Hummingbird

At twelve years old, Olive has never been to school with other kids.  She has osteogenesis imperfecta, OI for short.   That just must her bones are fragile and break easily.  Because of this, she's always been homeschooled, but she's finally convinced her parents to let her go to school with everyone else.  Olive desperately wants a BFF.  She loves her family, but it's not the same as having someone her own age.  She has her stepbrother, Hatch, but he barely looks at her.  

It doesn't take long for Olive to find a potential best friend in Grace, who is kind, creative, and who is making sets and costumes for the upcoming play.  Olive's true dream is to be an actress, and she's arrived just in time to try out.  Movies would be just as good if the actors used wheelchairs and had disabilities!

She also hears a strange story about a magical golden hummingbird who grants wishes.  Everyone knows the hummingbird is coming when magical white feathers that melt like snow fall from the sky in the weeks leading up to May Day.  Olive already has so many great things, and she loves herself as she is, but what if she didn't have OI?  What if her parents didn't have to constantly worry she might break a bone?

What if she could wish away the hardest thing in her life?

Natalie Lloyd's new book isn't set to come out until August, but it should definitely be on your TBR pile.  Lloyd and Olive have the same disability, and the author's personal struggles and triumphs shine through the story.  This is not one of those books where the "normal" kids learn to be better people because of a magical experience with a disabled person.  This is a story that centers a character with a disability whose family and friends rally around her because they love her as a person regardless of her physical abilities and disabilities.  The story is also filled with Lloyd's delightful touches of magical realism and her love of the Tennessee mountains where she grew up.  Highly recommended!

Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone

Mallory Moss knows how middle school works.  Wear the right clothes, say the right things, and don't stand out.  When Reagan, who is obviously cool, moved to town in elementary school and chose Mallory for her best friend, life was perfect.  She is on the right side of the social divide, and she has a best friend to share secrets with.

Then Jennifer Chan moves in across the street.  Jennifer is unlike anyone Mallory has ever known.  She's so...herself.  Jennifer is obsessed with aliens, and she's not embarrassed or shy about it all.  The way she talks about aliens almost makes Mallory want to believe herself.  

Then summer is over, and Mallory moves back into her role as best friend of the class queen.  If only Jennifer would just try to fit in, dress like a normal person, not talk about aliens, maybe things could be different.

Then Jennifer goes missing, and Mallory feels compelled to find her, partly because of the connection they had back in the summer...and partly because of the incident.  But she's not even really ready to admit the truth of that to herself.

Tae Keller's first book after winning the Newberry is a beautiful and painful story about friendship and fitting in.  The social interactions and power dynamics of middle school are realistically and brutally displayed.  Be sure to read the author's note at the end for extra insight into the characters and the author herself.  Nearly everyone will relate to this story of bullying and the struggle to be your authentic self.  Highly recommended.

The Patron Thief of Bread

Duck was saved from the river as a baby by the Crowns, a group of child thieves who band together for survival.  At eight years old, Duck knows they saved her life, but she also feels resentment and fear for the group's leader, Gnat.  She mostly tries to stay quiet and out of the way, but when the Crowns move into a new town, Gnat has a plan to keep them in coin and bread for the foreseeable future.  One of them will pose as the baker's apprentice and slip bread and money to the Crowns right under the baker's nose.  And he's decided Duck will take on this job.

Despite her nerves, getting a position as Griselde Baker's assistant is not a problem.  Despite the fact that her assistant doesn't trust Duck, the plan continues to work perfectly.  But it doesn't take long for Duck's heart to be pulled in two directions.  The Crowns saved her and kept her alive all these years, but the blind baker gives her a taste of warmth, comfort, and love she's never known before.

Meanwhile, a grouchy gargoyle sits atop an uncompleted cathedral.  He watches everything that happens, but he is unable to perform his duties as a protector because the cathedral was never completed.  For almost one hundred years, he has only been able to watch and complain.

Linsday Eagar is one of my favorites because her books are always unusual and creative.  This one is no exception.  It's a beautiful story about found family and the things we do for the ones we love.  The last few chapters of the book take various characters on a journey of seeking and granting forgiveness that really take this story to a deeper level.  Highly recommended.

A Snake Falls to Earth

Nina is a Lipan girl living in our world in the near future.  She has always felt a strong connection to her ancestors and her older relatives, like her great-great-grandmother Rosita.  No one is exactly sure how old Rosita was but photographs put her in the range of impossible.  Before she died, Rosita told young Nina a story, an important story, but Nina couldn't understand the words in their mix of Spanish, Lipan, and English.  She has the recording, and she's been working on a way to translate the tale.  She knows this connection to the past is important.  

Oli is a cottonmouth kid who lives in the reflecting world.  This world is almost like ours, except more natural, and most of the people are also animals.  Oli's true form is a cottonmouth snake.  In his false form, he looks almost human, except for the patches of scales, and the diamond shaped irises.  Oli just wants to relax in his home by the lake and have small adventures with his coyote friends, Risk and Reign.  His best friend is a toad named Ami.  Ami doesn't really talk or have a false form, but that doesn't change the feeling of comfort and companionship between the two friends.  

Nina often thinks about the far past, the joined time, when animal people and humans shared the earth.  She believes animal people still exist, and she longs desperately to meet one.

One day Ami becomes deathly ill, and the only way to save him is to cross into the human world to find a cure.  Oli and his friends undertake this dangerous journey with nothing but hope they will find a human willing to help them.  

As Nina continues to work on the story, another hurricane is moving closer to shore, and Nina is worried about her grandmother out in the country.  She has become afflicted with a mysterious illness that prevents her from traveling very far from her home.  What will happen if she has to evacuate?

Ami's illness and the approaching hurricane will bring these two worlds together, but will Oli and Nina be able to help each other and save the people they love?

Darcie Little Badger's Newbery Honor Book is a beautiful tale of friendship and belief as much as it is a testament to the forms of traditional storytelling.  Nina mentions early in the books that traditional tales often don't have clean endings and beginnings.  The people from these stories weave in and out of each other's tales.  It is best to keep this in mind to better appreciate this book.  While there is definite closure for the two main threads, those who are looking for a typical story structure and conclusion may be frustrated.  But readers who are willing to relax into the ebb and flow of the tale will find a real treasure, and they may even find themselves thinking about future tales of Nina and Oli's adventures.  Highly recommended.  There is no sexual content, but there is some profanity sprinkled through the book.

The Last Cuentista

Petra doesn't want to leave her home on earth and especially her beloved Lita, but a comet is hurtling toward the planet, and her family has been chosen to board one of three escape vessels.  Her parents' expertise in botany and geology have secured their spot, but Petra wants to be a cuentista like Lita.  She loves stories, especially the old ones, and she knows that a good storyteller makes each tale her own.  

Petra's family and the other colonists will sleep in stasis pods for the hundreds of years it will take to get to their new home.  Their special skills are too valuable to risk losing over generations.  The monitors will watch over them while they sleep through generations and prepare everything for arrival.

But when Petra wakes sluggishly from her centuries of sleep, she immediately knows something is wrong.  The monitors look wrong. They all look the same and talk about the Collective.  They even call her Zeta One instead of Petra.  She soon realizes she is the only one who remembers earth.  All memories have been purged in order to create a homogenous Collective with no art, no culture, and no stories.  

Can Petra survive this new society that ruthlessly purges anyone or anything that is different?

I loved this book from the very beginning.  I know I'm late to the party since it already won the Newbery, but this book is excellent.  Petra's memories and stories have a lovely dreamlike quality which juxtaposes well with the stark reality the Collective has created.  There are passages of real dread and horror without any open violence.  The members of the Collective have become monsters, physically and emotionally in their relentless quest for "equality."  I truly believe this book has the power to become part of the children's literature canon alongside books like The Giver.  This is a meaty tale for discussion and thought.  I can't recommend this book enough.

The Last Fallen Star

Riley Oh has always wanted to be a healing witch like the rest of her family, but she is adopted and has no magical ability.  She's part of the Gom clan of healers who are themselves part of the larger secret organization of magical Korean Americans living in Los Angeles.  

Despite her frustrations, Riley is happy to see her sister, Hattie, initiated into the clan and become an official member of the healing community.  Then Hattie gets an idea.  What if she casts a spell to share her magical power with Riley?  Then they can be initiated into the clan together.  

It sounds like a great idea until everything goes wrong, and Hattie's life hangs in the balance.  The girls have violated the laws of the Godrealm, and now Riley must complete a seemingly impossible task, or her sister's life will be forfeit.

Riley's task is to find the "last fallen star," but she doesn't even know what that is, let alone how to find out.  She will have to team up with her enemies and face off against terrifying magical creatures, but she won't stop until she finds a way to save her sister.

This entry in the Rick Riordan presents imprint by Graci Kim is based on Korean mythology and is a beautifully told fantasy that explores the nature of family and the consequences of holding onto old prejudices.  This is one of my favorite entries under the Rick Riordan umbrella so far.  Highly recommended!

Curses

Merit Cravan's mother arranged a marriage for her daughter to a prince, but he was not the prince of any girl's dreams.  When Merit refused to marry the much older man, a fairy godling cursed her into the form of a beast.  Now she must marry a man her mother approves of by her eighteenth birthday or be cursed to live as a beast forever.

Tevin Dumont is a con man in a family of cons.  His usual scam is convincing rich girls to fall in love with him so their parents will pay him off.  His parents are the least responsible members of his family, and when his mother crosses the beast, she decides her handsome son will be a good trade for her freedom.

Merit doesn't want a prisoner, but she does want recompense.  She and Tevin make a deal.  He and his friends will go undercover as wealthy guests to help her determine which of her many suitors would be the best match.  What better judge of character is there than a con man?

But there is more going on in this political game of matchmaking than either of them knows, and the more time Tevin spends with Merit, the less he wants her to marry any of the options her mother approves.  

Lish McBride's gender swapped Beauty and the Beast tale is a fun romantic adventure.  One of the most questionable parts of the traditional story is removed since Tevin is not kidnapped and held as a prisoner.  He is simply paying off his mother's debt, and it is clear he could leave at any time.  Even though he is less inclined to do so the longer he stays.  I loved the support group for cursed people, and I really think McBride should do a sequel with the diamonds and toads sisters.  There is also plenty of LGBTQIA representation across the spectrum of secondary characters.  Highly recommended.