fun and enormously satisfying. Ideally, you create a twist that draws on the power of that original story while simultaneously examining and/or subverting it.
One way to do that is to tell the story from a different perspective – from the point of view of someone the original fairy tale didn’t consider important or didn’t include at all. With the Sisters Ever After series, that approach is baked into the way I tell the story. But because sibling relationships are so varied, but it still allows me many different ways to use that new point of view. I’ve been having so much fun with it.
You’ve written novels centered on Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Pied Piper, Beauty and the Beast, and, now, Rapunzel. (And, I believe The Little Mermaid is up next). Did you have a favorite fairy tale as a kid? What about it did you love?
My favorite fairy tale growing up was The Twelve Dancing Princesses, about princesses who wear out their dancing shoes every night in a secret faerie realm. I think what I love about that story is how complex it is about what the princesses are doing and why. The story is pretty clear that the princesses are not being forced to dance—they are actively sneaking away and deceiving everyone around them—and yet, in the end, the dancing is what they have to be saved from. Obviously, that’s an easy story to turn on its head, but I like the tension in the fact that the faerie dancing is both fun and dangerous.
Originally, I was going to do The Twelve Dancing Princesses as one of the Sisters Ever After books! But everyone I told about the idea was confused by why on earth that story would need a thirteenth princess. In the end, I wrote two short story retellings of the Twelve Dancing Princesses but never a book. Yet.)
We’re big fans of teachers and librarians here at From the Mixed-Up Files. Could you tell our readers about a teacher or a librarian who had an effect on your reading or writing life?
I’ve been lucky to have a number of teachers who encouraged my interest in reading and writing. My first “publisher” was my first grade teacher, who compiled a booklet of students’ stories. (My story was written from the point of view of an ice cream cone.) In fourth grade, I used to sneak books into class and read them under my desk during math class. My parents told me years later that my teacher knew perfectly well what I was doing but decided to let me get away with it.
Libraries have been a huge influence on me since before I was born. My father grew up very poor, and his family could barely afford enough food; they certainly didn’t buy books. The fact that he could go to the public library and read as many books as he wanted was part of what transformed him into a reader, and the fact that he was a reader was part of what made me into a reader. I am hugely grateful to libraries.
You’ve been writing since first grade, and sold your first story while still in high school. Do you have any advice for our middle grade readers about getting started on a writing life?
Shortly after I got my first publishing contract, I saw this quote on Mandy Hubbard’s blog: “A published author is an amateur who didn’t quit. Don’t quit.” I think that’s the best advice I can give! I would also suggest that you pace yourself in your writing development… first find your own voice and style, then find a critique group to polish it, and only then should you start worrying about publication.
Where can our readers find you?
My website is www.leahcypess.com. The place where I most reliably post writing news these days is on my Instagram, Leah Cypess. And if anyone is interested in getting a personalized signed copy of BRAIDED, I am running a preorder campaign through a local independent bookstore, People’s Book.
Thanks so much for visiting with us, Leah.
Readers, be sure to check out BRAIDED and the other books in Leah’s Sisters Ever After series. Do you have a favorite fairy tale? Let us know in the comments.
Leah Cypess Makes Reading Jewish History Fun for Children
By Zoe Bell -December 5, 20240
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Photo of a middle-aged woman with long straight brown hair. She is sitting with her arms crossed outside under a tree. She is wearing a maroon sweater and smiling at the camera.
Leah Cypess. Photo by Tova Suslovich.
Leah Cypess is a huge reader.
“Almost any Jewish book that came out, [my father] would buy it and bring it home, and I would read it,” Cypess said. “I just read everything that was put in front of me.”
It makes sense that she now writes Jewish books for young readers under the pen name Leah Sokol. The full-time author also writes young adult fantasy novels using her maiden name.
Cypess, whose Judaica books are part of the nonprofit PJ Library’s program, has done local book talks about her works. Her first published book that PJ Library accepted into its program was a historical fiction novel published in 2019. PJ Library staff requested that Cypess write a middle-grade biography of Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, which was published in May.
Cypess, whose most recent project is a new chapter book series about a young Orthodox Jewish girl called Miriam’s Magical Creature Files, lives in Silver Spring with her husband and four kids and belongs to Kemp Mill Synagogue and Young Israel Shomrai Emunah of Greater Washington.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. My family is Orthodox and I’m still Orthodox. I went to Jewish day schools; I went to Jewish summer camps; I had an extremely, extremely Jewish upbringing. After I graduated from high school, I spent the year studying in Israel, so very, very Jewish all the way through. After that, I went to Brooklyn College, [where] I minored in journalism, majored in biology.
Have you always known that you wanted to be a writer?
I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I got my first story published when I was in high school. When I was eight years old, I remember telling my grandmother, who is an immigrant, that I wanted to be an author when I grew up and she looked at me and said, “I don’t think authors make a lot of money.” And she was not incorrect about that.
I thought for a while that I would be a science writer, but I ended up going to law school and worked as a lawyer for a while. When my husband and I got married, I figured that,
before we have kids, this is my chance to give being a full-time writer a real serious try. So that was what I did, and then for four years, basically nothing happened. I got a few stories published, but I couldn’t get any of my manuscripts accepted by a publisher or agent. But four years later, I did get my first young adult book published by HarperCollins.
What’s the importance of writing books for young readers on Jewish topics?
When you’re a child, it’s really when you form your conception of the world and your identity. I really think that there should be a lot of books out there for Jewish kids, just as there are a lot of books out there for everyone. I think this should be the case for every race, every identity — there should be lots of books out there to choose from. … There should be lots of books about every type of Jewish experience, so every kid could have access to the kinds of books that interest them and that they want to read. That’s really increasing lately, and I’m hoping to be a part of that.
Do you have a favorite book you’ve written? Why is this one your favorite?
It’s my passion that kids should know more about Jewish history, so I’m really proud of my nonfiction biographies that I’ve written. I know for the most part, kids are assigned to read them in school, so I hope that they do read them and that they find them as pleasant as possible. If I was able to write a book that kids read for fun that’s also going to teach them something about history, I guess that’s what I’m most proud of.
How do you make Jewish history topics palatable for children?
The first trick is just finding a good history topic, so writing a biography of Natan Sharansky, for example, practically writes itself because his life was so exciting and he has such a good sense of humor. Almost anything about him that you could put in a book is going to be interesting for children. There are a lot of times that I’ll do research into a historical topic because I’d love to write a children’s book about it. And then I’m like, there’s nothing in this that’s going to be super-exciting to children. …
So finding the right topic is really the main thing … You’ll have to find a topic that’s interesting, but also a little bit child-centered. You have to find a way that you can put a child in the story, where a child could realistically have an impact or do something important in the story and not just be watching the adults do stuff.
What is your advice to young Jewish writers?
My main piece of advice is to read as widely as you can and really get a sense for what kinds of books you like to read, and that’s the kind of book that you should write. You have to keep your audience in mind, but you should always be your first audience.
zbell@midatlanticmedia.com
LEAH CYPESS
Leah Cypess wrote her first short story – in which the narrator was an ice cream cone – at the age of six, and sold her first piece of fiction while in high school. She has degrees in biology, journalism, and law, and has traveled to Iceland, Israel, Jordan, and Costa Rica, among other places. She now lives with her family in Maryland. She is also the author of four young adult fantasy novels — Mistwood, Nightspell, Death Sworn, and Death Marked — and her first middle grade fantasy novel will be published in 2021. You can find out more about her at www.leahcypess.com.
Cypess, Leah FUTURE ME SAVES THE WORLD (AND RUINS MY LIFE) Aladdin (Children's None) $18.99 6, 3 ISBN: 9781665964395
An excitable fourth grader might just hold the fate of the world in his hands.
Ten-year-old Ethan wakes up to a 39-year-old version of himself warning him that the world will be in peril if he doesn't get up, go to school, and make sure that his substitute teacher doesn't quit her job despite the pranks his classmates plan to play on her. If she leaves teaching behind, she will, following a suspiciously hazy chain of events, become an evil dictator who starts a war. Future Ethan wears funky fashions, talks up a storm of complicated time-travel logistics, and actually seems to like Ethan's obnoxious sister. But Ethan listens to what his future self has to say. Under Future Ethan's guidance, our young hero attempts to encourage his teacher to stick with the profession while also navigating a classroom spitball fight, a school-wide ziti-induced barfing incident, and a side quest that involves convincing his awkward classmate, Tamara, to take accelerated math so that she can invent time travel, which strains his relationship with his best friend. Infused with plenty of humor, Ethan's first-person narration is chaotic, at once self-centered and thoughtful, affectionately capturing the interior life of a highly imaginative elementary schooler. In Molebash's simple cartoon art, characters have skin the white of the page.
An energetic and hilarious mix of light sci-fi and the daily dramas of kids' lives.(Science fiction. 8-12)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Cypess, Leah: FUTURE ME SAVES THE WORLD (AND RUINS MY LIFE)." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A832991842/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3cf2e48b. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.
* CYPESS, Leah. The Truth About the Tooth Fairy. illus. by Sarah Lynne Reul. 112p. (Miriam's Magical Creature Files: Bk. 1). Abrams/Amulet. Mar. 2025. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9781419772405.
Gr 2-4--From the author of the "Sister Ever After" series comes an early chapter book series with a spunky young Orthodox Jewish girl as the main character. Miriam is the youngest of three and feels like her family is just waiting for her to grow up and "get interesting." When Miriam gets a wiggly tooth, she's determined to prove that the tooth fairy doesn't exist and is yet another example of "ridiculous things" her family tells her. Miriam's bouncy energy and hilarious commentary make this a laugh-out-loud page-turner that young readers will adore. Original and clever text infuses Miriam with a unique and lovable personality. She makes amusing lists and charts to uncover the truth behind her family's claims, like whether the tooth fairy exists and if sugar makes her hyper. Reul's sweet black-and-white sketches accompany the lists and charts, taking on the appearance of ripped-out, scrapbook book pages. Jewish culture and traditions are woven seamlessly into the story as Miriam prepares for Shabbat and dresses in her Queen Esther Purim dress to help her stay awake to see who the tooth fairy really is. The final pages include a brief history of tooth fairy lore. VERDICT This book has everything: diverse characters, a funny and entertaining plot, and a stand-out, memorable main character. An essential purchase for all.--Heidi Dechief
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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Dechief, Heidi. "CYPESS, Leah. The Truth About the Tooth Fairy." School Library Journal, vol. 71, no. 2, Feb. 2025, p. 61. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A836878844/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3b40650f. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.