One might be tempted to look at the cover of “There’s Something About Mira” and think that Sonali Dev’s newest novel is a romcom. While there is plenty of romance in this very touching story that spans generations, states, continents, cultures, and social status, there are also quite a few situations that force readers to examine our own prejudices and misconceptions. Even in how we express ourselves, we often reveal our inner, often very unintentional microaggressions.
Continue reading
This is a wonderful and disparate collection of nonfiction picture books, and they all deserve attention for many reasons. Librarians and teachers should consider these because of the important subject matter, the quality of the writing, and the engaging nature of the illustrations. From information about animal homes to facts about the elusive narwhal, there’s a lot of learning that will go on when kids peruse these books. They would also make great additions to a classroom library, a school (or public) library, or a child’s bookshelf at home. These are about animals, and therefore sure to be a kid magnet.
Continue reading
Brigid Kemmerer writes fabulous young adult action and fantasy novels, and her novel, “Destroy the Day,” is the last one in the “Defy the Night” trilogy. The novels in the trilogy are gripping, but we’ve had to wait two years for this last one in the series. A suggestion I would make is to reread the first two novels in the trilogy to really feel the whole emotional impact of this carefully written ending to the trilogy.
Continue reading
While both these children’s picture books are historical fiction, they are both based on real occurrences. One is based on the actual court case when a Chinese American family wanted to send their daughter to school in California and fought in the courts for that right. The other is based on the experiences of Black women who, after centuries of not having rights, and decades of not being able to vote, finally went to the voting booth.
Continue reading
There is so much to consider, so much to unpack, and so much to learn about in “Boss Lady,” the newest brainchild of coauthors Alli Frank and Asha Youmans. Fans of these writers know that they write intriguing novels about people we find extremely relatable; people who are stuck or need a bit of luck, but people with whom we can connect. Their main characters are always flawed, but we like that because aren’t we all flawed in some respect?
Continue reading
Imagine sending an honest letter to those who have wronged you so that after your death, everyone knows how you really felt. Now imagine those heartfelt, very frank letters being sent accidentally before your death. In “One Last Word,” author Suzanne Park imagines that happening to Sara Chae, who has been working on an app she thinks has great potential. But when her honest emails go out to her former employers, her former landlord, her parents, and even a former high school crush, she has a lot to worry about.
Continue reading
Adam Gidwitz is a much loved children’s author whose fabulous tales have taken readers young and old from Grimm’s fairy tales (“A Tale Dark and Grimm“) to the Inquisition (“The Inquisitor’s Tale“) and now to WWII in “Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II.” This historical fiction also contains Gidwitz’s trademark fantasy twist with two mythical creatures who accompany main character Max as he travels from Berlin to London as part of the Kindertransport, which took Jewish children from Germany to countries where they stayed in foster homes until the end of the war.
Continue reading
Percival Everett’s brilliant novel, “James,” is a significant achievement, almost as important, perhaps, for what it is not, as much as for what it certainly is. It is not simply a “reimagining” of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Nor is it simply an “updating” or “retelling” of Twain’s magnificent contribution to American literature. It is, instead, a moving, fiery, anger-inducing, sad, and occasionally humorous account of a slave in 1860 America. That slave, Jim, is a friend of a semi-wild fourteen- or fifteen-year-old ultra-country boy named Huck.
Continue reading
Young children learn about the world around them from their parents and their friends, but also through the books that they read. Included here are books which explain that the world around us is filled with different people who might have different kinds of skin color, different body types, or different family structures. But at heart, we are all the same, and most of us want the same thing: to be loved for who we are. These books will reinforce those concepts, and each one has its own unique appeal.
Continue reading
“Wrecker,” is pure Carl Hiaasen with its Key West setting and fabulous action, quirky characters, and clever plot. Carl Hiaasen is known for his novels about Florida, its struggle against pollution and destruction of the land and waters around it, as well as his tongue-in-cheek depiction of people who are oblivious to common sense and basic reasoning skills. This is a book that, in pointing out the racist past of Florida, and Key West in particular, could very well be banned in Hiaasen’s home state of Florida: In this clever and gripping novel, one of the characters actually feels terrible about an ancestor who was a member of the Klu Klux Klan and participated in the lynching of a white man who had dared to enter into a common law marriage with the Black woman he loved.
Continue reading
What Kate Quinn and Janie Chang have accomplished in their new historical fiction, “The Phoenix Crown,” is phenomenal. They have combined fictional female characters and real people and real events to create a gripping story that revolves around the Great Earthquake of San Francisco in 1906. In fact, the first part of the story, Act 1, provides dates, days, hours, and minutes as chapter headings until the earthquake hits. The first chapter is set on April 4, 1906, thirteen days, fourteen hours, fifty-two minutes before the San Francisco earthquake, as Gemma Garland, an opera singer, arrives in San Francisco with her bird, Toscanini.
Continue reading
James McBride’s backstory–his mother was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and his father was a Black minister–makes his new novel, “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” an authentic historical fiction that showcases the outcast communities of Blacks and Jews in the rural American Midwest. There are, in fact, many, many characters in this complex story wherein we see reflections of the present in a memorable tale of good and evil. We do see that in the long run, good mostly triumphs over evil. But we also see that while much has changed since the early part of the last century, when this novel is set, and while we think of ourselves and our modern technology, not enough has really changed. And McBride makes that abundantly clear with his vivid prose and his lovely metaphor.
Continue reading