Review of Too Small Tola, by Atinuke, illustrated by Onyinye Iwu

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Too Small Tola

by Atinuke
illustrated by Onyinye Iwu

Candlewick Press, 2021. First published in the United Kingdom, 2020. 89 pages.
Review written April 6, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Too Small Tola is a short chapter book about a small girl named Tola, who lives with her older brother and sister and their Grandmommy in an apartment in Lagos, Nigeria. This is a brilliant chapter book, with a girl not wanting to be thought of as small navigating a very interesting setting.

I like the way this book, as good beginning chapter books do, is full of everyday concerns of a child the same age as a beginning reader. But the everyday concerns of a child in Lagos, Nigeria, are super interesting for an American child.

There are three stories in the book, with plenty of illustrations along the way. Here’s how Tola is introduced at the start:

Tola lives in a run-down block of apartments in the megacity of Lagos, in the country of Nigeria. She lives with her sister Moji, who is very clever; her brother, Dapo, who is very fast; and Grandmmommy, who is very-very bossy.

Tola is the youngest in her family. And the smallest. And everybody calls her Too Small Tola, which makes her feel too-too small.

In the first story, Tola goes shopping with Grandmommy. What makes it extra interesting is that she carries what they buy in a big basket on her head. But they end up with heavy loads for both of them and need lots of rest along the way – rest that comes with treats.

In the second story, “Small but Mighty,” their apartment doesn’t have water, so they must go fill their big jerry cans with water from the pump outside the apartments. But there’s a line, and Tola doesn’t want to be late to school, but she has to stop and help Mrs. Shaky-Shaky. That story has a wonderful reversal after a bully is mean to Tola, but Mrs. Shaky-Shaky thwarts the bully.

The third story has Tola helping their injured neighbor, a fine tailor, get measurements all over the city so he can make fine clothes for Easter and Eid. Tola is as good at taking measurements as the tailor himself, and the story tells about her brother taking her on his bike to different parts of Lagos, meeting many different people.

It’s all about a relatable kid in a wonderfully interesting setting. Tola is indeed small, but mighty!

atinuke-author.weebly.com
candlewick.com

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Review of Merci Suárez Can’t Dance, by Meg Medina

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Merci Suárez Can’t Dance

by Meg Medina

Candlewick Press, 2021. 372 pages.
Review written April 13, 2021, from an advance reader copy sent by the publisher
Starred Review

Merci Suárez is back! Now she’s thirteen years old and in seventh grade, having navigated everything life threw at her in sixth grade in Merci Suárez Changes Gears. I was super excited when I heard about it, because I was on the committee that chose the first Merci book to win the 2019 Newbery Medal!

Meg Medina is a master of her craft. Like the first book, it’s not a flashy story, but good solid writing about a seventh-grade girl from a Cuban American family negotiating a school where most of the other kids are from richer families than hers, negotiating changes in her family, and figuring out this thing about how everyone around her seems suddenly interested in romance. By the time you’re through the book, you realize Merci’s been dealing with a whole host of issues with grace and nuance. You’ll rejoice with her.

She’s up against her nemesis again, Edna Santos, but I like the way Edna isn’t portrayed either as a simple bully or as someone who suddenly reforms and is shown to have a heart of gold. She’s real – with some annoying traits that last, but Merci also discovers some good things about her.

But there’s a boy who comes into Merci’s life at the beginning of the book, and her feelings about him are confusing. Here’s how the book begins:

It was Miss McDaniels’s idea for me and Wilson Bellevue to work together in the Ram Depot, a job that nobody wants. For the record, I applied for an anchor spot on the morning announcements with my best friend Lena. But wouldn’t you know it? Darius Ulmer’s parents decided it was time he addressed his “shyness issues,” so he got the job instead.

I like the way Wilson, too, is presented as a real person. While the reader is pretty sure he’s going to be important in Merci’s thinking, we aren’t told simply that he’s good-looking, and Merci doesn’t lose her ability to speak when he looks at her. Here’s how he’s described on the next page:

I only knew him from PE and earth science, the quiet kid with freckles across his nose and reddish hair he wears natural. I had noticed his walk, too. He swings one hip forward so his right leg can clear the ground. He says it doesn’t hurt or anything. He was born that way, he told us last year during one of those annoying icebreaker activities we’re all subjected to on the first day of school. Anyway, we hadn’t really talked much this year. The only other intel I had was that his family is Cajun and Creole from Louisiana. He told us that when he brought gumbo to the One World food festival when we were in the sixth grade, and it was pretty good, if you didn’t mind breaking into a full-body sweat from the spices.

Merci and Wilson work well together in the student store, getting good ideas to make it start being profitable for a change.

I thought the not dancing would be all about the Heart Ball, pictured on the cover, which is organized by Edna, and where Merci agrees to be the official photographer at the photo booth to get out of dancing. But that’s halfway through the book. As things go on, her Tía decides to open a dance studio, and she needs all the family to help make it a success. Can even Merci learn to dance?

It was a treat to spend time with Merci again. Like the first, this is a solid school story – with lots of creativity and personality and nothing stereotypical. I can’t help loving Merci, who’s never going to fit into anyone else’s mold.

candlewick.com

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Review of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy

by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo

Little, Brown and Company, 2019. 256 pages.
Starred Review
Review written June 11, 2019, from a library book

This graphic novel is a modern retelling of the children’s classic Little Women, and it’s wonderfully done. It takes only the first book of the two parts of the original book – up to the point where the girls make some life-changing choices. Let’s just say that the modern versions of the girls choose differently, and I like the update.

This time the March family is a blended family. Meg’s father married Jo’s mother and then they had Beth and Amy together. Instead of the Civil War, their father is off fighting in the Middle East. And the book opens with the girls facing that they won’t be able to expect presents for Christmas and they want to give their mother a surprise. Instead of going out to help the poor, they go work at a soup kitchen on Christmas and a kindly rich neighbor across the street invites them over for Christmas dinner, where they meet Laurie, his grandson who has just moved in.

I’ve read the original novel Little Women many, many times since I was in about sixth grade. I loved the way the scenes in this graphic novel parallel the scenes in the original book.

Jo still loves to read and wants to be an author. Beth loves music – but it’s a guitar that she gains from their neighbor rather than a piano. Amy still loves art – she wants to draw comics. Meg still wants to marry a rich man – but that’s one of the choices that end up getting changed. We do get to enjoy familiar-but-new scenes of Meg feeling out of place at a party with girls who have much more money than their family does.

I don’t want to give away the changes at the end. If they write a second book, matching the second half of Little Women, it won’t be able to parallel the scenes as closely. But I do appreciate the changes for these modern times.

Like the original, this is a story of four sisters navigating life, each dealing with their own burdens, but ultimately facing it together.

LBYR.com

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Review of Just Like That, by Gary D. Schmidt

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Just Like That

by Gary D. Schmidt

Clarion Books, 2021. 387 pages.
Review written March 19, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is set in 1968, during the Vietnam War, and after the events in The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now. In this book, we’re following Meryl Lee Kowalski, and the first thing we learn is that one of the characters from the other books, one who had become very important to Meryl Lee, has died suddenly in a freak accident. Oh, and there’s even a nod to Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, including a character from the Buckminster family (though this is years later).

You do not have to have read the earlier books (although this book makes me want to go back and reread them), and my own memory was hazy, but anyone will understand the painful good memories and the Blank left when thinking of someone you love who is no longer there.

Meryl Lee’s parents decide she needs a complete change. They send her to St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls in Maine. So all the rest of the cast of characters in this book are new.

And Meryl Lee is the only new girl in eighth grade at St. Elene’s. Her roommate is from such an important family that she shares her last name with her hometown. She makes it very clear how much she misses the roommate she’d been paired with for years who is now living in Budapest with her diplomat family for the year. We can tell Meryl Lee’s going to have a challenge fitting in at her new school.

Alongside Meryl Lee’s story, there’s a parallel story of Matt Coffin, a boy who’s been living by himself in a fisherman’s shack by the water. People haven’t been able to get him to stay at school.

Things might have gone on this way for a very long time, except one early spring evening, when the orange sun was low and the shadows of the pines long, Mrs. Nora MacKnockater came down the steep ridge to the shore beneath her house and settled her substantial rump on a smooth rock large enough to hold it. She watched a flat stone skip in the trough between the low waves – the tide was heading out – turned, and saw Matt Coffin brush back his hair, pull his arm to toss the next stone, see her, and stop.

“Five skips,” she said, “is a creditable throw.”

Mrs. MacKnockater builds a friendship with Matt, starting with skipping stones, then sharing food, then finally giving him a place to stay. But Mrs. MacKnockater is also the headmistress at St. Elene’s Preparatory School for Girls, so Matt and Meryl Lee’s stories are going to converge. Matt has a tragic past and always worries that it will catch up with him. He doesn’t dare put down roots, because if he does, those people will get hurt.

As in so many of his other books, Gary Schmidt pulls you into the emotions of his characters. This book portrays grief in ways that will rend your heart. But it also shows new starts and new friendships. It shows Meryl Lee making new connections with some people you thought were too odious to ever be relatable and others that are surprisingly kind and others who just make you cheer that such good people found each other.

Once again, I’ll spend the year hoping for a Newbery nod for a Gary Schmidt book. Now that I’ve been on the committee, I understand that I can’t predict at all what the committee will decide, but I am at least absolutely sure this book will get consideration. It’s a beautiful and memorable book that explores grief but leaves you with hope.

hmhbooks.com

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Review of Fly on the Wall, by Remy Lai

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Fly on the Wall

by Remy Lai

Henry Holt and Company, 2020. 332 pages.
Review written March 6, 2021, from a library book

Henry Khoo has figured out the perfect way to prove to his family that at twelve years old, he is not a baby. He has laid a plot to spend the first day of school break, not at his former friend Pheeb’s house as his family thinks, but on an airplane flying from Australia to Singapore where his Dad lives.

I thought of course this plan would fail spectacularly. But no, this book is the story of that flight. (And the book does convince me he could have pulled it off. It turns out that twelve is the age that kids are allowed to travel unaccompanied. Tickets were on sale, and he memorized his mother’s credit card number to get the ticket.)

Henry and his big sister Jie usually spent every school break at their Dad’s house anyway. But this year, Jie is going to be looking at universities, and Jie and Mom and Popo scoffed at Henry’s idea that he should go on his own. He will show them.

This book is liberally sprinkled with cartoon drawings, because Henry likes to draw, and this book shows us what he puts in his absolutely private notebook. We learn that Henry draws an anonymous internet comic that spreads gossip about kids at school, “Fly on the Wall.” But the principal is going to “appropriately deal with” the author of “Fly on the Wall” when he finds out who it is. Can Henry keep his secret? And he’s starting to have second thoughts about some of the things Fly on the Wall posted.

And then a classmate shows up on the very same flight — a classmate who knows Henry’s secret identity. Can Henry make it into Business Class to confront him?

The epic adventure of Henry Khoo is going to have some lessons along the way.

remylai.com

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Review of The List of Things That Will Not Change, by Rebecca Stead

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The List of Things That Will Not Change

by Rebecca Stead
read by Rachel L. Jacobs

Listening Library, 2020. 5 hours.
Review written January 26, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
A 2020 Capitol Choices selection

When Bea’s parents got divorced, they gave her a green notebook with a list of things that will not change. The first two things on the list are that her parents will love her more than anything, always. Bea goes back and forth between their homes in a regular schedule, knowing she’s always got a home with each of them. The list has grown in the years since then.

Now her dad and Jesse are getting married, and Bea gets to help plan the wedding. What’s more, Jesse’s daughter, who is Bea’s age, is coming out from California to visit. The wedding means that Bea will finally get to have a sister! But is her new sister as excited about that as Bea is? And why do some friends and relatives seem so upset about the wedding?

This is a sweet story of a loving family from the eyes of a ten-year-old navigating changes, while still being secure in the knowledge that some things will never change.

rebeccastead.com
rhcbooks.com

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Review of Solving for M, by Jennifer Swender

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Solving for M

by Jennifer Swender
illustrations by Jennifer Naalchigar

Crown Books for Young Readers, 2019. 243 pages.
Review written January 27, 2021, from a library book
2020 Mathical Book Prize Award Winner, Ages 8-10

This book begins with Mika starting middle school in 5th grade and wondering why her math teacher insists on them keeping a math journal. She doesn’t think of herself as a numbers person, but as an art person. Still, her art teacher tells them “Drawing isn’t in the 5th grade curriculum” and instead they make collages from found objects. She does more drawing in math class than in art class.

And the book takes us through Mika’s year with the unconventional math teacher, new friends, and pages from Mika’s math journal, which mostly give a nice visual explanation of math concepts. Mika’s mother, unfortunately, has a medical incident and may have cancer, and then that cancer may have spread, so when Mika thinks about probability, that’s what’s on her mind.

I’m not sure I would have liked having to do a math journal instead of just solving problems when I was in 5th grade. But this makes a nice book for kids who don’t, actually, think of themselves as numbers people. It shows how much math is part of life. And Mika’s story is a good one, trying to cope with her mother’s diagnosis and make new friends with her former best friend assigned to a different pod.

There is, alas, one error in the portrayed journal pages! The book is so good except for that!

When the class is talking about subsets, Mika draws pictures of various sets and subsets. These are shown on pages 135 and 136. In the first one, she’s got a picture of her Mom in a Melanoma Support Group. Set A = Mom, old guy 1, old guy 2, old guy 3, old guy 4. Then she’s got new brackets around the picture of her mother and says Set B = Mom.

But alas! In the subset notation, it says that A is a subset of B, instead of what it should be, the other way around! This has strong potential to confuse lots of kids. It’s the *only* math mistake in the book, and not a major plot point, and I really really really hope they will fix it in subsequent printings. Once that mistake is put right, it’s a wonderful book that kids will enjoy and that might open their minds about math!

I admit, I’m surprised it won a Mathical Prize with that error in there. Though the library tends to buy early printings, so maybe it did get fixed? And it’s one tiny error and they shouldn’t hold against it the beautiful demonstration of how math is part of life and artists can help make that understandable. Also, I’m sure the committee appreciated the bigger picture that this book shows that it doesn’t take some kind of natural-born genius to enjoy and appreciate math.

jacobsandswender.com
rhcbooks.com

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Review of Black Brother, Black Brother, by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Black Brother, Black Brother

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Little, Brown and Company, 2020. 239 pages.
Review written January 19, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Donte and Trey are brothers in a biracial family. Trey has white skin and looks like their dad. Donte has black skin and looks like their lawyer mom. They both attend a Middlefield Prep, with Trey a couple years ahead of Donte, who’s in middle school. Trey is far more popular than Donte.

As the book opens, Donte is sitting in the principal’s office, waiting to be punished for something he didn’t actually do. When they won’t even listen to his side and he gets angry, the police are called and Donte is arrested and taken from the school in handcuffs.

Donte’s mother is a lawyer. She’s going to go farther with his case. But Donte is especially angry at Alan, the kid who threw the pencil, a kid who’s blatantly racist. That kid is also the star of the fencing team.

Then Donte learns that a black Olympic fencer lives nearby and works at a Boys and Girls Club in Boston. Donte decides to learn to fence, in hopes of beating Alan at his own game.

The book is good at explaining the art of fencing to the reader – the mind game aspects as well as the physical aspects. We’re rooting for Donte as he learns to look beyond personal vengeance and think about how to work for justice.

It’s not a long story, but it grips the reader, and points out some contemporary issues. In a note at the back, the author mentions some awful stories of black children being arrested at school for minor offenses. I hope the book itself will help open eyes and open hearts.

lbyr.com

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Review of Echo Mountain, by Lauren Wolk

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Echo Mountain

by Lauren Wolk

Dutton Children’s Books, 2019. 356 pages.
Review written January 9, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Set in Maine in 1934, about a family who left to live on Echo Mountain after their money ran out in the Great Depression, here’s how the book begins:

The first person I saved was a dog.

My mother thought he was dead, but he was too young to die, just born, still wet and glossy, beautiful really, but not breathing.

Ellie ended up plunging the puppy into a barrel of water, and he revived and she gave him back to his mother. But that puppy had a special place in her heart.

So after that success, Ellie starts getting ideas about how she could wake up her father, who has been in a coma for months, after a tree fell on him. They had a doctor come, but the doctor offered no help. Ellie thinks that quiet and lullabies are the wrong approach. Maybe a shock, like the cold water on the puppy, will do the trick.

She doesn’t consult with her mother or big sister in this planning, and when she starts carrying out her plans, they aren’t too happy. At the same time, when she ventures up the mountain, she meets someone else who needs help – but who also knows a thing or two about medicine.

A fun part of this book was the different remedies Ellie and others try. It turns out I didn’t know much about medical knowledge in 1934. I had no idea that honey helps a wound to heal – or how you would get honey if you needed it, on a mountain without any money.

It was also a lovingly drawn picture of a poor community, using barter and ingenuity to get along, but the toll it took on a woman to run a home while her husband was unconscious. And then her daughter tries crazy ideas to help! (One of Ellie’s ideas was to put a non-poisonous snake in her father’s bed. She figured when he heard her sister scream, he’d want to help her so much, he’d wake up.)

This book did remind me of Lauren Wolk’s other books. They all have quirky, thoughtful characters that you come to love.

penguin.com/middle-grade

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Review of Twins, by Varian Johnson and Shannon Wright

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Twins

written by Varian Johnson
illustrated by Shannon Wright

Graphix (Scholastic), 2020. 252 pages.
Review written January 26, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Maureen and her twin Francine have reached middle school, and Maureen’s dismayed that they only have two classes together. But Francine starts going by Fran and seems to be relishing doing things apart from Maureen. She’s getting new friends in chorus and even decides to run for class president.

Maureen is nervous about doing so much on her own and finding her own way. Then in Cadets, Maureen learns she can get extra credit by running for office. Francine doesn’t even seem to care, so she impulsively decides to run for president, too. Will that finally get her twin’s attention again?

There are plenty of excellent graphic novels about navigating the way friendships change in middle school. This one has the additional spark of dealing with a friendship between twins. Varian Johnson is a twin himself, so even though the story isn’t autobiographical, he knows how to capture the connection between twins. This book is sure to be wildly popular, and deservedly so.

varianjohnson.com

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