When Amal's mother has yet another baby girl, she is so depressed she can't get out of bed, let alone take care of the family. It falls to Amal as the oldest to stay home from school and keep up with all the chores that keep the household running. Each day she sees her dream of becoming a teacher slip further away. She also feels a simmering frustration that her parents are so upset about the birth of a daughter. Did they feel this way when Amal was born?
One day on her way back from the market, Amal is struck by a car, a rare sight in her tiny village. The driver doesn't apologize, and the situation escalates, but Amal doesn't realize he is Jawad, son of the village landlord. She has often heard of the family's cruelty and power but never seen it for herself.
Now Jawad calls in her father's loan in retribution for the incident. It's either the money, which they don't have, or send Amal to be his servant.
Her father promises to get her back, but the longer she spends in servitude, the more she realizes all her dreams of getting an education and becoming a teacher may be over.
Aisha Saeed's new middle grade book is painful look at the plight of girls in Pakistan. An author's note a the end of the book explains that Amal is inspired by Malala Yousefzai's story and the plight of many people still trapped in indentured servitude with no hope of ever paying their debts. This book reads a bit like a fairy tale at times without the magical elements, but it's perfect for middle school and upper elementary kids to get a glimpse into another life. Highly recommended. Plus, that cover is absolutely gorgeous!
Emma is happy to be back at her German boarding school with its ancient castle and lovely grounds. She's also happy to see her hypochondriac absent-minded father who is the school's headmaster.
She's spent the summer making plans to have successful school year, including making progress with her crush, Frederick, and starting a secret society. But a visitor with no plans to leave causes some serious problems. Darcy de Winter is a former student and some of the family who owns the property, which pretty much means they can't kick him out. Emma would feel compassion for him since he's looking for clues about his missing sister, but he's just too awful.
But Emma has something else to distract her. While cleaning out an unused room in the castle she finds a book. It seems to be a chronicle of Stolzenburg castle written by different authors over the years. At first, Emma is just interested in the story, but then she makes a startling discovery. Anything she writes in the book comes true.
At first writing in the book is fun, but then things start to go wrong. Could the book have something to do with Darcy's missing sister? Plus, she's spent years pining for Frederick, but now she's beginning to wonder about him, and the more time she spends with Darcy trying to unlock the mystery of his missing sister, the warmer her feelings become.
Many of the characters in Mechthild Glaser's book are taken from Pride and Prejudice and Emma by Jane Austen which is kind of fun, but it also takes a lot of the tension out of the story. I've read modern updates of these stories that really work, but the relationship between Emma and Darcy just seems forced to me. Darcy is ridiculously rude to everyone in the beginning of the book, and he's a twenty-year-old graduate. Emma is a sixteen-year-old student with all the silliness and immaturity of a normal teenager. That age gap alone is pretty creepy. Plus, they have nothing in common. The parallels work better for other characters, and I pleased to find that no one had to end up married to the Wickham character.
The mystery and supernatural elements of the story are the parts that work best. I hate to say it, but I think this would have worked better without the Jane Austen angle.
After returning from the trip of a lifetime to Africa with her Auntie Ruth, Viola Li suddenly and inexplicably develops a severe case of photosensitivity. Was it the malaria meds? Auntie Ruth thinks so and is crushed with guilt. But maybe it was just spontaneous. The doctors don't know anything other than Viola's case is extreme.
Plus, it came on in a horrifyingly embarrassing way. Viola has a goal to do 50 bake sales to support 50 different causes by the time she graduates. her awesome baking skills combined with her intensive writing and research will get her into her dream college to pursue journalism.
Viola was hoping to sell red bean baos to some Firefly fans when a guy bearing a strong resemblance to Thor shows up wanting to sell his comic at her booth. Just as she's getting worked up to tell him how sexist the art is (even if Thor is distractingly hot), she has her first reaction to the sun and passes out.
As her crisis management parents try to manage Viola and her new condition, she's realizing more every day that all her future hopes and plans may be over.
And Thor, AKA Josh? One minute he seems too perfect and the next he disappears, but as their relationship develops, she realizes he's not the sexist she thought he was and that Josh has issues of his own to deal with.
Can Viola find a new life and a new hope for herself in the dark?
First, I love Justina Chen! North of Beautiful is one of my favorites! I liked that this book doesn't have an unrealistic ending. Sometimes things happen and we have to reevaluate and dream new dreams, but that doesn't mean we give up on life. Chen tends to write her love interests as almost preternaturally perfect. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but Thor may give readers unrealistic expectations! Also, the constant references to Firefly may be confusing for people who haven't seen the show as many times as Viola (and I) have.
Overall, the message of not giving up on yourself or becoming trapped by fear is a good one, and this is an engaging read. Recommended for grades 8 and up.
Seven 7th graders, seven points of view, one school dance.
Carmen is frustrated because her band Heart Attack is about to have their big break without her. She's stuck at her cousin's wedding in an ugly green dress and bad cell service.
Genevieve is filling in for Carmen as lead singer, but she's so nervous, she might pass out or throw up instead of sing on stage.
Ellie is so excited for her first dance. She's got a dress from her mom who died a few years ago, and one of the cutest and most popular boys asked her to the dance.
Ryan is hoping tonight will the be the night his best friend and longtime crush, Mariah, will finally notice him.
Tess is the drummer for Heart Grenade, Carmen's best friend, and Mariah's worst enemy. They've been competing for years, and tonight could end in a huge blowup.
Ashlyn is Ellie's soon to be stepsister and her total opposite. She's grounded, so she has to miss the dance. Plus, she's babysitting so Ellie can go. So ridiculous!
And Jade...well, let's just say Jade is out for revenge.
This is a fun story from seven middle-grade authors. I'm linking to the publisher page which has information about all of them. What a fun book full of misunderstandings and middle school drama. The best part is, by the time you get to the end, there is no clear-cut villain. Perfect for 6th and 7th graders!
When Amy Anne Ollinger goes to the school library to check out her favorite book again, she is shocked to discover the book has been banned. It's not just From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, either. There's a whole list of books one person has decided are not appropriate.
Her librarian, Mrs. Jones, invited Amy Anne to attend the school board meeting to talk about why she loves her favorite book, and Amy Anne prepares a speech, but when the moment comes, she is too nervous to speak up. It's a problem she has at home, too. Her younger sisters are so demanding that Amy Anne just has to give up what she wants to accommodate them and keep the peace.
To assuage her sadness, Amy Anne's father buys her a copy of her favorite book, and suddenly people are interested. Along with a couple of friends, she starts collecting books on the list. That's when the idea for the Banned Books Locker Library begins. If the school board takes the books away, the BBLL will provide them.
The situation escalates as more books are removed from the school library without following the reconsideration guidelines, and the BBLL gets more sophisticated. While Amy Anne is a champion of reading rights, she is also a rule follower at heart and lives in constant terror of being discovered.
Full of delightful characters (including an amazing librarian!) this novel is will appeal to readers of all ages and to those who buck at arbitrary decisions made by those in power. Unfortunately, situations like the one in this book happen all over the country, and Alan Gratz handles the situation perfectly. This book advocates for reading choice but also quietly maintains that some books are better saved for later and that parents do have the right to direct their children's reading choices but not anyone else's.
Amy Anne is a fourth grader which may limit the appeal to middle school kids, but if they can look beyond this, they will find a wonderful story about standing up for a cause and for yourself. Highly recommended!
Also, I have to give a shout out to Mixed-Up Files. It was one of my favorite books as a kid and the first book I bought with my own money, so I definitely felt a kinship with Amy Anne.
Charlie Bell is still reeling from his father's sudden death. He's getting in trouble at school and with his best friend, Skinny, and his relationship with his mother is struggling. She's at the end of her rope, so she decides to send Charlie to live with his grandparents in Washington, D.C. for the summer.
He doesn't want to go, but she doesn't give him a choice. Charlie wanted to spend the summer hanging out with his two best friends, Skinny and CJ. Maybe he likes CJ a little more than he wants to admit.
Once he gets to D.C, people start calling him Chuck (which he kind of likes), and he gets reacquainted with his cousin Roxie. When he's not doing chores and getting lectured by his grandfather, he's learning how to really play basketball with Roxie and discovering he might actually like the game.
He's also learning some things about his father. Just like Chuck, his dad also read comic books. Reading his dad's old Black Panther comics helps Chuck feel closer to him.
This prequel to The Crossover is also told in verse with several comic panels mixed in to show Chuck's fantasy version of himself.
First, I just have to say that I love Crossover by Kwame Alexander. It is amazing and wonderful! This book was just ok for me. I wanted to love it. I started reading with excitement and joy in my heart, but it just didn't have the same impact. Sometimes the poetry was amazing; sometimes it was not. Plus, the dialogue was just confusing if there were more than two speakers. (What do you have against quotation marks, friend?)
That said, the comic panels really worked, and I will certainly recommend this to kids.
Nicki Demere is an orphan living in the foster care system when two U.S. Marshalls show up at her group home. They want Nicki, not for any crimes she's committed, although she does have a juvenile record. No, they need Nicki for a pilot program within witness protection.
A criminal organization is looking for a mother, father, and son. Adding a daughter to mix might throw them off. If she accepts, Nicki Demere will cease to exist. No more absent father, no more court-mandated therapy, no more criminal record, but that also means no contact with her former life and the friends she has in the system.
It's an easy decision. Nicki, now Charlotte, has a new family and a new life in Durham, North Carolina, and she has the street smarts to help keep them all safe. Surviving witness protection is all about blending in, and Charlotte has plenty of experience with that.
But the stresses of living with a new family, and a younger brother who definitely does not want her around and pretending to be a new person even with her friends are getting to her, and that means her kleptomania is flaring up. She doesn't steal things to have them or to sell them. It's just for that instant release she feels once she's taken something. But if her new family finds out she's a thief, will they still want to keep her around?
Of course, none of this will matter if their enemies find them, and they are working very hard to do just that so they can eliminate this problem permanently.
I really enjoyed this new book by Jake Burt. It checks plenty of boxes for young readers and handles Nicki's kleptomania particularly well. The witness protection angle is something different that will draw kids into this perfect balance of mystery and school story. My only issue is the use of social media. Any mention of social media can instantly date a book which is probably why plenty of authors make up their own instead of using existing ones, but this one is starting out behind the times. I'm pretty sure no one in 7th-grade blogs about anything, and I know they don't use Facebook. It's for old people. That said, I think kids will be willing to overlook this because the rest of the story is so great. Highly recommended.
Xar is the 13-year-old son of the wizard ruler, and he has a problem. His magic hasn't come in yet. But he has a plan! He leads his followers into the Badwoods at night in the hopes of trapping a witch and stealing its power for himself. Easy-peasy!
Except...witches are extinct, and even if they weren't, you wouldn't want to meet one because they are the evilest creatures to ever walk the earth.
Wish is the 13-year-old daughter of the warrior queen, and she has a problem. Wizards have sworn to rid the land of all magic, but wish has an enchanted pet, a spoon to be specific, and it's gone missing. Wish and her bodyguard, Bodkin, set out into the Badwoods at night to find her spoon, but soon they are running from something unidentifiable and terrifying.
This is where our two heroes crash into each other in the forest. They should be enemies, but it doesn't take long before they form a type of camaraderie, and when one of the smallest of their group is mortally wounded, they form a plan to save him. This plan is incredibly dangerous for Xar and his magical companions because it involves sneaking into the warrior fort, the very home of the enemy!
But things are worse than any of them can imagine because the witches are back, and they want something they can only get from our little band of friends.
Cressida Cowell's new series opener is a delightful fantasy adventure perfect for upper elementary and middle school readers. I highly recommend the audiobook which is divinely read by David Tennant! Fans of funny fantasy and Cowell's previous series, How to Train Your Dragon, will eat this up! Also, I'm left to wonder if the Queen Sychorax in this book will bear any resemblance to the one in The Tempest. It's a different spelling, but this book also has an Ariel...I guess I'll have to wait and see!
In Sempera, time is money, and it's in your blood. Every month, citizens pay for the protection of the wealthy Gerling family. They keep the people safe from violent marauders, but at a high cost. If you can't pay, the cost can be taken from your very blood. The poor frequently have their blood taken, distilled down to pure time, and turned into coins representing days, weeks, years of their own lives.
The wealthy live unnaturally long lives by ingesting blood irons, and no one has more than the Gerlings in Everless. Jules and her father lived there when she was younger, but they were driven out after a terrible accident that almost killed her childhood friend, Roan Gerling. Only Jules knows it wasn't an accident; she saw Liam Gerling push his brother into the fire.
But now that her father is ill, Jules sees no way to pay their rent but to return to Everless ten years later as an anonymous servant for Roan's wedding. Roan Gerling is engaged to marry Ina Gold, adopted daughter of the queen and next in line to the throne.
Jules's father begs her not to go and warns her to stay away from the queen, but after a shocking discovery about her own past, Jules is determined to find the truth about herself and about Ina Gold. The secrets of the past may explain her strange gift that seems to stop time for a moment when Jules is agitated. She's never told anyone about it, but it seems to be getting worse. And old stories about the Sorceress and the Alchemist seem to have new meaning. Jules always thought these were just tales, but what if they are true?
To make matters worse, seeing Roan again has awakened feelings in her heart that lead to jealousy and confusion. Plus, it seems that Liam Gerling is everywhere she turns with his disapproval and a perpetual scowl. Will Jules discover the truth about herself before it's too late?
Sara Holland's series opener will certainly appeal to fantasy/romance fans, and there were plenty of original ideas and interesting plot twists here. I love the concrete metaphor of the poor literally giving bits of their lives to pay the rent, and the mythology of the Sorceress and the Alchemist is awesome. My main issue is the romance. It's almost as bad as insta-love. Jules last saw Roan when they were seven, and now it's been ten years and she's in love with him immediately even in spite of all the evidence that he is a philandering playboy? Umm...no. Plus, the Roan/Liam issue is so predictable. I saw the truth of that one before Jules even made it to the gates of Everless. Despite that, I will definitely recommend this book to fans of The Red Queen, and hope that book two will live up to the potential of the world building in book one.
Chaim and Gittel are Polish Jews living in the Lodz ghetto with their parents. It is a nothing like the life they lived before the "Nasties" invaded, but at least they are together. Chaim is a poet, but he stutters when he tries to speak aloud, so he rarely does so. He utters no more than five words at a time and very few words in total each day, but he has a kind of sign language with his twin sister, and she always seems to know what he is thinking anyway.
When the situation in the ghetto becomes even more dangerous, the family decides to flee into the wilderness. Here, the children are separated from their parents and constantly on alert and on the move as they travel with Polish resistance soldiers.
But then the unimaginable happens, and the children find themselves in a work camp. All the starvation, exhaustion and fear of their lives so far is nothing compared to the horror of the camp. Gittel has always been Chaim's strength. What will he do if she loses hope in this place of despair?
Jane Yolen's new book is a different take on Holocaust stories. She uses the story structure of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale to anchor the story. It's an interesting idea and adds an extra layer of symbolism to the story, but I do think the section in the wilderness goes on a bit too long. The story is mostly told from Chaim's perspective as the silent witness to the horrors he and Gittel face, but the chapters are also interspersed with short sections that seem to be Gittel looking back as an adult. Recommended for 8th grade and up because of mature content and a brief instance of profanity near the end. This is a sophisticated and complex story for strong readers.
Fidelia lives the perfect life with her marine biologist parents. The Doctors Quail and their precocious daughter spend their time exploring oceans to study and discover plant and animal life. Fidelia's inventions have helped progress the work, especially a submersible called The Egg, but one day her parents are caught underwater in The Egg during a terrible storm, a storm they don't survive.
Fidelia is wracked with grief and guilt as she moves into the library with her Aunt Julia. Fidelia has lost her parents and her love of the sea, as well.
But in the midst of her grief, she is kidnapped by pirates! Merrick the Merciless is dying, and he needs a Quail's expertise to retrieve his greatest treasure. Merrick promises he will kill Fidelia if she can't find a way to get to the ocean floor and search for the treasure without her parents' diving suit.
She spends the long voyage working on an invention that seems like an impossibility, a way to breathe underwater. As she works, she begins to see glimmers of humanity in the pirates, but they are racing against the clock, pursued by a cruel Admiral who is bent on Merrick's death and the red daisies, a disease that is quickly eating away at the pirate from the inside.
There are also glimpses into the past at Merrick's glory days and at his long lost love. Will Fidelia make her water eater work, and find a way back to Aunt Julia, or will she become another victim of the sea?
I love this book so much! Seriously, I don't know what I was expecting, but I was completely surprised and blown away by Lindsay Eager's multi-layered story of piracy, treasure, marine biology, engineering, and doomed love. Just read it! Highly recommended!
When Betty Dean Sanders was a baby, her aunt took her in from a teenage mother who wasn't ready to be a mother. A few short years later, her aunt died and Betty was once again in her mother's home--this time in Detroit instead of in the south.
Betty and her mother never really found a way to get along. Eleven-year-old Betty knows her mother loves her, but she can't help feeling she doesn't want her around.
Betty finds comfort and friendship at church, and many important cultural and civil rights leaders of the day, like Thurgood Marshall and Paul Robeson, make appearances there.
When a final confrontation brings things to a head, Betty runs away and is taken in by the Malloys, a childless couple from church. Now she finally has acceptance and peace again. Plus, Mrs. Malloy is deeply involved in the Housewives' League, a women's group dedicated to protesting businesses that won't hire African Americans. This is how Betty gets her first taste of social activism.
This account of Betty Shabazz's middle school years is written by her daughter Ilysasah Shabazz. It is an interesting look at its subject and the time period, but don't come looking for a plot because there isn't one. I was a little surprised to come to the end, but I enjoyed the back matter which gives context for Betty Shabazz's role in the civil rights movement.
It's 1947, and India is on the verge of independence from Great Britain. Independence should be a good thing, but violence is escalating around 12-year-old Nisha and her twin brother Amil. When India breaks into two nations, Pakistan for Muslims and India for Hindus and everyone else, Nisha's family is on the wrong side of the border.
Papa is Hindu, but their mother, who died in childbirth was Muslim. Doesn't that mean Nisha and Amil should fit everywhere?
When the family finally leaves, the trains are too dangerous so they will need to walk through the desert to India. Things aren't so bad at first, but eventually, water begins to run low, and tensions between the passing refugees increase.
Nisha didn't want to leave her home, but she doesn't want to die in the desert either. Every night she shares her feelings in a journal where she writes letters to her mother. She is shy and has difficulty speaking aloud with anyone except Amil, but when she writes, all her thoughts flow onto the paper.
In this book, inspired by her own father's story, Veera Hiranandani, tells the story of the largest mass migration in history, and the pain and suffering of the people who have to live with decisions made by others. Hiranandani writes about the violence of the time without becoming too graphic for middle-grade students. Readers will identify with Nisha as she struggles to understand the events around her, and they will sympathize with her longing for a lost mother she never knew. Highly recommended.
