Review of The Lucky Ones, by Liz Lawson

Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Lucky Ones

by Liz Lawson

Delacorte Press, 2020. 343 pages.
Review written December 12, 2020, from a library book

The Lucky Ones in this book are teens who survived a school shooting in their high school the previous year. The reader does learn they’re not very lucky.

We follow two teens with a very different relationship to the tragedy. May was in a closet when the shooting happened in the band room. Her twin brother, her favorite teacher, and several of her friends were killed. She stayed in the closet. After the tragedy, she kept lashing out at school, and was eventually asked to take a leave of absence and home school. Now it’s second semester of the following school year and students from May’s old high school have been moved to the two closest high schools. She’s trying to go back to class. At least it’s a new building.

Zach’s mother is the lawyer who took the case of the school shooter. And when that happened, he lost all his friends except one. Someone – Zach doesn’t know it was May – has been vandalizing their house at night. But then a new girl shows up in class and smiles at him.

It feels good to both May and Zach to find new romantic interest in someone. Then they find out who the other is.

This is a tough book, dealing with so many awful emotions in the aftermath of a school shooting. It’s terrible how many teens may relate to it. It’s a well-written story, with both kids figuring out what’s going on in their own heads and how to communicate and what’s the best way to express all those mixed-up emotions. And not all the trauma happens before the story begins.

This is a good story and does end with a note of hope, but it’s not light reading.

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Review of I’ll Go and Come Back, by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Sara Palacios

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

I’ll Go and Come Back

by Rajani LaRocca
illustrated by Sara Palacios

Candlewick Press, 2022. 36 pages.
Review written April 23, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

I’ll Go and Come Back is a lovely picture book telling two parallel stories. First, a girl and her parents fly across the world to India “to see aunties and uncles, cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters, and Sita Pati.”

At first, she feels lonely when her cousins are in school. It’s all so different. She wants to go home.

But even though they don’t speak the same language, she and her Sita Pati do fun things together, filling the time with love and joy.

When it was time to go home, I didn’t want to. I held Pati’s hand with its soft, soft skin. Her sari rustled and smelled of silk. “Goodbye,” I said.

“Poitu variya?” asked Sita Pati. “Will you go and come?”

And I remembered that no one in India just said “goodbye.” “I’ll go and come back,” I said. “Poitu varen.”

Then it’s Sita Pati’s turn to visit. The next summer, she visits the family in America. She, too, seems lonely at first.

But the girl and her Sita Pati find parallel things to do together. As before, they spend their days playing and reading and cooking.

And when it’s time for Sita Pati to go back to India the words of farewell are again, “I’ll go and come back.”

This picture book will resonate with anyone who has loved ones who live far away.

rajanilarocca.com
candlewick.com

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Review of Merci Suárez Plays It Cool, by Meg Medina

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Merci Suárez Plays It Cool

by Meg Medina

Candlewick Press, September 2022. 346 pages.
Review written July 23, 2022, from an Advance Reader Copy I got at ALA Annual Conference, signed to me by the author.
Starred Review

This is the third book about Merci Suárez, in a trilogy that began with the book my committee chose to win the 2019 Newbery Medal, so it has a special place in my heart. But even though it didn’t seem possible, Merci grows on me even more with each volume.

And yes, I think you should read all three books in order, growing with Merci from sixth grade to eighth grade. She’s growing in her perspectives, but she still has issues with friends and family to face.

Now starting eighth grade, she’s got an in with one of the cool girls because of being on the soccer team together. And her schedule has more classes with her than with her older friends. But can she navigate that without hurt feelings? And how does she feel about it?

Then at home, her Lolo’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse, which is hard on everyone. And the twins are as incorrigible as ever.

None of this sounds funny and interesting and engaging when I give it in summary, but it’s all of that. It’s a solid book about an eighth grade girl growing up and navigating relationships with family and friends, and all packed with humor and heart. If you’ve read the others, you’ll be eager to spend more time with Merci. If you haven’t, good news: You can read the entire trilogy without waiting to find out what happens next!

megmedina.com
candlewick.com

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Review of Grandmother School, by Rina Singh and Ellen Rooney

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

Grandmother School

by Rina Singh and Ellen Rooney

Orca Book Publishers, 2020. 32 pages.
Review written September 11, 2020, from a library book

Grandmother School is a picture book based on the true story of a school in India that was made especially for the grandmothers in that village.

The story is told by a little girl who walks her Aaji to Grandmother School.

Aaji started school a year ago. My teacher said almost everyone in the village could read, write and count except for all of the grandmothers.

So he built Aajibaichi Shala – Grandmother School.

Ajoba – my grandfather – shook his head and said that learning at this age was a waste of time, but most of the people in the village were happy for the grandmothers.

When Aaji first learned to spell her name, she did a little dance.

The book shows Aaji with daily tasks made simpler, and happy in her new-found knowledge. Her granddaughter helps her with homework and they have a new bond together, since they are both students.

This lovely picture book celebrates the joy and power that come from learning as well as the love between a grandmother and granddaughter.

orcabook.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Berry Song, by Michaela Goade

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 2

Berry Song

by Michaela Goade

Little, Brown and Company, 2022. 36 pages.
Review written August 15, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This picture book is gorgeous, as you’d expect, since it’s created by a winner of the Caldecott Medal. Instead of illustrating a book from another indigenous person’s traditions, she has written and illustrated this book from her own Tlingit traditions. Here’s how she begins the author’s note at the back:

Like the young girl in this book, I too live on an island at the edge of a wide, wild sea where I grew up picking tléiw, or berries. My home is Sheet’ká, or Sitka, Alaska. It is the same island my Tlingit grandmother, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents called home. All year long I excitedly wait for berry season, for the juicy salmonberries that strum the first notes of berry song, and the cranberries after the first freeze that signal its end. Every time I wander back into the forest, I am a little kid again, spellbound by the magic and joy of berry song.

The text of the picture book is a lyrical adventure of a grandmother showing her granddaughter how to get food from the land — especially the berries. As they pick, they sing the names of the berries — many more kinds than I even knew existed — and thank the land for taking care of them.

The book doesn’t give the tune, but you can hear the music in the words:

Salmonberry, Cloudberry, Blueberry, Nagoonberry.
Huckleberry, Soapberry, Strawberry, Crowberry.
The berries sing to us, glowing like little jewels.
We sing too, so berry — and bear — know we are here.

At the end of the book, in another season, the girl brings her little sister to gather more berries.

This is a lovely celebration of family and traditions and living in harmony with the land.

The endpapers identify all the berries named, with some additional photographs along with the Author’s Note.

michaelagoade.com
lbyr.com

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Review of A Very Large Expanse of Sea, by Taherah Mafi

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Romance, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

by Taherah Mafi
read by Priya Ayyar

HarperAudio, 2018. 6 hours and 43 minutes.
National Book Award Longlist.
Review written August 17, 2020, from a library eaudiobook

A Very Large Expanse of Sea is a book I didn’t get around to in 2018 mainly because it was obviously geared more for young adults than for children. This book is set in 2002 about Shirin, a Muslim girl who wears a headscarf, at yet another new high school for her Sophomore year. Her parents move the family often, always moving up to a better neighborhood. But it means that Shirin and her older brother have trouble making connections in high school. Or at least Shirin does.

Shirin is disgusted with humanity and the way she gets treated because of her scarf. She wants nothing more than to be invisible. She doesn’t look people in the eye. She listens to music under her scarf and gets away with it.

Then in her Biology class, she’s given a lab partner whose name is Ocean. Romantic sparks start up between them. But Shirin doesn’t think he realizes what he’s getting into, and it turns out she’s right. What she doesn’t realize is that he’s the school basketball star and the whole school is interested in whom he dates.

This is a romance about teens who face some formidable obstacles, and it includes characters who feel realistically flawed, but who will find their way into your heart.

taherehbooks.com

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Review of Birdie and Me, by J. M. M. Nuanez

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Birdie and Me

by J. M. M. Nuanez

Kathy Dawson Books (Penguin Random House), 2020. 252 pages.
Review written May 13, 2020, from a library book.

As Birdie and Me opens, a girl named Jack and her little brother Birdie have to move from Uncle Carl’s apartment to their Uncle Patrick’s home. It’s been decided that Uncle Carl isn’t responsible enough to take care of them, since he’d been letting them miss too many days of school. But Uncle Patrick’s older and doesn’t make them feel welcome. All Jack and Birdie really want to do is go back to Portland, Oregon, where they lived with their Mama.

But Mama died ten months ago, and they didn’t get to stay there in Portland with their elderly neighbor for long. To make matters worse, Birdie’s new teacher tells Uncle Patrick that Birdie is disruptive wearing skirts and sparkly purple clothes to school.

This book is about Jack figuring out how to cope with all this. She makes some plans, which don’t often go as she likes, but she makes some new connections as well.

This was a sad book to me – I don’t like that they lost their Mama. But given that context, I appreciated these characters and their realistic ways of coping. Nobody really got things right on their first try – but that was realistic, and we saw people learning and giving each other grace.

I did enjoy gender-nonconforming Birdie. When he is forced to go shopping for more conforming boys’ clothes, he decides he’s shopping for someone named Norman, who is his exact size. It’s not a perfect solution, but it does get them through the episode. Some of the ways people treated him were painful to see (and made me mad his Mama was gone), but may some kids learn empathy by seeing the situation through the eyes of his sister.

jmmnuanez.com
penguin.com/middle-grade

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Review of Black Cake, by Charmaine Wilkerson

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Black Cake

by Charmaine Wilkerson
read by Lynnette R. Freeman and Simone McIntyre

Random House Audio, 2022. 12 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written August 2, 2022, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This audiobook had me fully drawn in right from the start. It’s a richly textured story, rooted in the present with a brother and his estranged sister shortly after their mother’s death. Byron and Benny think they knew their parents. They think they lived boring lives, both of them orphans from a Caribbean island who met in London and then built a family in California, where they prospered.

But their mother’s lawyer has a recording for them. And a Black Cake sitting in the freezer which they are to eat when the time is right. In the recording, their mother tells her actual story – how she changed identities three times in her decidedly not boring youth. And they have a sister they knew nothing about.

They also learn where their mother learned to make Black Cake — a traditional cake from the island using dried fruit soaked in rum and port and served at weddings and special events. Black Cake has long been an important part of their lives, and now they learn there was Black Cake at a huge turning point in their mother’s life.

The stories of the past and the present are layered together beautifully. When Byron and Benny need a break from the revelations, the reader gets a break, too. The story is dramatic and heart-wrenching and had me transfixed. The narrators use beautiful accents for characters from the many different parts of the world represented.

This book appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list. I felt like a winner because my hold on the eaudiobook had just come in — I’m sure then the list got longer.

As a debut novel, this book is amazingly rich and layered, kind of like cake. I highly recommend it, and especially the audio version enhanced by the beautiful accents.

charmspen.com

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Review of State of Terror, by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny, read by Joan Allen

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery 0

State of Terror

by Hillary Rodham Clinton
and Louise Penny
read by Joan Allen

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2021. 15 hours, 41 minutes on 13 CDs.
Review written May 27, 2022, from a library audiobook

Normally I would never check out a novel written by a celebrity, but the pairing with Louise Penny, a distinguished mystery writer, was enough to intrigue me. Surely a former Secretary of State can write very convincingly about plausible terrorist threats.

Actually, it’s a little too convincing. The story begins with a female secretary of state recently appointed by her political rival. The new president appointed Ellen Adams essentially to ruin her political power, and they don’t like each other very well. The narrator sounded a lot like Hillary Clinton, and the set-up got me wondering if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had disliked each other as much as the two characters do.

But the characters are in a very different situation. The previous president was “Eric Dunn,” and they go on about what an incompetent buffoon he was. There’s another scene that includes the president of Russia, I guy named Ivanov, who is portrayed as pure evil. Mind you, the secretary of state gets the better of both of them! How much is that wish fulfillment fantasy and how much is it just rational commentary on what the world could be like after our last president?

I didn’t think the writing was stellar, and the plot had things about it that I can nitpick and also that I did see coming, but it certainly held my interest and kept me awake on my commute.

Shortly after the book starts, a large bomb goes off in Europe, followed by another. And then they get evidence there will be a third bomb, and it’s going to happen on the same bus in Frankfurt where Ellen Adams’ reporter son has been following a lead.

But that’s only the beginning. Who is responsible for the bombs? And what are their plans now?

It was probably a little self-indulgent of the author to make it the female secretary of state who figures out the answers and deals with tyrants and saves the day. I mean, why not write a book where the hero reminds everyone of you?

I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I reveal that some of the villains are right-wing idealists in the United States, even in positions of power. They’re willing to work with Al Qaida and bring terror to American soil if it will put a liberal president out of power and start things fresh, back to “real” America.

This was published in October 2021, and would have been written well before that. I thought it was interesting that even in this scenario, the authors didn’t think of having the right-wing talking about election fraud. And they talked about the danger that the Taliban would take over Afghanistan when they had to pull out troops based on the deal made by “Eric Dunn.”

So it was all rather disturbing. And probably a touch too realistic.

I don’t think there’s any danger that people who are politically conservative will want to read this book. If you pretty much agree with Hillary Clinton’s assessment of Donald Trump, I mean “Eric Dunn,” then this book emphasizes how many bad results could still come to pass from his presidency.

But try to listen to it as a realistic thriller of what could have happened, but is not happening in real life.

simonandschuster.com

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Review of Fight the Night, by Tomie dePaola

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Fight the Night

by Tomie dePaola

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2020. First published in 1968.
Review written July 25, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is a reprint of a Tomie dePaola classic I hadn’t been familiar with, but reading it, I’m quite taken with it.

The story is simple. A little boy doesn’t want to go to bed. What’s interesting is that he decides to Fight the Night.

He fights the Night with his flashlight. First, he encounters some different things, such as his cat.

After those things, though, in the dark, the Night whispers to him. It’s deliciously spooky.

“Let’s fight,” said Ronald, and he began to swing his flashlight around.
“You will never catch me,” said the Night.

Ronald heard a squeaking noise.
“I’ll get you, Night,” said Ronald, and he swung his flashlight.
“You missed,” said the Night.

Ronald ran after the voice. Something tripped him. He swung his flashlight.
“That’s not me. You cannot catch me. I am the Night.”

The battle goes on. Ronald thinks he has won. He has chased the night away! But oh, how tired his eyes look in that picture!

And indeed the Night gets the last laugh, in a perfectly satisfying ending.

Normally I wouldn’t think a book where a kid actually stays up all night would be one I’d want to let children see. But I think they will see who ultimately wins. Perhaps this will succeed as a cautionary tale that it’s futile to fight the Night.

Either way, reading this as a parent, I was smiling all the way through. Nice try, kid!

simonandschuster.com/kids

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