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Halt’s Peril

While Will and Halt are hot on the trail of the Outsiders, which is a cult that’s been making its way from kingdom to kingdom by conning the innocent out of their few valuables, they are ambushed by the cult’s deadly assassins. Pierced by a poisoned arrow, Will’s mentor is near death and in dire need of the one antidote that can save his life. Time is not on Will’s side as he journeys day and night through the harsh terrain to Grimsdell Wood in search of the one person with the power to cure Halt: Malkallam the Sorcerer.

Halt, Horace, and Will track the Outsiders in the hope of dismantling the cult. The three travel through unknown territory in a story full of adventure, fighting, and friendship. However, this time both Halt and Horace face life and death situations. Their survival is not guaranteed. In order to save Halt, Will and Horace are willing to do anything. Unlike previous installments in the series, both Will and Horace no longer have qualms about killing others. While they try to use peaceful means to solve a problem, killing others becomes necessary to save Halt and defeat the Outsiders.

Halt’s Peril highlights the importance of loyalty, dedication, and friendship, but the book also has several scenes that readers may find disturbing. As the series progresses, the characters do not become stagnant. Instead, they mature, and their relationships become more complex. Readers will enjoy the changing relationship of Will, Horace, and Halt. Instead of Will and Horace being subordinates, Halt values their skills, knowledge, and friendship.

The conclusion of Halt’s Peril will leave the reader smiling because good overcomes evil, loves last through separation, and friends help each other in times of need. Flanagan delivers another action-packed story that will keep readers entertained until the very end.

Sexual Content

  • When Halt makes it back home, he cast “aside his usual reticence, he stepped forward to meet [his wife], swept her into his arms and kissed her for a long, long time.”
  • When Will makes it home, he “felt a gentle hand on his arm and looked up slightly to meet Alyss’s smiling eyes…” Will “stepped forward, embraced her and kissed her. His head swam a little as she responded enthusiastically.”

Violence

  • When Will leaves a tavern, two men follow him. To encourage them to leave, Will shoots an arrow at them. Then, “without warning, there was another hiss-thud between them. Only this time, Niallis’s hand flew to his right ear, where the arrow had nicked him on its way through. Blood ran hotly down his cheek.”
  • Two thugs, Niallis and Dennis, are told to remove Halt from a tavern. Halt says Horace’s name, then “Horace began with a straight right to Dennis’s jaw. It was a solid blow.” Niallis attempts to help Dennis, but “Horace had pivoted and hit him with a crushing left hook to the jaw. Niallis’s eyes glazed and his knees went slack.” Horace knocks out both thugs. The scene is described over one page.
  • Halt attempts to talk to a smuggler named O’Malley. When the man attempts to leave, Halt’s saxe knife “was now pressing a little too firmly against the smuggler’s throat.” The smuggler gives Halt the requested information.
  • When O’Malley follows Halt’s ship, Will and Halt begin shooting arrows at the boat. “One arrow thudded, quivering, into the bulwark less than a meter from the helm. The other buried itself painfully in the flesh part of O’Malley’s upper left arm…” As the arrows continue to rain down on the crew, chaos ensues. “Again they shot. This time, both arrows found their mark and the man pitched forward, rolling into the scuppers as the ship heeled…” The smuggler’s ship hits a reef and crashes. Halt has men throw “some barrels overboard to float down to them. It might give them a chance.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • Tennyson, a false prophet, orders his men to kill a farmer. Tennyson “heard the slap-whiz of two crossbows, and two bolts streaked across the field to bury themselves in the man’s back. He threw up his hands, gave a choked cry and fell face-first down in the grass.” Tennyson’s men kill the farmer’s wife, then burn the farm and the barn with all of the cows inside. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Halt, Will, and Horace hide in an ambush of Tennyson and his men of Scotti raiders. When the raiders are close, Halt and Will begin shooting arrows. As the raiders attempt to flee, “threatened by the hail of arrows, they bunched together uncertainly. A few seconds later, the crazed cattle smashed into them… When the stampede passed, at least half of the raiding party were lying, seriously wounded, on the field.” Half of the raiders die before the others are able to run off. The scene is described over one page.
  • Tennyson sends two assassins to kill Halt and Will. During the attack, “Will’s arrow slammed into [the assassin’s] side. He lurched sideways, jolting against his companion and throwing off his aim. Then Halt’s arrow slashed into his chest and he jerked the trigger with dead fingers as he toppled backwards.” Will hears “Halt’s brief cry of pain, followed by the sound of his bow dropping… wet red blood stained his cloak. There seemed to be a lot of it.” Halt is hit with a poisoned crossbow bolt. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Later, Will attacks the assassin. The two are on horseback when the assassin “struck once, aiming for Tug, but Will leaned forward over his horse’s neck and deflected the thin blade with his saxe…” Both men jump out of the saddle, and Will “stepped in and slammed the heavy brass-shod hilt of his saxe into the side of the man’s head. Then without waiting to see if the first blow had been successful, he repeated the action a little harder.” Will takes the assassin captive.
  • When the assassin insults Will, “Horace’s open hand slapped hard across the side of his head, jerking it to one side and setting his ears ringing.” Horace strikes the assassin several times throughout the story.
  • In order to help Halt, Will and Horace need to know what type of poison was on the crossbow bolt. In order to get the assassin, Bacari, to talk, Horace “put the razor-sharp tip of the bolt against Bacari’s inner forearm, then deliberately pressed it into the flesh, penetrating deeply so that hot blood sprang from the wound and ran down Bacari’s hand. Bacari screamed in pain and fear as Horace dragged the sharpened iron through the flesh of his arm, opening a deep, long cut.”
  • During guard duty, Horace falls asleep. “Horace came awake in panic as he felt something whip over his head and then tighten inexorably around his throat, dragging him back away from the fire, cutting off his air and strangling any attempt he made to call out.” When the assassin tries to kill Horace, Will steps in. Bacari “was still laughing when Will’s throwing knife, drawn and thrown the moment the saxe had left his hand, buried itself in his heart. He looked down and saw it for a fraction of a second before his sight went black and his legs collapsed underneath him.” The scene is described over four and a half pages.
  • In the past, Halt had saved another ranger’s life by “shooting two of the bandits and cutting the third down with his saxe knife.” Halt was injured when “the huge bandit leapt out, swinging a terrible blow with the massive club.” All of the bandits were killed. The battle is described in one paragraph.
  • When Tennyson is preaching, one of his men uses an optical illusion. When Will sees the man, “the young Ranger’s arm went up, then down as he crashed the brass striker into the man’s head, behind the ear.”
  • Tennyson takes his followers into a huge cave. Halt, Will, Horace, and Malcom interrupt Tennyson’s preaching. Tennyson’s men attack. “Quickly, Halt retreated before the first rush, drawing his saxe to deflect a dagger thrust, then slashing the razor edge across his attacker’s forearm. The man yelled in pain and dropped out of the fight.” In order to prevent Tennyson and his men from escaping, Will throws explosives. “Rocks and earth fell from the ceiling in ever-increasing amounts… Will saw a massive rock shaken loose from the wall above the ledge where Tennyson stood. It hit beside him, barely a meter away.” The preacher “stepped onto empty air and toppled slowly off the ledge. He smashed against the jagged rocks at the base of the wall.” The scene is described over five pages.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Will goes into a tavern, he is offered ale or ouisgeah. “Ouisgeah, Will knew, was the strong malt spirit they distilled and drank in Hibernia.” When three men come into the tavern, “the tavern keeper immediately began to pump up three large tankards of ale without a word passing between them.”
  • While making stew, Will added, “a generous glug” of red wine.
  • The assassins dip their crossbow bolts in poison.
  • When Halt is shot, Will gives him a salve that was “derived from the drug warmweed.”

Language

  • “Why the devil” is used several times. For example, when someone tells Halt that Tennyson went to Picta, Halt says, “Why the devil would Tennyson want to go to Picta?”
  • “Oh my god” is used as an exclamation once. “My god” is used as an exclamation once.
  • “For god’s sake” is used as an exclamation twice. When someone has difficulty mounting a horse, Halt says, “For god’s sake, can’t you just haul him up behind you?”
  • When the cave is collapsing, Will tells someone, “get the hell out of here.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Tennyson is a false prophet who preaches about Alseiass, the Golden God. Tennyson convinces people that they must build Alseiass “the golden, jeweled alter that he desires—an alter that you can worship at for generations to come.”
  • Tennyson tells people, “Alseiass loves you! Alseiass wants to bring light and joy and happiness into your lives… Alseiass is the god of light and enlightenment! His light of mercy can be seen even in the darkest reaches of the earth.”

You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Brooklyn Bridge!

Readers, get ready to pretend you are the son of a famous engineer who is about to be thrown into the deep end! When your father dies as the result of a nasty accident, it’s up to you to build the Brooklyn Bridge.

The project will take you 14 years to complete. You will need to work at great heights and great depths. Twenty-seven men will die while building the bridge. But the bridge will open and thousands of people will line up to walk across it.

You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Brooklyn Bridge uses short snippets, timelines, quote boxes, and handy hints to explain how John Augustus Roebling’s design of the bridge became an enormous project that seemed impossible to build. Much like a picture book, each page is full of illustrations. The brightly colored illustrations are educational and humorous. Many of the illustrations are caricatures of the people involved in building the bridge. Even though the illustrations will make readers laugh, they also pack in a lot of information and have detailed drawings of the bridge’s design, such as the base of the tower, the suspension cables, and the steel wire used to suspend the bridge.

Anyone who has ever wondered how anyone builds a bridge over water will find You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Brooklyn Bridge fascinating. Each page has 1 to 3 paragraphs written in large text. Even though some of the vocabulary is difficult, readers will be able to use context clues to understand the reading. Plus, a glossary appears at the end of the book.

The fun format, funny illustrations, and short explanations make You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Brooklyn Bridge good for reluctant readers. Whether you’re working on a research project, interested in history, or curious about construction, You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Brooklyn Bridge is a great book to dive into.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Working on the bridge was dangerous. “A suspender cable snaps. It recoils with such force that it kills two men instantly and seriously injures two others.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Chocolate Dreams

Life in Sugar Valley is deliciously fun! Cocoa the chocolate fairy is so excited. The fairy princess picked her to watch over the special chocolate eggs for the spring Egg Parade. But right before the parade, the eggs are missing from the nest!

Cocoa and her friends discover that the troll under the bridge ordered the Chuchies to bring the eggs to him. With the help of her friends, Cocoa finds the courage to tell Princess Lolli that the eggs are missing. Princess Lolli and Cocoa devise a trick to get the chocolate eggs back.

Chocolate Dreams is a super sweet story that has many candy references that readers will find cute. For example, one fairy has a “huge chocolate mess” and the troll who lives under a bridge is “a salty old troll” who lives in the Black Licorice Swamp. Readers will wish that they could visit Sugar Valley and enjoy some of the sugary snacks.

When the chocolate eggs disappear, Cocoa’s desire to find the eggs provides enough suspense to keep readers entertained. The predictable villain and his minions aren’t scary. His minions are “Chuchies” who are “sneaky creatures” who live in the swamp. Chuchies have “pom-pom bodies” and “short, thin legs.”

Chocolate Dreams begins with a map of the Candy Kingdom. The Peppermint Grove and other elements will remind readers of the game Candy Land. Black and white illustrations appear every 2 to 3 pages and show the fairies wearing pretty dresses. Although most of the fairies look similar, one fairy is African American. The story is best suited for proficient readers who are ready for chapter books.

The fairies’ friendship is super sweet and they emulate positive traits. For example, when the chocolate eggs are stolen, Cocoa’s friends encourage her to tell the truth. In addition, when Cocoa is in trouble her friends “dropped everything” to help her. Chocolate Dreams takes readers into an imaginative world that will engage readers as it teaches important lessons about honesty and friendship.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The fairies say exclamations such as “peppermint sticks,” “Holy peppermint” and “bittersweet chocolate.”

Supernatural

  • The fairies have magic. “Chocolate Fairies had chocolate magic. They could create chocolate candy with a simple touch.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Valentine’s Day Disaster

Geronimo Stilton was excited to have all of his friends over for a Valentine’s Day party. He sent valentines to all of his friends and family members. But when he opened his mailbox on February 14th, it was empty! Have his friends forgotten about him? Is he destined to spend the year alone in his mouse hole, sobbing into a box of chocolate cheesy chews?

Even though Geronimo didn’t receive any valentine cards, he prepares for his party. But the clumsy mouse has a string of bad luck. Thankfully, he meets Cheesy Lou Sweetsnout, a rodeo gal, who has a solution to every problem. Geronimo’s new friend reminds him that, “Life is beautiful, the world is marvelous, and I love everyone!” Can Cheesy Lou Sweetsnout help save the Valentine’s Day party?

As Geronimo prepares for his party, he has accident after accident. While Geronimo’s bad luck is funny, Valentine’s Day Disaster doesn’t have the adventure of the other books in the series. However, readers will still enjoy seeing Cheesy Lou Sweetsnout save the day over and over. In the end, Geronimo realizes that “friendship really is a treasure.”

Valentine’s Day Disaster’s layout will draw the reader in with large, full-color illustrations that appear on every page. In addition to the often humorous illustrations, the large text has a graphic element that makes the words look fun. Some of the keywords are printed in a larger, colored print. For readers who still struggle with reading, Valentine’s Day Disaster would make a great book to read aloud while letting the child read the words that are in the colored print.

Whether you are a Geronimo Stilton fan or a first-time reader, Valentine’s Day Disaster is a fun book. The beginning of the book has a two-page, illustrated list of Geronimo’s friends and the back of the book has a map of Mouse Island. There is also a short introduction of Geronimo’s enemy, Sally Ratmousen, and Cheesy Lou Sweetsnout. While some of the characters appear in different books in the series, the series does not need to be read in order.

Mixed into the story are short passages about the history behind Valentine’s Day and how pizza was invented. There is also information about cupid and instructions on how to line dance. Readers who want to host a Valentine’s Day party can use Cheesy Lou Sweetsnout’s How to Organize a Valentine’s Day Party Guide. You can make your guests laugh by telling the jokes that appear at the end of the book.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Mango Moon

One day Maricela’s father doesn’t come home. With her father in a detention center awaiting deportation, Maricela’s whole life changes. Her mother has to work two jobs, her family had to move in with Maricela’s aunt, and she has to change schools.

Maricela misses her father so much that it makes her stomach hurt. And everywhere she looks, she’s reminded that her father is gone. She misses him pushing her on the swings. She misses him coaching her soccer team. And she misses him whenever she sees the moon, the bright orange moon that is just like the mango Maricela was eating the last time she and her father looked at the night sky together from their porch.

Mango Moon tackles the difficult topic of deportation by focusing on one girl’s struggle. Maricela and her brother were born in the United States, and her mother has a visa. But Maricela doesn’t understand how her father can be sent to a dangerous county because “Papi never did anything wrong; he just didn’t have papers.”

Beautiful illustrations show Maricela’s range of emotions—confusion, loneliness, fear, and sadness. Her father’s absence is felt in every picture. On one page, Maricela hugs her father’s picture, and on another, she reads her father’s letters. The most touching picture is when both Maricela and her father are looking up at the same moon, but Maricela is in her backyard and her father is in a detention center. In the illustration, her father is holding a card that Maricela made for him. The illustrations highlight Maricela’s emotions, which often contrast with the bright illustrations. Most of the illustrations have mango color, which helps remind the reader of Maricela’s last night with her father.

While Mango Moon doesn’t talk about the political aspect of immigration, the story does show the devastating effects of families being separated. Unlike many stories, Mango Moon doesn’t end on a happy note. Instead, Maricela expects her father to be sent to another country, alone. Like many children of undocumented immigrants, Maricela is teased at school which only adds to her worries. Maricela’s story is heartbreaking because it shows how Maricela’s life is shattered.

Any parent who wants to broach the subject of immigration should read Mango Moon with their child. Even though the story is a picture book, young readers will need help understanding the difficult subject. De Anda writes about immigration’s hardships in a child-friendly manner that shows it is “all right for us to cry.” Many children may face similar hardships to Maricela, and Mango Moon can help them process the confusing emotions of having a parent deported. Even if you are not in a similar situation, Mango Moon can help kids grow empathy and understand the pain of losing a parent.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Better Off Friends

When Levi moves to town, Macallan becomes his best friend. Everyone thinks that guys and girls can’t just be friends, but these two are. They hang out after school, share inside jokes, their families are close, and Levi even starts dating one of Macallan’s friends. They are content being just friends.

But no one believes that they are just friends. Guys won’t ask Macallan out because they think she’s with Levi. On the other hand, Levi goes through a string of girlfriends, who each think he spends too much time with Macallan. Basically, when it comes to dating, Levi and Macallan keep getting in each other’s way. With everyone thinking the two are more than friends, and they begin to wonder if they really can be just friends or if they should be more.

Better Off Friends alternates between Levi’s and Macallan’s point of view. In addition, the end of each chapter has a short conversation between the two, which allows them to reflect on their past. Levi is portrayed as a selfish, stereotypical Californian. For example, he wonders, “Why couldn’t we have stayed in Santa Monica, where the weather was sweet and the waves were sick?” Even though the book is told from both of the character’s points of view, both Levi and Macallan are forgettable characters.

Macallan is more well-developed character than Levi. Her mother’s recent death has shattered her family, she tries to stay out of Levi’s love life, and she stands up for two characters with disabilities. Despite this, she is not a memorable character. Unfortunately, too much of the story focuses on Macallan and Levi’s internal struggle as they try to hide their true feelings from each other. Even after the two realize they are in love with the other, their refusal to openly talk about their feelings becomes tedious.

Instead of being a fun romance, Better Off Friends has a predictable plot, forgettable characters, and a cliché conclusion. The main characters spend too much time trying to prove that they are just friends, and predictably fall in love with each other. Unfortunately, none of the characters are unique and readers will quickly forget the story. With a plethora of teen romances crowding the shelves, readers should reach for a truly unique and memorable romance such as I Believe in A Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo or Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson.

Sexual Content

  • Macallan and an unknown person have a short conversation. The unknown person wants to know if Macallan “hooked up at some point.”
  • While on a date with Emily, Levi “wanted to kiss her. . .So I kissed her. And she kissed me back.”
  • Macallan went to the movies with Levi and Emily. She went to get popcorn and came back “only to discover them kissing (or, more accurately sucking face).”
  • At a party, Macallan walked into her bedroom to find “Emily and Troy were kissing on my bed.” Emily asks Macallan not to tell her boyfriend that she was kissing another boy.
  • After Levi gets back from a trip, Emily “ran out in the cold and kissed me, which helped warm me considerably.”
  • Emily lies to Levi, telling him that “nothing happened” between her and Troy. As she tells him, Emily “started rubbing my leg. . .She started to kiss me.”
  • Levi says, “My first girlfriend . . . started sucking face with some other guy the second she was alone with him. Tonight my girlfriend was away from me for like two seconds and she was going to make out with another guy. It clearly has to be me.”
  • When Levi thinks something is wrong with him, Macallan “grabbed his cheeks and pulled him in for a kiss. He was tense, probably from shock, for the first couple of seconds. Then his arms were around me and he eased into it.” Macallan tells him, “You are not a bad kisser. It has been verified. Moving on.”
  • When Levi wasn’t paying attention, Macallan’s friend Danielle says, “Macallan and I were going to have a lingerie pillow fight.” Levi thinks, “I desperately tried to get the thought of Macallan and Danielle in lingerie out of my mind. I sometimes thought Macallan forgot I was a guy. And we have certain responses that are difficult to control.”
  • Levi begins dating Stacy and they kiss twice. For example, when Levi picked her up for a date, “he bent over and gave [her] a kiss.”
  • Macallan and Levi kiss. Levi “relished her lips on mine. Her hands gently ran through my hair.”

Violence

  • A boy named Keith makes fun of Macallan’s uncle. Keith “bent his arms up toward his collarbone and let his wrist go limp so his hands were dangling. He collapsed his legs together at the knees and started to walk like he had a disability.” Then Keith says, “Just because your mom’s dead doesn’t mean you can be such a bitch.” Angry, Macallan “tightened up my fist and hit him right in the kisser. Keith, Mr. Athlete Extraordinaire, was knocked onto his butt.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Macallan has a unique name because her “dad liked a certain kind of Scotch Whiskey.”
  • Macallan, her father, Levi, and his parents have dinner. Levi’s parents bring a bottle of wine.
  • When Macallan’s boyfriend broke up with her, she asked, “Have you been drinking?”
  • When Macallan goes to Ireland, one of her friends takes her to a party and offers her alcohol. When she declines, her friend says, “You Americans are so uptight about alcohol.”
  • When Levi is injured, he takes “some serious painkillers.”

Language

  • Several times during the story, a handicapped person is called a retard or retarded. This includes Macallan’s uncle. Macallan stands up for to person and defends her uncle.
  • Levi refers to himself as an idiot eight times. For example, he thinks, “Macallan stood up to those three guys while I stood there like an idiot.” He also says that he’s been “a total idiot lately.”
  • Crap is used six times. For example, Macallan says, “I wasn’t in the mood for his crap today.”
  • Levi says, “I’m sorry. I was being a grade-A jerk.” Later someone else calls Levi a jerk.
  • “God” and “Oh my God” are both used as an exclamation once.
  • Someone calls Macallan a bitch.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Here to Stay

Bijan Majidi loves basketball, comic books, and his mom. When he makes it on the varsity basketball squad, he’s over the moon. Now he’s getting noticed and being invited to parties with the cool kids. But when someone sends the whole school a photoshopped picture that makes Bijan look like a terrorist, he has to deal with the fallout. Here to Stay examines the prejudices and identities that envelop the lives of Bijan and his classmates.

Here to Stay tackles discussions about race and prejudice against the backdrop of a wealthy, white, New England neighborhood. Sara Farizan’s commentary creates a rich dialogue that acutely questions a status quo that harms students who aren’t white. Bijan, who is half Persian and half Jordanian, experiences microaggressions and a hate crime. Bijan is also put under emotional and social strain. Despite this, Bijan is resilient and handles the situations thrown at him through his wit and the strength of his heart.

Along with the discussion of race, Farizan includes two LGBTQ+ characters who initially hide their relationship because they fear their community’s backlash. In both overarching plot points, acceptance and sticking up for oneself are recurrent themes. Although not everyone in the novel is kind to these characters or to Bijan, the supporting cast of friends are loyal and kind people.

Bijan is undeniably a good main character. He’s friendly, funny, and sticks up for himself and his friends. Occasionally, some characters’ dialogue comes across as strange or too young for teenagers. However, it doesn’t make the characters any less likable. Considering all the dark topics that Here to Stay covers, Bijan’s inner monologue is really funny and brings some much-needed lightness to an otherwise depressing situation.

Farizan does an excellent job presenting a discussion around prejudices and integrating it with a fun high school basketball story. Ultimately, life is made up of great, game-winning moments as well as terrible moments. Bijan’s story is about dealing with other people’s prejudices, but he’s also a teenager who has crushes and who likes basketball. These things are not separate from each other, and Farizan presents Bijan as a whole person who deals with a full range of human experiences. Here to Stay is powerful, not necessarily because Bijan is extraordinary, but because his story is a reality for many people. Readers certainly won’t have a difficult time finding something to like about Bijan and his story.

Sexual Content

  • Bijan has “an imaginary future ex-girlfriend, Elle.” He has a crush on Elle, and the topic of his love comes up often.
  • When Bijan is getting ready to go to a party, his mom tells Bijan that he can’t “get ‘fresh’ with any young ladies.”
  • According to Bijan, his best friend Sean “has had sex.” No other details are given.
  • At the start of practice, a basketball player throws his shirt to the side. “Some girls from the varsity squash team catcalled as they ran on the track above.”
  • Someone makes a comment about Bijan going back to “whatever country or Cave of Wonders” he came from. Bijan responds with, “I’ll go back to where I came from. Back to your mom’s house. She made me the best breakfast this morning after the time we had together last night. Her maple syrup tasted just as good as she did.”
  • Bijan’s best friend Sean makes a suggestive comment about another classmate. He says, “I wouldn’t mind tutoring Erin Wheeler . . . I’d answer any anatomy and physiology questions she may have.”
  • Another basketball player, Will, mentions his girlfriend to a teammate. Will says, “Once I get what I need from [my girlfriend], I’m calling it off. Then it’s college honeys for days, you know what I’m saying?” This statement is not explained further.
  • Will harasses Bijan about a girl in their grade. Will says, “ ‘It’s really nice of you to keep defending [Stephanie]. You giving it to her, man?’ Will dry-humped the air. ‘I mean, I guess she’d be a good lay. She’s got a nice physique for a munchkin . . . You put a gag over her head when you do her? So you can shut her up and not have to look at her? I know you people like your girls covered.’ ”
  • Stephanie and Erin have been secretly dating.  At a party, Bijan accidentally overhears them.  Stephanie says, “ ‘While we haven’t done anything, I like you. I like you very much’ Then [Bijan] heard it. Lips smacking. Stephanie was kissing someone!” Erin is worried about being found out because “My friends and that school are going to tear [Stephanie] apart.”
  • Will makes yet another comment to Bijan, this time about Bijan and Sean. “I thought you two were joined at the hip. How will you be able to take a piss without him holding your dick?” Bijan responds, “He’s his own man . . . But it’s true, my dick is far too big to hold. Your mom said so last night.” Will then responds with, “By the way…which of his moms did it with a turkey baster?”
  • Bijan and Elle kiss. “[Bijan] cupped her face in [his] hand. She was so warm. Kissing her was a million times better than scoring the winning basket for Granger.”
  • Erin and Stephanie start officially dating. Erin introduces herself as “[Stephanie’s] girlfriend, with all the confidence of her years in the New Crew.”
  • While in the locker room, Will makes a series of sexual comments about Bijan and Drew’s love lives. In response, Bijan says, “Why don’t you find a Jacuzzi jet to stick your dick into and call it a day, Will.”

Violence

  • Bijan talks about movies. He says that “Daniel LaRusso gets to crane-kick the crap out of Johnny.”
  • Occasionally, fouls occur in the basketball games and players are knocked down, pushed, or shoved.
  • After Bijan makes a comment about a player’s mom, the player “rushed [Bijan], knocking [him] to the sidewalk.”
  • Someone photoshopped Bijan’s face onto a racist version of the school mascot and sent it to the school. Bijan’s face was “photoshopped onto the head of a man with a long beard wearing a pakol hat and holding a gun.”
  • An email is sent to the Granger student body, but this time it outs Stephanie and Erin’s relationship and sexual orientations. It’s a picture of their photoshopped faces, and they’re “vomiting rainbows.” It is later revealed that Stephanie’s friend, Noah, is the one who made it out of jealousy, as he felt entitled to Stephanie’s affection.
  • Will gets drunk the night before the first tournament game and brings his buddies to beat up Bijan. One of them, “grabbed hold of [Bijan’s] shoulder and pushed [him] backward with his forearm against [his] chest. [Bijan] tried to get away, and wanted to yell but the fear wouldn’t let [him].”
  • At the basketball game, a group of white people who “had wrapped athletic towels on their heads and wore fake beards . . . held up a poster-sized version of the terrorist photo of [Bijan]” sat behind the basket and chanted “USA! USA! USA!” at Bijan.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a party there is a “cooler full of beers.” Many of the underage students drink at the party.
  • Someone says to Bijan about the photoshopped picture, “Whoever did send it, I’d love to shake their hand and buy them a beer.” Bijan responds, “I’d love to buy a keg for whatever college will take you . . . How much does your grandpa pay to have you play for us?”
  • At another party the students drink again. Bijan drinks a beer and says it tastes “like wheat backwash.” Bijan also joins in on beer pong where he plays “with the guys for an hour.”
  • Drew talks about his dad. Drew says, “Mine’s a real piece of work. A guy named Tim who would rather play keno and drink than hang out with his kid.”

Language

  • Profanity is used somewhat often. Profanity includes damn, crap, bitches, ass, and hell.
  • Bijan says his life turned into a “crap salad in a bucket.”
  • Students make many comments about Bijan’s race, and they also make insensitive comments about other races as well.
  • Bijan briefly mentions that the JV locker room talk included “theories about what would happen if you smeared Icy Hot all over your junk.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • During a speech at school, Bijan talks about his parents’ religions. “My mom is Muslim but doesn’t speak to God as much since my dad died. My father was Christian. My relationship with God is personal and has nothing to do with you.” Bijan thinks, “I didn’t explain to them that terrorists who commit heinous acts in the name of religion don’t understand their faith at all, including the white Christian terrorists within our own country. I didn’t read to them the section of the Qur’an that says, ‘Whoever kills a person unjustly. . . it is as though he has killed all mankind, and whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind.’”
  • Bijan doesn’t drink, and he turns down a beer from another student. That student then says, “Allah’s not gonna mind.”

by Alli Kestler

 

 

 

 

 

 

Efrén Divided

Efrén Nava’s Amá is his superwoman—or Soperwoman, named after the delicious Mexican sopes his mother often prepares for the family. Both Amá and Apá work hard all day to provide for the family, making sure Efrén and his younger siblings, Max and Mia, feel safe and loved.

But Efrén worries about his parents; although he’s American-born, his parents are undocumented. And according to the neighborhood talk, families like his are in great danger. Sure enough, Efrén’s worst nightmare comes true one day when Amá doesn’t return from work and is deported across the border to Tijuana, Mexico.

Now it’s up to Efrén to be brave and figure out how to act soper himself. While Apá takes an extra job to earn the money needed to get Amá back, Efrén struggles to look after Max and Mia while also dealing with schoolwork, his best friend’s probably-doomed campaign for school president, and his fears about what might happen to his family next.

When disaster strikes, Efrén is faced with crossing the border alone to see Amá. More than ever, he must channel his inner Soperboy to help him keep his family together.

Efrén Divided shows the struggle of undocumented workers from a middle schooler’s perspective. Efrén’s story does not discuss the politics of immigration, but instead focuses on Efrén’s struggles. Efrén worries about his parents being deported because they live in a country that does not want them. When Efrén’s mother is deported, Efrén feels shame and confusion. However, Efrén’s story doesn’t just focus on his family life. The reader also gets a glimpse of Efrén’s school life, which gives the story additional depth and shows how being in the country illegally affects many people.

While the story is engaging, readers may have a difficult time understanding some of the dialogue. When characters speak in Spanish, there are not always context clues to help readers understand the words’ meanings. However, the back of the book contains a glossary of Spanish words. Additionally, the conclusion has several events that seem out of place because they are not natural extensions of the story.

Efrén Divided uses an engaging story to shine a light on the difficulty that American-born children face when their parents are undocumented. The story makes many references to The House on Mango Street, which may make readers want to also read that book. The story highlights the importance of family and friends, as well as the need to “surround yourself with good people. People who will bring out the good in you. Not the bad.” Readers who enjoy Efrén Divided should also check out New Kid by Jerry Craft and When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Efrén’s brother, Max, pees on his clothes. Efrén tries to put him in the bathtub, but Max “pulled on Efrén’s hair and swung his legs wildly. One of his kicks nailed Efrén in the jaw, causing him to bite his lip.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Efrén’s friend, David, now lives with his grandmother because his mom drank a lot.
  • When Efrén goes to Mexico, he follows signs advertising beer.
  • In Mexico, Efrén meets a man who tells him about the drug cartels.

Language

  • “Oh my God” is used as an exclamation 6 times.
  • Heck is used once.
  • Some of the kids call David “El Periquito Blanco” which means the white parakeet.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Efrén and his family bless themselves.
  • When Efrén and his father are going to San Diego, they have to pass a checkpoint. Efrén prays, “Please, God, . . . let it be it closed. Let it be closed.”
  • When they pass the checkpoint, Efrén “bless[es] himself—this time thanking God for everything He’d given him.” Then, Efrén lists what he is thankful for.
  • Efrén and his father talk about going to mass to give thanks. The next morning, they go to mass, which “felt a bit more special than usual.” The family prays, but the specific prayer is not mentioned.

Caterflies and Ice

Zoey is excited when an unexpected spring snowstorm covers the ground in snow. Then Zoey learns that the snow is causing trouble for some of the magical creatures of the forest. Zoey and Sassafras come to their rescue. But their first attempt to save trapped caterflies eggs results in a big mistake. Can they figure out a way to fix things before the baby caterflies hatch?

Like the previous book in the series, Zoey uses science to solve problems. Her mom gives a demonstration showing what salt does to plants. This demonstration would be easy for readers to recreate. When Zoey tries, and accidentally hurts the plants that the caterflies babies will need to eat, Zoey’s mother doesn’t scold her. Instead, she says, “We all make mistakes.” Then her mother helps Zoey find a workable solution. Zoey documents her experiences in her science journal, and when Zoey writes in the journal, the font changes to large, kid-like font. Instead of telling Zoey what to do, her mom asks Zoey questions in order to guide her to a workable solution.

Younger readers will love the cute caterflies that look similar to kittens with wings and will love when Sassafras jumps in and helps keep the caterflies safe and warm. As Zoey helps the caterflies, the reader will learn about plants, caterpillars, and how they change into butterflies. Zoey’s adventure is shown through large black and white illustrations that appear on almost every page. Readers who are not fluent will need help with some of the vocabulary. However, with short paragraphs, plenty of dialogue, and a simple plot, Dragons and Marshmallows is accessible to most readers.

Caterflies and Ice will appeal to younger readers as well as parents. With her mom’s help, Zoey is able to come up with creative solutions to problems. For example, when Sassafras doesn’t like the wet snow, Zoey makes protective feet covers. In addition, Zoey is a relatable character who loves exploring, bugs, and using science to solve problems. Her cat Sassafras adds some humor to the story. In addition, her parents are portrayed in a positive manner and encourage Zoey to continue trying new things, even when she makes a mistake.

Zoey and Sassafras show the fun of science and the importance of taking care of the environment. The story ends with a glossary. Even though Zoey and Sassafras is a series, the books do not need to be read in order. Caterflies and Ice is an entertaining story that has a little bit of magic and a whole lot of important lessons. Readers who love science should also add The Data Set Series by Ada Hopper to their must-read list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Zoey and her mom are the only people that can see and talk to the magical creatures that live in the forest.
  • When Zoey takes a picture of a magical creature, “every photo saves a bit of magic with it.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Baby Firebird

Talia lives in a tropical rain forest that is home to a flock of magical firebirds. She meets a baby firebird, Riki. The firebird is curious about the human world. As Riki explores Talia’s house, Lord Fortescue appears. He’s determined to imprison all of the firebirds. When Lord Fortescue finds out about the Cave of Wonders, he’s convinced he can capture the birds and find treasure. Riki, Talia, and her friend Lucas go into the rainforest so they can warn the firebirds to hide.

The firebirds are able to hide from Lord Fortescue, but the evil man and his soldiers put huge boulders in front of the Cave of Wonders. Without the heat from the magical waters, the firebirds become weak. The stones are too large for Talia and Lucas to move. Even though it may be dangerous, the two friends go to wake up a sleeping dragon, who reluctantly agrees to help the firebirds.

The Baby Firebird quickly draws readers into the story and keeps them in suspense until the very end. Even though Lord Fortescue and his soldiers are dangerous, the kids only have one interaction with them. For the rest of the story, they are either spying on Lord Fortescue or hiding from him. However, the evil man adds a non-fighting villain to the plot.

Talia and Lucas are likable, brave characters. Even though humans are not allowed into the forest, Talia and Lucas break the rule because it was the only way to warn the firebirds about Lord Fortescue. Later, the dragon agrees to help the firebirds, but only if Talia gives him her sparkly rock. Even though the Speaking Stone is special, Talia puts the firebirds’ needs first and gives the stone to the dragon. In the end, Talia recognizes that Lord Fortescue and his soldiers, “wanted to find gold, but they missed the real treasure that’s already here—the animals!”

The first book in the series, The Sky Unicorn, introduced Sophy and the magical stones. Even though Sophy makes an appearance in all of the books, readers do not need to read the stories in order. Each book focuses on a new main character, which adds interest to the series. The story uses easy vocabulary, simple sentence structure, and black and white illustrations to make The Baby Firebird accessible to readers. Illustrations appear every 2-4 pages and help readers understand the plot.

The Baby Firebird is a fast-paced, suspenseful chapter book that has wide appeal. Young readers will admire Talia for her kindness, bravery, and selflessness. Talia’s behavior shows the importance of protecting animals, including staying out of animals’ habitats. Readers who enjoy animal stories should also add Rainbow Magic Series by Daisy Meadows and the Enchanted Pony Academy Series by Lisa Ann Scot to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Talia meets a baby firebird. “Talia knew the flames must be magical, as they never scorched the flowers or leaves.”
  • Firebirds get their magic from the Cave of Wonders, which is a “magical fire pool.” Talia “touched the golden surface with her fingers and drew back her hand immediately, surprised by the tickly feeling in her fingers.”
  • Talia is given a magical Speaking Stone that allows her to talk to magical creatures.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Loveboat, Taipei

Ever Wong’s parents came to America with little, but they were determined to make a better life for their children. Ever’s father, a talented doctor, was unable to obtain a medical license in the US and the family is barely scraping by. The Wongs are determined to see their daughter become a doctor. The only problem is that Ever has very little talent for medicine and would much rather go to dance school.

Ever wants to spend her summer dancing with her friends, but her parents have different plans for her. Ever’s mother pawns her most valuable jewelry to pay to send Ever to a rigorous pre-med program. Then Ever’s mother sends her to Chien Tan, a summer program designed for Chinese-American high school students learn about their culture through eight weeks in Taipei, Taiwan.

In Taipei, Ever finds herself among a Chinese-American majority for the first time in her life, but she also discovers that many of her peers have grown up quite differently from her. Most of the Chien Tan students have enormously wealthy parents, and nobody else has had to pawn jewelry to pay for their airfare. Many of Ever’s peers are fluent or near-fluent in Mandarin, which Ever never learned.

Sophie, Ever’s roommate, tells her that Chien Tan has the nickname “Loveboat.” It’s the status quo for students to sneak out at night, go clubbing, and abandon their boyfriends and girlfriends back in the States for intense, short-lived love affairs. Away from her family for the first time, Ever begins to break all of her parents’ strict rules: she drinks, dresses immodestly, and kisses boys. She finds herself caught in an intense love triangle between golden-boy Rick and mysterious bad-boy Xavier.

Loveboat, Taipei addresses many issues that readers may find relatable: the pressure of overbearing parents, the pressure to get drunk or have sex for the first time, and the complicated feelings one can have over cultural identity. The romance is well-written and the love triangle is cute, but readers may find it hard to believe that the two most popular boys in Loveboat are both so smitten with the likable, but unassuming, Ever.

Much of the book’s plot concerns the drama around Ever’s love triangle. Through Ever’s perspective, readers see background characters work through their own drama, too. The cast of characters is large to start with, and it gets confusing when the book names too many extra characters who aren’t part of the plot and only exist to populate the background.  Chien Tan gives unbridled freedom to kids on the cusp of adulthood. They form hasty relationships, hurt themselves, and hurt each other—emotionally and sometimes physically. For example, Sophie spreads nude photos of Ever out of spite. Readers may think this was unforgivable, but they eventually make up.

Ever’s frustration with her parents is a major theme; despite their disagreements, the family clearly loves each other. The narrative reflects the nature of this complicated relationship. Ever learns to stand up for herself and exercise her new freedom staying true to her own values. Loveboat, Taipei will be a compelling choice for readers looking to read about culture, class differences, and “leaving the nest”.

Sexual Content

  • The official rules at Chien Tan say, “No boys and girls in a room with the door closed.” However, this rule is often broken.
  • Ever says that her mother believes that “sex is a by-product of marriage to be endured, preferably through a hole in the blanket.”
  • Later, after having sex for the first time, Ever says, “Sex isn’t the barely tolerable duty of procreation, like Mom always insinuated. It’s two human beings fitting seamlessly together.” However, she still feels guilty, because she “wanted to wait for love.”
  • Ever sees a boy she once kissed and remembers, “those big hands on my hips. His tongue pressing my lips apart. He taught me everything I know about kissing that I didn’t learn from practicing on oranges” with her best friend in middle school.
  • At the Chien Tan dormitories, a couple is ousted from their room. The girl is “clutching her pink dress to her bra.” Ever says that the boy “grabs his shorts–but not before I catch a glimpse of his . . . equipment.” Ever says she is “too stunned to close my eyes.”
  • Ever says that a girl enjoying a meal makes “moaning noises straight out of a scene I wouldn’t be allowed to watch on TV.”
  • Someone asks Rick if he and his long-distance girlfriend have been “having phone sex.”
  • At a club, Ever sees “middle-aged men who line the walls, eyeing girls on the dance floor.”
  • Ever dances with a boy from Chien Tan. “His eyes sweep my body. His neck gleams with sweat. My hair’s damp. I writhe with him, matching thrust for thrust. His hip wedges against mine as he pulls me deeper, deeper–and then I feel him. Oh my God. Oh my God. Is that what I think it is?” She realizes he has an erection and backs off. Later she thinks, “I’ll have to see him in class every single day, knowing I gave him a boner, and him knowing I know.”
  • Sophie tells Ever, “Xavier and I hooked up. Last night. We did it.” She tells Ever “far more detail than I need or want: how they’d made out the whole cab ride home, fumbled down the darkened hallway, tumbled into a spare bedroom on the first floor.” Ever notices that Sophie has “a pink, quarter-sized hickey” on her neck. Ever says, “I can’t imagine sleeping with a guy after knowing him only a week.”
  • Sophie and Ever go to take “glamour shots.” The photos get more and more risqué until Sophie takes a photo naked. “Her bikini lies in a silky, white heap on the floor. She’s naked. Not practically. Actually. Yannie’s lights shine off her golden skin, illuminating bikini patches.” Sophie tells Ever, “This is art, not porn.”
  • While taking photos, Ever remembers how she always felt “the grip of shame” about her body, especially when she “developed more parts to feel ashamed of flaunting.” She decides to follow Sophie’s lead and pose for her own nude shots.
  • Later, someone makes copies of Ever’s nude photos and distributes them to everyone. Ever sees the photos, which show “A girl. She’s back-dropped in white, the only object in her rectangular world. Her hands open like fans at her sides. She gazes out at me, chin raised boldly, dark-red lips parted with a seductive intake of breath, coils of black hair swept up to show off every curve of skin from the slope of her neck to her coyly cocked ankle–and everything in between.” The photos get her into a lot of trouble. The Chien Tan students and staff all see the photos, and Ever is mortified and almost expelled.
  • Ever recalls that some men have “Asian fetishes.” She remembers explaining to a white friend why attracting men’s interest simply because she’s Asian is “not flattering, why it’s based on stereotypes that have nothing to do with who you are.”
  • A girl in the bathroom seems very embarrassed while she scrubs at a blood stain on her sheets. Ever blushes when she realizes that they’re “not period stains” (The implication is that the girl bled during sex).
  • Later, after having sex for the first time, Ever sees “a red smear, like a smudge of calligraphy ink,” on the bedsheet. She’s embarrassed and hopes she’ll never have to see the boy again.
  • Ever passes a couple’s room and hears “soft little moans and kissing sounds.”
  • Xavier kisses Ever. “His mouth is soft, sweetened by wine. He tucks his fingers into my hair and cradles the curve of my neck. Under his lips, my back arches slightly… His mouth silences me, parting my lips, making me gasp with the unexpected pleasure of his tongue.” They stop a few moments later.
  • Ever has sex with Xavier, but the scene isn’t depicted. The next morning, “I lie on my side on a cloud of down feathers, nude between cotton sheets and a blue duvet and the weight of Xavier’s arm over my waist. His naked body presses against my back from shoulder to thighs. Last night returns like a dream: Xavier’s hand on my back, guiding me to this room as our mouths moved together, the click of the door sealing our privacy, then his mouth on my eyelids, my cheeks, the hollow of my neck, his hands exploring . . . my fingernails in his shoulders. My body is sore in places I didn’t know could feel sore.”
  • Ever and Rick bathe in a hot spring together and become intimate. The scene takes place over several pages and concludes with, “His mouth burns a line down to my belly button. It makes my body quiver like a tightly strung instrument. The splash of water echoes as he slips back into the pool. My stomach dips as his hands part my knees. He slides his shoulders between them, and his hands tuck under my thighs and take hold of my hips. He kisses a trail along the inside of each thigh, his breath warm on my skin, so near and intimate. My pals press the stones, all my body throbbing, unbelieving, as he asks permission to continue, and my whisper yes blends with the gurgle of the hot waters. He takes his time. A slow burn that builds and builds, until I am clawing at the stones and my back arches and my toes splash and my body ripens under his grip.” Later, Ever says, “Who knew Boy Wonder was so good with his tongue?”
  • During Chien Tan’s talent show, one of the boys dresses in drag. A character sees the drag queen and says, “Whoa, she’s stacked.” The drag queen’s “red lace bra is covered only by the middle button of her coat.”

Violence

  • Ever remembers hearing about a child prodigy who “died by suicide.”
  • Ever resents Rick and says, “I indulge a fantasy of me using that big, hard body as a punching bag.”
  • When Xavier gets out of his dad’s car, Ever notices that “a reddish blotch shines on his cheek–a bruise? Did his dad hit him?”
  • During a conversation with Ever, Xavier reveals that his dad said “[he] should’ve beat me harder to beat [the dyslexia] out of me.” Ever is horrified that Xavier was abused over his dyslexia. Xavier says, “My dad gave me a new set of trophies and told me I was a disgrace to nine generations.” Ever realizes that by “trophies” he means “bruises.”
  • Ever remembers “Mom with the chopsticks, hitting the inside of my bare thigh once, twice, three times. I don’t even remember what I’d done. The chopsticks only came out occasionally, and left no scars, but the shame has lingered.”
  • A man making ‘snake-blood sake’ cuts the head off of a snake. “His hatchet bangs down. The snake’s fanged head flies” at one of Ever’s friends. “Its severed end spurts dark red blood . . . Into one vial after another, the man squeezes the snake’s cut end. Dark red blood pulses out, pinking the liquor.”
  • At a bar, Ever is accosted by “two hundred pounds of meaty guy.” Ever says he “crushes me against the bar. He reeks of alcohol and sweat. I shove back, but it’s like trying to move a brick wall.” A boy from Chien Tan comes along and rescues her by telling the man, “She’s with me.”
  • A Chien Tan couple has arguments that “usually ended with something broken—a bulletin board, a lamp, his toe.”
  • When he’s angry, Rick “slams his fist through the center of his rice sack.”
  • Ever becomes interested in the choreography of fighting with staffs and sticks. She and Rick often mock-duel, but never with the intention to hurt. There are several pages of scenes where they ‘fight’. For example, “The crack of wood on wood punctuates the air, reverberating in my hands. I swing again. Again. Force him back until his foot hits a brick wall. And then he’s shoving me back, stick flying. . . swing a blow at his head. He ducks.”
  • During one fight, Ever says, “I instinctively whip my stick down—and slam his knuckles.” Ever apologizes immediately, because she didn’t mean to hurt Rick.
  • Someone tells Ever about “samurai of feudal Japan, soldiers who didn’t fall on their swords like the Romans did, but disemboweled themselves.”
  • Rick and Xavier get into a fight. “Xavier’s arms are locked around Rick’s neck, both bent double as they lurch into Marc, who grabs at them, earning himself a punch in the stomach . . . They’re inseparable, a force of muscled arms and legs and rage, knocking over everyone in their path.” Chien Tan counselors break up the fight and send them to the infirmary to clean up their bloody noses.
  • Sophie arrives home with a black eye and claims she “walked into a wall.” Later, Ever discovers that Sophie’s boyfriend Matteo has been violent with her. Ever sees Matteo “in a drunken stupor,” chasing after Sophie. Sophie locks herself in her room and Ever hears Matteo “spewing curses. The door shakes under his weight. I jam the door in place, then hang on tight. Under me, the door convulses as he pounds and pounds.” Later Sophie says that Matteo was mad because she “bit him.” Sophie agrees to let Ever tell the Chien Tan counselors about the incident, and Matteo is expelled and sent home.
  • Someone talks about how their mom struggled to find employment. “My mom went to work in a hotel and then some asshole manager slapped her butt and she shoved him onto his . . . now she’s cleaning toilets.”
  • Rick speaks about the tense relationship he has with his girlfriend, who suffers from severe depression and relies on him for emotional support. “We were in her kitchen. Cutting a loaf of bread we’d picked up. And she started crying and saying she couldn’t anymore, couldn’t take her parents, school, life, without me. She grabbed the knife, and I grabbed hold.” He “opens his palm to sunlight. Under its harsh yellow rays, the four inch-long scars line up in their row.” He admits that he eventually only stayed with her because he was afraid she would harm herself. The book later explores how this relationship has harmed Rick.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When trying to navigate the airport, Ever runs into a man who stinks of “cilantro and cigarettes.”
  • Ever soon learns that the drinking age in Taiwan is eighteen—making her legally able to drink. Still, it’s against Chien Tan rules. She says she’s “never even tried alcohol,” and that the last time she went to a wedding, her mom “whisked [my] champagne glasses from under the waiter’s bottle.”
  • During a study group, some boys “are passing a steel bottle around.” Ever declines the first time, but partakes at later meetings.
  • Ever breaks her parents’ “no-alcohol” rule by drinking ‘snake-blood sake’. After watching a man chop off a snake’s head and squeeze the blood into the alcohol, she drinks it. “I throw back my head. The warm, salty blood and sake set my throat on fire. It tastes bitter. Like metal. Heat sears my chest, opening up a pipe there I’ve never felt before . . . My head feels stuffed with rice, then it explodes in a million directions. Kaleidoscopic tingles dance through my body.” Later in the evening, she throws up on the street and has to be carried home.
  • After being in Chien Tan for several weeks, guava cocktails are Ever’s “new favorite.”
  • Xavier hands Ever “a bottle of . . . a French wine with a white label. I fit its glass top to my lips and take a long pull. Dark cherry, rich and strong. I take a second pull, a third, letting its smoothness warm my body.”
  • In her messy room, Ever notices that some clothing lying on the floor “has soaked up a can of stale beer.”
  • After Ever sprains her ankle, a paramedic gives her “a white pill—prescription-strength ibuprofen.”

Language

  • Profanity is used infrequently. Profanity includes crap, ass, asshole, hell, damn, shit, bastard, bitch.
  • Oh my God and Jesus are occasionally used as exclamations.
  • Fuck is used four times.
  • Ever calls Rick a brown-noser.
  • Someone calls Ever a slut.
  • Someone calls Sophie “fucking bitch” and “cocktease.”
  • Ever remembers seeing a store clerk call her dad a “stupid chink.”

Supernatural

  • A hotel “has no fourth floor—the Chinese equivalent of unlucky thirteen, because four sounds like death in Mandarin.”

Spiritual Content

  • Ever describes her parents as “Chinese-Baptist.”
  • When dancing, Ever says she feels like “a goddess.”
  • Ever recalls “sorting I Ching sticks with a fortune-teller” while touring Taipei.
  • One girl at Chien Tan is “really involved with the weekly Bible study she started.”

by Caroline Galdi

 

 

 

 

Valentine’s Day Secret

It’s Valentine’s Day, but things are not all hearts and flowers for Nancy! While she and her best friends, Bess and George, are making their own stuffed animals at Farmer Fan’s Barnyard Buddies, someone slips a mean valentine into Bess’s animal’s pocket. What’s worse than a mean valentine? Even worse, Bess thinks it came from George! Now the two are in the worst fight ever—and Nancy’s caught in the middle! How can she sew Bess and George’s friendship—not to mention the Clue Crew—back together?

Pink hot chocolate, dressed-up stuffed animals, and sharing cards all combine to make an interesting mystery. The friendship drama is integrated into the mystery, and the two topics combine to highlight the importance of forgiveness. While looking for clues, Nancy’s dog chews Colette’s new cow slippers. Nancy offers to save her allowance to buy Colette another pair. Even though Colette is upset, she forgives Nancy and says, “Dogs will be dogs. That’s why I like cows.” The story concludes when the culprit is discovered, and the three friends quickly forgive the valentine writer and each other.

Valentine’s Day Secret has many positive aspects that parents will appreciate. Like all children, Nancy and her two best friends squabble but eventually resolve their problems and remain best friends. In addition to using the powers of observation, the three friends are polite, ask permission before they jump into action, and show kindness to others.

Young mystery fans will not only enjoy the mystery but also the wordplay that appears in Valentine’s Day Secret. Readers will relate to Nancy, who is caught in the middle of her friends’ fight. Even though the three main characters are friends, they are unique individuals who have different interests. Black and white illustrations appear every 2 to 5 pages, which break up the text and help readers visualize the events in the plot. The last page of the book gives directions for making a charming Valentine pencil. This modern version of Nancy Drew will entertain today’s readers who will want to analyze the clues to see if they can determine who wrote the mean valentine.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A girl grabs George’s stuffed cow and runs off with it.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944

When Nazi soldiers occupy Poland, Max and his family are taken to a ghetto. Soon, Max’s father is taken away in a cattle car. Left on their own, Max and his sister Zena must rely on each other in order to survive. With barely enough food to eat, the siblings make a daring escape from Nazi soldiers and hide in the nearby forest.

By luck, Max and Zena meet a group of Jewish resistance fighters, who take care of them. After the resistance fighters blow up a train, the Nazis begin bombing the forest. Can Max and Zena survive the fallout of the Nazi Invasion? Will they ever see their father again?

I Survived the Nazi Invasion focuses on how the resistance fighters helped defeat the Nazis. Tarshis uses kid-friendly descriptions to show the Nazis’ brutality. Even though the descriptions are not graphic, the story shows several people dying, which may upset younger readers. In order to survive, Max remembers the Biblical story of David and Goliath, which gives him bravery and hope.

When the Nazis arrive in Max’s town, Max is surprised that some of the townspeople begin to treat the Jews badly. Max’s father tries to explain the townspeople’s behavior by saying, “They have small minds… Jews are different. And some people are suspicious of what they don’t understand.” However, the story doesn’t only show the ugly side of humanity. Instead, it also shows people’s kindness.

Even though Max and his family are able to go to America after the war, Max realizes that “The Nazis had wounded him in other places, too, places he couldn’t see. In his heart. In his mind. He had scars there, too. And he would carry those scars with him for his whole life.” Even though the Holocaust was a time of suffering, Max’s story also shows that some people risked their lives to help Jews as well as the bravery of the partisans. Most of all, Max’s message is to never lose hope.

The story is accessible to all readers because Tarshis uses short paragraphs and simple sentences. Realistic black and white illustrations are scattered throughout the story and will help readers visualize the events. The story also shows people working together to defeat the Nazis. While the story weaves interesting facts throughout, the book also ends with more facts about the Holocaust. The I Survived series gives readers a glimpse into deadly situations without including scary details. Each book is told from a young person’s point of view, which will help readers connect with the narrator.

The conclusion shows Max’s family reuniting during the war, which is unrealistic. While some of the events are too convenient to be believable, the suspense will keep readers turning the pages. Readers who want to learn more about World War II should read Survival Tails: World War II by Katrina Charman. Older readers who are ready for a more in-depth World War II story should read Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While Max and Zena were hiding in the forest, “German planes road through the sky, dropping 1,000-pound bombs that fell with shattering explosions. Kaboom! Enormous trees became flaming torches. Sparks showered down like burning snowflakes…” Another explosion sent Max “flying through the air. His body twisted and turned.” Max lands in a ditch.
  • When Max leaves the ghetto to find food, a soldier drags Max away from the camp. Max’s sister secretly follows them. When the soldier sees Zena, he points a gun at her. “Max’s body seemed to move on its own fueled by a mix of terror and fury. With all his might, Max threw himself against the man. The soldier teetered for a second, and then fell.” The soldier accidently shoots himself in the leg, and Max and Zena run into the forest.
  • A group of Jews blows up a train filled with Nazi supplies. “A bomb exploded in a massive ball of fire. In a flash, the bridge crumbled, its wooden supports snapping like toothpicks. The train’s locomotive seemed to hang helplessly in the air for a moment. And then it started its plunge into the rocky valley hundreds of feet below.”
  • When Max sees a Nazi soldier holding a gun at two people, Max yells at the soldier. “That boiling rage Max had felt earlier came back to him, powering his muscles. He gripped the rock, and with all of his might, he hurled it at the sneering soldier’s head… Thwack. It hit the soldier squarely on the forehead. The man stood in shock, and then stumbled backwards.” One of the Jews shoots the soldier.
  • Max sees a Nazi soldier. “He was small and skinny, and he looked very young… He looked as terrified and confused as Max was.” Before Max can intervene, a Jew shoots the boy, and “the bullet hit the soldier in the chest. And as he fell dead to the ground, his arm jerked. His pistol fired. A split second later, the bullet tore into Max’s side with a searing, blinding pain. Max stared down in shock as blood gushed from a gaping wound.” Max recovers.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • A soldier says, “We will find those filthy Jews who destroyed our train.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The Biblical story of David and Goliath is retold. When David fights Goliath, “David lunged forward and grabbed Goliath’s sword and—whack—he chopped off Goliath’s head.” David’s story gave Max hope.
  • When Max is trapped under a tree, as he finally frees himself, he prayed, “he’d see Zena and Aunt Hannah and Martin and Lev waiting for him.”
  • When Max is shot, several people pray that Max would survive.

Never Evers

Thirteen-year-old Mouse is pretty sure her life is totally over. Now that she’s been kicked out of ballet school, she has to go on her new school’s ski trip basically knowing no one. Well, except too-cool-for-school Keira and crazy Connie-May (and her adorable hamster, Mr. Jambon).

Meanwhile, Jack’s life is just about to begin. He’s on the way to the slopes with his school too, and all he can think about is how to get his first kiss.

With her new friends by her side, Mouse has more fun skiing and building igloos than she expected. And when Jack catches Mouse’s eye, he’s smitten. All’s well—that is, until mega-pop star, Roland arrives on the scene and sets his sights on Mouse too! A week in the snow is about to get complicated. . .

Never Evers is ridiculous, over the top, and funny. The story focuses on two friend groups. One group includes three boys—Jack, Max, and Toddy. Max is totally obsessed with kissing a girl—any “hot” girl. Even though Jack is smitten with Mouse, Max keeps pushing Jack to spend time with another hot girl, which causes some drama. Like many preteen boys, the three friends are immature, use body humor, and talk about “pubes” (pubic hair).

The other friend group includes Mouse, Connie, and Kiera. In order to determine if Jack likes Mouse, the girls make a love spell, which causes some laughable moments. However, unlike the group of boys, the girls are not obsessed with boys. Instead, Mouse is also dealing with getting kicked out of dance school, a mean girl, and making new friends.

Never Evers is full of friendship drama, crushes, jealousy, and misunderstandings. The story’s point of view flip flops between Jack and Mouse, which allows the reader to understand their confusion about the opposite sex. Using humor, the story expertly portrays the confusion and insecurity that many tweens feel about growing up. While the story is often laugh-out-loud funny, it also shows the importance of kindness and having friends who will stand by you no matter what.

While Never Evers is not great literature, it will resonate with tweens who often feel awkward and uncertain. Middle school readers who aren’t ready for more mature romances will enjoy Never Evers. If you’re looking for a similar tween-friendly romance, add Pugs and Kisses by J.J. Howard to your reading list.

Sexual Content

  • A group of boys talk about a boy who said, “he kissed sixteen girls in five days.
  • A group of boys talks about their inability to get a girlfriend. “You know Ed’s kissed ten girls now? Ten. He’s a month younger than me and he’s on double digits.”
  • Mouse has never kissed a boy, but her friend, Keira, has “kissed three other boys.” Keira says, “You’re not missing out on anything, to be honest. It’s a little anticlimactic, really. You think it’ll be this big, life-changing moment, but it’s actually just Elliot Campbell slobbering all over you.”
  • While on the bus, a boy moons a group of girls.
  • While talking about Connie’s true love, the bus passes a sign for a French teen singer. Connie says, “Ron is my one true love. But I might let Roland English-kiss me. To warm me up for Ron.”
  • While watching Romeo and Juliet, Mouse thinks, “Watching sex scenes with your parents is horrendous, but it turns out watching them with a bunch of people your own age is also really bad.”
  • While lost in the wilderness, Jack and Mouse go into an igloo to keep warm. Jack “buried all my worries and fears deep in the snow, and leaned in to kiss her.” Before he can, a rescue team shows up.
  • At a dance, Connie kisses a boy. Someone sees them, and says, “That Connie girl’s a man-eater.”
  • Jack thinks about kissing Mouse. “I knew I shouldn’t feel scared anymore, but I did. It was scary. Doing anything for the first time is scary. But I wanted to kiss her so bad.” He moves closer to Mouse, and, “Then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and leaned in towards her.”

Violence

  • While talking to a group of girls, Jamie was teasing Jack and his friends. “Before I could stop him, Max launched himself at Jamie, shoving him hard in the chest and sending him crashing onto the cold, hard ice. . . Jamie was too shocked to even respond.” A teacher scolds the boys.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Oh my God,” and “Oh God” are used as an exclamation frequently.
  • Occasionally there is name calling, such as dummy, idiot, lunatic, loser, jerk, freak, and wierdo. For example, Kiera calls a mean girl and her friends “a bunch of rancid, pathetic losers.”
  • Crap (or a version of it) is used six times. Jack says, “The only snow I’ve seen is the crappy kind that turns gray and icy and melts within a day.”
  • Freakin’ is used three times. A boy yells, “You’re a freakin’ maniac, Max!”
  • Hell is used seven times. When Mouse disappears, Jack thinks, “I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on.”

Supernatural

  • Mouse and her friends use The Teen Witches’ Book of Spells to cast a love spell. As part of the spell, the girls make a circle out of their clothes and stand in the circle. Mouse’s friend Keira says, “We need paper and a pen. A true belief in magic. A full moon. . . A hair from your head and a mason jar.”
  • Mouse puts a piece of her hair in a jar. Then she writes a boy’s name and puts it into the jar. Kiera says, “Okay, now we’re going to hold hands, and we all have to sing, ‘Name is written / Hidden singing / Compel the object to my bidding / So mote it be.”

Spiritual Content

  • Mouse hides in a bathroom stall so she can hear a group’s conversation. While there, she prays, “Please, God, don’t let my phone ring.”
  • Occasionally the teens pray. For example, when Kiera writes Jack (Mouse’s crush) on her jeans, Mouse prays that Kiera “didn’t wear those jeans again this week.”
  • Jack asks Mouse if she wants to get a hot chocolate. When she turns him down, Jack prays, “Please, God, let something happen now to end this moment—a fire alarm, an avalanche, a rip in the space-time continuum. . . Anything.”

The Betrothed

The King of Corona, Jameson, is young and handsome, but he is not the type to settle down. Everyone has watched him flirt his way from girl to girl. So when Hollis catches the King’s eye, she assumes that Jameson will quickly lose interest and move on.

Hollis has grown up at Keresken Castle among other daughters of nobility, most of whom hope to catch the King’s eye. So when King Jameson declares his love for Hollis, she is shocked. Hollis soon realizes that along with the extravagant presents and fawning attention, this new life brings expectations—expectations that make her wonder if she’s really cut out for life as a royal.

With a visit from the King of Isolte on the horizon, Hollis sees a chance to prove to Jameson—and herself—that she has what it takes to be queen. But when she meets an Isolten stranger with the mysterious power to see into her heart, she realizes the future she wants is one she never dared dream of.

Even though the story is told from Hollis’s point of view, it is hard to understand why King Jameson would want her as his queen. Hollis’s behavior is immature and self-serving. She doesn’t want to be a good queen for the sake of the country. Instead, she wants to be a good queen so others will admire her. This is reinforced when several characters, including Hollis’s parents, do not believe Hollis’s behavior is fit for a queen. Hollis’s self-serving nature makes it hard to relate to her struggles.

While The Selection Series by Kiera Cass is an engaging, action-packed series, The Betrothed has a weak plot and underdeveloped characters. For example, masked men kill everyone at a wedding. However, the murders are never investigated and the only death that seemed to matter was the death of Hollis’ husband. In addition, the conclusion is anticlimactic and unbelievable. The Betrothed is appropriate for middle school readers who may find the simple romance entertaining. However, most readers will want to skip The Betrothed for a more compelling romance such as What Light by Jay Asher or Pugs and Kisses by J.J. Howard.

Sexual Content

  • While on a boat ride, Hollis believes the King thinks she is “irresistible.” Since there are other people around, the prince “was forced to settle for placing a warm kiss on my cool forehead. It was enough to send new waves through my stomach, and I wondered if every moment with him would feel like this.”
  • Hollis knows the King has kissed other girls and wonders, “if his not kissing me yet was a good sign or a bad one.”
  • The King kisses Hollis. She “leaned into it. To finally be kissed was a wondrous thing, and to be kissed by a king was even more thrilling. Jameson drew me close, holding my chin and pulling away when he deemed the kiss long enough.”
  • While alone, Hollis and Silas kiss. “Silas cupped my cheeks, holding me with such tenderness that I felt everything inside my body melting. I could feel the calluses on his fingers as they traced the edges of my face, and I couldn’t help but compare the feeling to that of Jameson’s perfectly smooth hands.” They break apart when they hear footsteps coming.
  • Hollis and Silas kiss again. “It was so easy, like falling into the rhythm of a dance or taking a deep breath. Kissing Silas was like something that had always been waiting for me, something I knew how to do without thinking. His hands went up into my hair, holding me tight, and his lips moved feverishly. . .”
  • Hollis and Silas kiss and she thinks “it was the most beautiful thing, to be free and alone with Silas.”

Violence

  • At a wedding, masked men come and kill everyone in the house. One girl survives. She tells her mother, “They came with masks down and swords drawn, stabbing at anyone in their way, even the maids.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Hollis invites some friends to her apartment. Wine is served and Hollis “picked up a glass of ale.”
  • During a festival, wine is served. The king is seen with “the chalice in his hand, amber ale spilling from one side.”
  • At a wedding, the guests have “goblets of ale.”

Language

  • A girl whose parents are divorced, is called a bastard. The girl tells Hollis, “When everyone was muttering that I was a bastard, you ignored them.”
  • When Hollis decides to marry Silas, Hollis’ mother calls him “your pig of a son.”

Supernatural

  • When Hollis leaves the king to marry Silas, some believe she is a witch. “With the way the king was acting, someone said you must have cast a spell on him to drive him to such madness.”

Spiritual Content

  • The King asks Hollis, “Do you ever thank the gods that you have me for a king and not that grouch, King Quinten?”
  • When King Quinten comes to visit, the King says, “The Lady Hollis and I welcome you as my father did, as a fellow sovereign, placed by the gods, and as a dear friend.”
  • During a celebration, someone says, “Let us today renew our devotion to King Jameson and pray for his life to extend for many years, and for his heirs to be plenty!”
  • During the celebration, the King says, “I pray for our kingdom to prosper.”
  • At a wedding, masked men kill everyone present. Later, Hollis says, “I am grateful. I know that living through a situation where I surely ought to have died is a gift but I cannot think of why in the world the gods would spare me.”
  • When Hollis goes to look for Silas’s mother and sister, she “prayed that if I stayed on this course, I’d find them.”

 

Peril in the Palace

Beth and her cousin Patrick go to China in 1271 where they have to find the golden tablet of Kublai Khan. Once in China, the cousins are kidnapped by Mongol warriors, who think they are evil. Only the friendship of fellow traveler Marco Polo saves them from harm.

At the Shangdu palace, Kublai Khan dislikes Beth’s and Patrick’s gifts and the message about Christianity. Next, the Mongol magicians challenge the cousins to a spiritual power showdown. The cousins are again locked up. But then they meet Genghis Khan’s great-great-granddaughter. However, Beth and Patrick are not safe, so they escape from the palace.

Before the cousins are able to make it safely away from the palace, two giant birds swoop down and grab them. The birds take them to their nest where hungry chicks wait for a meal. A mysterious knight appears and helps the kids make it back to the Imagination Station.

Peril in the Palace is the third book in the Imagination Station Series. Each book’s plot builds on the previous book so the stories must be read in order. Like the previous books in the series, history is incorporated into the story. However, Peril in the Palace’s plot is not as well developed and the conclusion has several events that are unrealistic.

Despite this, readers will appreciate the fast-paced plot which shows the importance of sharing the Christian faith. When the Mongol shamans use “magic,” Beth is able to show how the shamans are really using magnets to perform the magic. While the religious message is not as strong as the previous books, the story of Jesus is incorporated into the story.

The large text and illustrations make the story accessible to readers ready for chapter books. Black and white illustrations of varying sizes are scattered throughout the book. Parents who are looking for a wholesome book that incorporates the Bible into the story will find the Imagination Station Series a good choice. Readers who want more time traveling fun should check out the Time Jumpers Series by Wendy Mass.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Beth and Patrick are kidnapped. “A horse came alongside them. The rider leaned sideways and grabbed Beth under the arms. He pulled her up onto the saddle.” The cousins are saved by Marco Polo.
  • A wounded warrior comes to report to Kublai Khan. “Koke’s tunic was soaked in blood. An arrow had been shot through the man’s shoulder.”
  • Giant eagles called rocs pick up Beth and Patrick and take them to their hungry chicks. “One of the beaks grabbed Beth. . . The bird caught the edge of her dress.” Beth’s leg is injured. A Knight appears. “Suddenly a silver sword slashed the air above them. The sword hit the bird’s claws, and the bird cried out.”
  • The adult rocs swoop down and try to swallow the kids. “The knight turned just in time. He swung the sword with both hands. Bam! The sword hit the roc’s beak—and bounced off. The kids are able to escape.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Kublai Khan asks a group of foreigners, “Why doesn’t your God help the Christians? Why doesn’t the Christian God smash your enemies?” Patrick explains, “Jesus Christ destroyed death. He rose from the grave! Those who believe in Him will live forever.”
  • Kublai Khan believes that he will “go to the afterlife as a warrior. The Mongols will bury him with arrows and horses.”
  • Beth gives a young girl a Bible.

Candy Kisses

There’s no holiday like Valentine’s Day according to JoJo Siwa—candy hearts and frilly tutus are two of her favorite things! This year she’s hosting a Valentine-themed sleepover with BowBow and her friends. (Party time!!!) Best of all, JoJo has a new dance workshop to look forward to, with a big performance at the end. When the news breaks that only one dancer will get to shine in a solo, the snarky Queen Bs—Bree, Bahi, and Bell—begin to stir up trouble.

In Candy Kisses, JoJo continues her message of being kind. Unfortunately, JoJo’s sweetness and over-confidence don’t ring true. Most of the story focuses on a dance workshop that JoJo is taking. All of the dancers are older than JoJo and some of them dance professionally. Despite this, JoJo has no problem learning the dance moves and some of the other dancers are awed by JoJo’s dancing skills and fame.

When Bell begins talking badly about the others, the dance instructor and the other dancers don’t know how to address the problem. Despite this, JoJo comes up with a creative way to get Bell to stop bullying. JoJo “doesn’t believe in excluding anyone” and encourages others to believe in themselves. The unrealistic conclusion has all of the girls becoming friends. However, JoJo’s constant self-praise overshadows the story’s positive lessons.

While Candy Kisses is intended for girls six or older, the vocabulary will be difficult for younger readers. Readers who enjoy illustrated chapter books will find the text-heavy pages of Candy Kisses a little overwhelming. Each chapter starts with a cute black and white illustration, but they are the only pictures that appear in the book. Another negative aspect of the story is that BowBow rarely appears, even though he is on the cover of the book.

Instead of being an imperfect person who makes mistakes, JoJo is portrayed as a perfect person who has a solution for every situation. The self-promoting narration makes Candy Kisses difficult to enjoy. Even though JoJo is a dancer, singer, actress, and YouTube personality, parents and some readers will be annoyed by her lack of humility. The JoJo and BowBow Series is one that is best left on the library shelf. If you’re looking for an illustrated series that promotes friendship, add the Purrmaids Series by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen to your reading list. Older readers who want an action-packed animal story should read the Wild Rescuers Series by Stacy Plays.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Funny Valentine

It’s Valentine’s Day and Splat and his friends want to give Mrs. Wimplydimple something special. Follow Splat the Cat and his friends as they create the perfect Valentine’s Day card. On each page, readers will need to lift the flap to find what’s hidden behind.

Splat the Cat Funny Valentine will get young readers ready to grab the glitter and glue to create their own cards. When making the card, Splat and his friends use everyday objects like rubber bands, construction paper, and paper clips. Large, full-color illustrations bring the story to life and add humor as well. The illustrations have fun details like the rat flying in a paper airplane. Readers will also enjoy looking for the rat that appears in many of the pictures.

Each page has 2 to 3 short sentences that contain onomatopoeias and alliteration, which makes Splat the Cat Funny Valentine a fun story to read out loud. The story is perfect for beginning readers. The story is designed for readers who can read on their own but may still need a little help. The cute pictures and the low word count make Splat the Cat Funny Valentine a fun story. Younger readers who want to create crafts of their own will love Splat the Cat Funny Valentine. For more Valentine’s Day fun check out The Mystery Valentine by A.I. Newton.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

I Will Rejoice

Based on Psalm 118:24, I Will Rejoice teaches how to find joy in each day God has made. We can appreciate the simple, everyday things we do, from a “warm, cozy lap,” to being glad “in the evening light.” There are lots of reasons to rejoice. The story follows one little girl’s day as she plays with a friend, takes a nap, and wrestles.

Beautiful pictures in muted colors illustrate one girl as she goes through her day. The illustration highlights the many people (and the teddy bear) that love the girl. The story focuses on small delights such as being able to play, snuggle, and listen to a story. I Will Rejoice will help young readers appreciate the many simple blessings they receive each day.

Each page has a rhyming couplet and most pages begin with, “I will rejoice. . .” The repetition and rhyming that appear in each short sentence, make I Will Rejoice the perfect book to read aloud. Each page contains 1-4 sentences. Even though I Will Rejoice is a picture book, the story is intended to be read aloud to a child, rather than for a child to read it for the first time independently.

I Will Rejoice combines beautiful pictures and poetry to create a picture of all of God’s blessings.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • I Will Rejoice focuses on celebrating Psalm 118: “This is the day the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Mae Jemison: Awesome Astronaut

The Woman in Science Series introduces readers to Mae Jemison, who is a doctor, scientist, and astronaut. Born in 1956, Mae broke gender and racial stereotypesm because when Mae was young, science was considered man’s work. Despite this, Mae was determined to be a scientist. Watching the Gemini space mission and Star Trek encouraged Mae to dream big. On Star Trek, “the crew came from all over the world. Mae liked that Lieutenant Uhura was a woman from Africa. Uhura helped Mae believe she could someday travel to space, too.”

Mae’s curiosity caused her to spend a lot of time in the library reading. She also conducted her own science experiments. Mae’s parents encouraged her to keep experimenting and keep learning. Mae knew she wanted to know more about science, but she also wanted to learn more about her culture, so she studied both chemical engineering and African-American studies.

Mae continued to work hard and eventually became a doctor. She served in a refugee camp, joined the Peace Corps, and became the first African American woman to be accepted into the NASA training program. Eventually, Mae spent eight days on the space shuttle Endeavour. Mae also founded her own company, the Jemison Group, which seeks to encourage a love of science. “Mae Jemison hopes her work will take some of the mystery out of science for children of color and all girls. Anyone can be a scientist, Jemison says. All it takes is curiosity.”

 Mae Jemison: Awesome Astronaut shows how curiosity and hard work allowed Mae to become an astronaut. However, it’s Mae’s dedication to helping others that really shines. Her story is told using simple vocabulary, short paragraphs, and pictures of Mae in action. Fourteen vocabulary words are bolded in the text and defined in the glossary at the end of the book. The book ends with a timeline of Mae’s life and an experiment for readers to try.

Mae Jemison: Awesome Astronaut isn’t just for readers who want to be an astronaut. Her story will motivate everyone to reach for the sky and make their dreams come true. Mae’s story highlights how hard work and knowledge combined to help her reach her goals. Even today, Mae continues to help others find their love of science. Mae Jemison: Awesome Astronaut is an easy-to-read biography that everyone should read. Not only does it chronicle Mae’s life, but it also shows the importance of serving others.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle

Twelve-year-old Bicycle loves living at the Mostly Silent Monastery in Washington, D.C., and she loves her old orange bike named Clunk. Bicycle’s guardian, Sister Wanda, tries to send Bicycle to the Friendship Factory so she can make friends her age. But Bicycle decides to make a friend on her own terms. With Clunk and her backpack, Bicycle sets off for San Francisco where her cycling idol will be attending the Blessing of the Bicycles. Bicycle is determined to befriend someone who loves biking as much as her. With racing pigs, a ghost, pies, and a little bit of luck, Bicycle learns that friends can be made anywhere and that sometimes we must make our own luck.

The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle is a wild tale that follows Bicycle and her journey across the United States. Bicycle’s time living at the Mostly Silent Monastery helps her navigate conflicts along her adventure, and she uses her excellent listening skills to help people with their problems. Because Bicycle shows others kindness, she is able to make friends. Bicycle receives plenty of help from strangers along the way and forms meaningful connections with people she otherwise would never have met.

There are some fantastical elements to the story. For example, on the first night of her trip, Bicycle meets a Civil War-era ghost who hitches a ride on the bike’s handlebars so he can return to Missouri, where his old friend set up a pie shop. The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle also discusses how luck and fortune influence people’s lives. Although the story doesn’t take any particular stance, it is clear that Bicycle helps make her own luck by being proactive and determined enough to seek out what she wants, which is friendship.

The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle is all told in the third person but focuses mostly on Bicycle’s thoughts and feelings. Bicycle is a great example of a kindhearted and determined protagonist. Overall, Bicycle’s story is funny and lighthearted while showing her adventures across the United States and explaining the importance of friendship and listening. The story’s adventure includes a bit of mystery and magic while also focusing on fortune and its influence on life.

Bicycle’s desire to make friends is universal, which makes it a good choice for readers of all ages. The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle is the best kind of quirky, upbeat story. The wit and heart of the book will certainly bring a smile to readers’ faces. Readers who want another unique story that explores the topic of luck should read Fortune Falls by Jenny Goebel.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While in the Ozarks, Bicycle gets run over in a pig stampede. She “tried to jump off Clunk [her bike] and get out of the way, but one sock caught on the edge of a pedal . . . The dust started to swirl around her, blinding her. Then she was flying through the air and everything went dark.”
  • Bicycle acquires a new bike that has a red button on it. When she touches it, the bike’s screen says to not press the button because it will use the “missile launcher.” When this feature is accidentally used, the missile turns out to be a rubber snake.
  • Three teenage boys help Bicycle chase off a lady who tries to steal Bicycle’s bike. They “began pelting the lady in black with rotten tomatoes.”
  • Bicycle learns from Dr. Alvarado that the government had wanted Dr. Alvarado to build “tanks” and “explosives” rather than bicycles, but he turned them down.
  • A Girl Explorer in Yosemite National Park tries to forcibly paint Bicycle’s nails. When she ignores Bicycle’s request to stop, Bicycle “kicked the cell-phone girl in the shin.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Two older folks that Bicycle meets have a generations-long feud. One lady calls her rival a “dunderheaded lummox,” while he calls her an “old turkey.”
  • Profanity is used minimally. Profanity includes durned and fools.
  • Bicycle asks her friend, Chef Marie, about a horse. Chef Marie jokingly refers to the horse as “that fatty” because of how much he eats.

Supernatural

  • On the first night of her cross-country bike trip, Bicycle meets a ghost. She discovers this fact when she hands him a piece of chocolate and it “dropped right through his palm onto the ground.” The ghost would like to visit the Ozarks, and Bicycle lets him come along on her journey.
  • After losing her beloved bike, Clunk, Bicycle thinks of herself “like [she] was a centaur, one of those half-human, half-horse creatures you see in mythology books. But [she] used to be half-human, half-bicycle. Now [she’s] just a plain old regular human.”
  • In Kansas, Bicycle encounters an estate sale. The man who had owned it, Dr. Luck Alvarado, was obsessed with “studying luck, or fate, or destiny . . . Trying to understand how you can measure a person’s luck, whether you can alter it, and whether luck somehow controls the path of our lives.” Luck, and how luck works, is a main theme of the book.

Spiritual Content

  • The sisters at the Mostly Silent Monastery adopt Bicycle, and she is raised by retired Sister Wanda Magdalena. The Monastery was founded “centuries ago by a monk named Bob.”
  • Many of the sisters and monks break their Mostly Silent vows, and these infractions are played for comedic effect. For instance, Brother Otto nearly runs over a bright orange bike, and he exclaims, “Well, that’s fate!” It is then mentioned after, “Brother Otto simply wasn’t cut out to be Mostly Silent.”
  • After pelting Sister Wanda with rotten tomatoes, the teenage boys helping Bicycle say, “Holy cow—we’re breaking like seven different commandments!” They then flee the scene.
  • Bicycle and Sister Wanda get bagels from “the loneliest Jewish Deli in America.”
  • The event that Bicycle’s favorite cyclist is attending is called “The Blessing of the Bicycles.” Various religious leaders from many religions end up blessing every bicycle that comes to the event, praying in “many different languages” for safe journeys ahead.

by Alli Kestler

The Unbound

In the sequel to Victoria Schwab’s The Archived, Mackenzie Bishop’s adventures as a Keeper of the Archive continue. At the same time, she must balance going back to school and figure out her relationship with Wes, her best friend, and fellow Keeper. But Mackenzie is still haunted by Owen Chris Clarke, the History who almost killed her and nearly brought the end of the Archive. Owen frequently visits her all-too-realistic dreams, and Mackenzie starts to question her sanity as the Archive’s other mysteries close in around her.

But her dreams aren’t the only things haunting Mackenzie. A string of disappearances follows her path, where she was the last person to interact with each of the missing persons. Plus a mysterious man keeps watching her while she’s traveling to and from school. As if that wasn’t enough, she keeps blacking out and waking up with no recollection of what happened. Is a lack of sleep, or something more sinister haunting Mackenzie?

The Unbound is shades darker than The Archived both in atmosphere and content, which helps to enhance the mystery of the Archive and its employees. As the stakes rise, it becomes clear that the reader knows little more than Mackenzie, who struggles with the trauma of almost dying and being manipulated by Owen in the last installment. Some plot points revolve around Mackenzie’s parents, who fear that Mackenzie is depressed, self-harming, and acting out. However, much of the trouble that Mackenzie encounters is because of the Archive and her nightmares. By the end of the novel, Mackenzie is ready to heal her relationships with her parents, Wes, and, most importantly, herself.

The back-to-school setting helps balance the darkness of the Archive and Mackenzie’s nightmares. Although school is not a completely safe location for Mackenzie, school is the one truly normal place that she and Wes experience. At times, their friends provide comic relief and tell Mackenzie more about Wes, who is notoriously secretive.

School also helps bring Mackenzie out of her inner world and the world of the Archive. In many ways, having friends and going to school pulls Mackenzie back into the realm of the living. In both The Archived and The Unbound, Mackenzie spends her time straddling the line between living and dead, between the real and imagined. But in this installment, Mackenzie becomes a more seasoned Keeper while also learning how to live her life.

The Unbound is an exciting follow-up to the darkly magical The Archived. The end neatly wraps up this book and provides a bridge to a potential third book. This book does continue the adventures from The Archived, so The Archived needs to be read first. This book is a must-read because Schwab’s creative prose wonderfully captures the world of the Archive and Mackenzie’s journey, through interesting discussions about grief, trauma, and the scars that we all carry. The dead never truly leave us, but as Mackenzie learns, sometimes it’s necessary to let go and embrace the living as tightly as we can.

Sexual Content

  • Mackenzie and another Keeper, Wes, are friends who spend a lot of time haplessly flirting, though Mackenzie insists that they aren’t dating. However, they do act like they’re dating and Wes sleeps in Mackenzie’s bed. Mackenzie narrates, “I catch his hand, music flaring through me as I draw him to the bed.” They do not have sex.
  • Since Mackenzie and other Keepers have the power to “read” people and objects, another person’s touch tends to be really noisy and overwhelming for Mackenzie. Wes kisses her regardless, and she describes, “The way his lips smiled against my jaw, his now-familiar noise—that cacophony of drum and bass—pressing through me with his touch before I could find the strength to tell him no.”
  • Cash kisses Mackenzie. She says, “His lips are warm and soft, and my head fills with jazz and laughter; for an instant, it feels sweet and safe and simple. But my life is none of those things, and I realize as the kiss ends that I don’t want to pretend it is, and that there is only one person I want to kiss me like this.”
  • Wes and Mackenzie kiss again. Mackenzie describes, “I kiss him, not gently but desperately.” The description lasts for a page.

Violence

  • Mackenzie has frequent nightmares about Owen, the History who tried to kill her in the previous novel. Mackenzie says, “I dream of him dragging the jagged side of his blade across my skin as he murmurs that the ‘real’ Mackenzie Bishop must be hidden somewhere under all that flesh.” This nightmare happens often, and he usually stabs her in the dream, “[driving] the knife forward into [her] chest.”
  • Mackenzie’s little brother Ben “was killed last year on his way to school” in a hit-and-run. His death plagues the family.
  • Wes has a rough home life, and Cash describes Wes’ parents’ divorce as “brutal.” When Wes retreated for a year, not contacting his friends at all, and then returned, Cash gave him a “black eye” for abandoning them. They are still good friends.
  • Mackenzie dislikes the family therapist because she assumes incorrect things about Mackenzie and she convinced Mackenzie’s mother to throw out Ben’s stuff after he died. Mackenzie recalls once that “the one time we met face-to-face, she saw a scratch on my wrist from a pissed-off History and was convinced I did it to myself to feel things.”
  • On her way home from school, two guys attack Mackenzie with a pipe and a knife. She blacks out and wakes up to the two men laying on the ground, “covered in blood.” Mackenzie has no recollection of what she’s done. She notes that one man’s “nose is broken. Blood is gushing down his face, and one of his legs looks like it’s bent at the wrong angle.”
  • Mackenzie runs over a jogger with her bike by accident. “The collision is a tangle of handles and wheels and limbs, and we both go down hard on the concrete.” Other than scrapes and scratches, both are ok.
  • A girl named Bethany goes missing, and Mackenzie learns from her classmates that Bethany’s home life was rough. Her mom had remarried and the situation was turbulent. One girl notes that “sleazy dude [the stepfather] has been there all of a week when he’s home alone with Bethany and takes a go at her . . . She did what any self-respecting Hyde schoolgirl would do. She punched him in the face. But when she tried to tell her mom what happened, she said it was Bethany’s fault.”
  • Someone attacked Cash, and he shows up to school with a “cut beside his eye [and] a bruise darkening his jaw.”
  • Owen, the History that tried to kill Mackenzie in the previous novel, is back, though Mackenzie doesn’t know how. He attacks her at school and kills a passerby. Mackenzie describes, “I hit the ground and roll over and up onto my feet again as he lunges forward and I lunge back. Or at least I mean to, but I misjudge the distance and the toppled shelves come up against my shoulders an instant before he forces the bat beneath my chin.” This continues for several pages.
  • Owen kills one of the Crew, another Archive employee, at the dance. The Crew “crumples, and before he can recover, Owen takes his head in his hands and snaps his neck.” A fight scene with Owen, Wes, Mackenzie, and several other Crew continues for several pages after this death.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Mackenzie takes medication for her headache and then promptly blacks out. When she wakes, “the drinking glass is lying in glittering pieces on the counter, my hand wrapped around the largest shard. Blood runs between my fingers where I’ve gripped it and down my other arm where I’ve carved a single deep line.” She has no recollection of what happened.
  • Mackenzie’s mother drugs Mackenzie to make her sleep. Mackenzie describes the moment when she realizes that her mom slipped a sleeping pill into her drink. She says, “At first I think I’m about to have another blackout, but those happen fast, and this is slow like syrup.”

Language

  • Dallas, the therapist, says to one Crew member, “I’d tell you not to be such an ass, Zachary, but it would be a waste of my breath.”

Supernatural

  • Mackenzie is a Keeper who returns wandering Histories, or ghosts, back to the Archive. The Archive is “a library of the dead, vast and warm, wood and stone and colored glass, and all throughout, a sense of peace.” Mackenzie travels between worlds and encounters quite a few dead people.

Spiritual Content

  • none

by Alli Kestler

Stormcaster

Pirate Evan Strangward has been hunted by Empress Celestine for most of his life. Being able to control the weather can only protect him for so long. Now, he’s looking to the Fells for allies to take the fight to the Empress. Evan must warn the queendom that Empress Celestine and her bloodsworn army won’t wait forever to invade.

After four years in Arden, Ash sul’Han is on his way back to his home in the Fells. It’s a chance to see his mother and sister, and all the friends he left behind. But once he finds out his sister, Lyss, was taken by Empress Celestine, he’ll stop at nothing to get her back and save the royal line. Ash might not trust Evan, but he needs the pirate’s help if he wants to infiltrate Celestine’s stronghold and end the war before it gets out of hand.

Stormcaster, the third entry in Chima’s Shattered Realms series, is a wonderful installment in this epic tale. The story primarily follows Evan Strangward and Ash sul’Han. Stormcaster goes back in time to show the beginning of Empress Celestine’s rise to power, as well as Evan’s reason for opposing her. Destin Karn’s backstory is also explored. While this backtracking is extensive, it’s a well-thought-out and interesting addition to the story.

When the backstories are caught up to the present, the rest of the main characters are reintroduced. Ash sul’Han, who was absent from the previous novel, is finally back in the picture. When he makes it home to his queen mother, he finds the world completely changed. Ash is a lovable character, who has matured from his rebellious stage. Now he is willing to do whatever it takes to protect his family. As he struggles to work his way back into a world he doesn’t recognize, Ash embodies the themes of maturity and loss.

Overall, Stormcaster is a fast-paced ride. Since most of the main characters are back in action, each chapter shows the reader another part of the world, creating a fleshed-out and believable setting. Luckily, the shifting views are easy to follow. The story focuses on bringing together most of the main characters, so they can plan how to stop Empress Celestine. Will Ash finally reunite with his sister? Will Evan be able to take down the Empress that’s been hunting him? Readers will find out in the final installment, Deathcaster.

Sexual Content

  • When Evan and his shipmate Brody look at Empress Celestine, Brody thinks she’s beautiful. Evan notices Brody “was gazing at the young captain in a way that he’d never looked at Evan.” Later, Evan thinks about his love life. “There were other, less complicated lovers in the ports on both sides of the Indio, boys who offered sweet kisses and warm embraces.”
  • Evan and Destin have an ongoing romance. While sitting close together, “Destin put his hand on Evan’s arm, setting his heart to flopping like a beached fish.” However, Destin is afraid of love. “He’d learned his lesson well—that love was as risky as mercy.” Evan thinks, “Do not fall for this dangerous, moody, mercurial boy. It will lead you to heartbreak or worse.”
  • After confiding in each other, Evan “gripped Destin’s coat, arched his body up, and kissed him firmly on the lips.”
  • Destin’s parents have a terrible relationship. Destin tells Evan that his father “kept pounding on my mother—trying to get her to admit to cheating on him. He didn’t want to believe I was really his.” Later on, Evan asks, “If he didn’t love her, then why couldn’t he just set her aside and marry someone else.”
  • When Ash’s mother, Raisa, speaks about her marriage, she says, “I’m glad, now, that I married young, so that Han and I had more time together. It was twenty-five years, but it just flew by.” Later, she tells Ash, “Falling in love in wartime is chancy, just like having children. We’ve had a lot of pain, but a lot of joy, all the same.”
  • Madeleine, younger sister to the new King Jarat, says, “They were talking about all the women they’d had, and would have. Jarat said Father never bedded a wolf, but he would, and even a wolf could be tamed.”

Violence

  • Destin and Evan talk about killing. Destin says, “Killing is always personal. It’s the second-most-intimate thing that can happen between two people.”
  • When Destin and Evan are captured by Destin’s father, the two are forced to fight each other. Evan punches Destin, and then, “Destin somehow wrenched free of his captors, lurched forward, wrapped his hands around Evan’s neck, and began to squeeze.”
  • Adrian talks with his mother, and thinks, “Your daughter Hanalea went into the borderlands, and was murdered. Your son went south, and became a murderer.”
  • Hal fights members of Celestine’s bloodsworn warriors. During the fight with a horselord, Hal “drove his sword beneath his rib cage, all the way to the hilt.” Later, Hal cuts off a man’s head. “The head splashed into the water, but the body continued to stagger around, spraying blood from its severed neck until it tripped over a rock slab and went down.”
  • One of Celestine’s bloodsworn cuts down an old man. “It seemed that one of them wasn’t moving fast enough, because his horselord guard unslung his blade and cut him down.”
  • Destin says his father beat his mother. Destin’s father, “beat her all the time. Half to death, once or twice. Sometimes at court, but mostly at his keep on the Bittersweet. He kept a full time mage healer to patch her up again.”
  • After Evan calls Destin’s father a monster, Destin says, “Oh, he is. He started beating me, too, once I was too big to ignore and still too small to defend myself. . . If I had to do it over again, I’d have opened his throat and stabbed him through the heart with a poisoned blade and cut off his head and hung it over my door.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Hal talks to his former subordinate, Bellamy, at a tavern. Bellamy orders a “Small beer. I’m on duty in a little while. On second thought, I’ll have bingo. A double.”
  • Lyss bumps into Breon. Breon tells her, “There’s a lot of rum around, if that’s appealing.”
  • Destin thinks about King Jarat and his entourage. “They were more than happy to take the young king under their tutelage in the study of drinking, hunting, dicing, wenching, and swordplay.”
  • One of King Jarat’s loyal men comes home drunk one night. Destin sees him as he “stumbled to the garderobe and unbuttoned his breeches, hurrying to unburden himself of excess ale.”

Language

  • Hell is used a few times. For example, when Evan first meets Destin, Destin tells him, “To hell with your bloody books.”
  • Damn is used occasionally. For example, when Evan thinks about his job as a shipmaster, he thinks, “He was damned by his own success.”
  • Bastard is used a few times. Once, “When Destin inquired about Lucky Faros, saying he’d heard good things about the young captain, Kadar had informed him that Faros was an ungrateful, greedy, unreliable bastard he should steer clear of.”
  • Kadar, the streetlord of Evan’s city, tells Destin, “Go suck the Breaker’s balls.”

Supernatural

  • Wizards, also known as mages, are commonplace.
  • Wizards and mages produce a power called “flash” constantly. Destin describes flash, “like a kind of magical vapor that dissipates as soon as it appears. Amulets allow us to accumulate enough to work significant charms. Power transfers to it through skin, when you touch it.”
  • Destin talks about amulets. “They’re used to store and control magical energy, something we call ‘flash.’ There are other magical tools as well, such as talismans to protect against magical attacks, all made by upland clans.”
  • A blood mage is a type of mage that uses blood in their spells. Brody, Evan’s subordinate, says, “They make people drink their blood, and turn them into slaves.”
  • Destin is a mage. Evan notes that Destin “had an entire menu of nuanced magic he could work using his amulet and specific words spoken in the wetland language. Power including immobilization, persuasion, interrogation, and the like.”
  • In Arden, magic is considered a sin. Destin tells Evan, “Back home, magic is considered to be the work of the Breaker, a misfortune, nonetheless, can be put to use for the greater glory of the crown.” He later says, “A mage is a precarious thing to be in the wetland empire, because of the church. The king finds us useful, but he is as changeable as spring weather when it comes to the tension between magic and religion.”
  • Evan is a stormlord, a mage that uses weather magic. When Destin attacked Evan, “A storm surge of magic welled up in him, and electricity crackled across his skin, as if the power that seethed beneath it was leaking out.” Later, Evan “didn’t consciously reach for power, but it came unbidden. Small whirlwinds erupted all around his feet, sucked up a mixture of sawdust and straw, flung it in the soldier’s face.”
  • Jenna is one of the magemarked, a group of people that have unique abilities even among mages. Destin tells Evan about Jenna’s abilities: “She claims to be clairvoyant—that she sometimes sees images of the future, sees people as they really are, or can tell when someone is lying.” Later, he also says, “She heals quickly, and is resistant to flame. In fact, she develops a kind of armor for protection.”

Spiritual Content

  • Kadar, Evan’s former employer, thinks about his gods. He thinks, “It seemed that Omari Kadar, street lord of the Tarvos waterfront, had been abandoned by the gods.”
  • Evan is worshipped by his Stormborn pirate crew. “In the space of four years he’d gone from being a kind of shipboard mascot to being ‘Lord Strangward,’ the central deity of a Stormborn cult.”
  • When Evan and Destin get a new ship, Evan wants to perform a ceremony to the gods. Destin’s mother says, “I hope you don’t plan to sacrifice a goat and make us drink the blood. The goats, I need.”
  • When Ash tells Lila about his mistakes, she says, “If you want absolution, go to a speaker or priest. I’m hardly in a position to give you advice.”
  • Ash’s mother tells him, “Some speakers say that we must wait to be rewarded in the next life.”

by Jonathan Planman

To Fly Among the Stars: The Hidden Story of the Fight for Women Astronauts

It’s the 1960s, and the United States and the Soviet Union are locked in a heated race to launch the first human into space. NASA selects seven men, superstar test pilots, and former air fighters, for their first astronaut class – the Mercury 7. The men endure hours of difficult tests, taunting by fellow pilots, constant media attention, and the public pressure of representing America in a whole new frontier.

But away from the media buzz, there are others quietly fighting for the same opportunity. Thirteen women, accomplished air racers, test pilots, and flight instructors, are putting themselves through those same grueling tests, hoping to defy the era’s boundaries for women and earn a seat aboard a space capsule themselves.

To Fly Among the Stars tells the story of seven men who hoped to ride rockets and thirteen women who dared ask for a fair chance to soar to the stars. Unlike many books, To Fly Among the Stars takes a look at the Mercury 7’s heroic deeds as well as their flaws. Some of the men’s partying, squabbling, and flirting ways were a stark contrast to the women’s behavior. The women had to overcome many obstacles in order to become pilots, including having to look like proper ladies as they flew. Even though these thirteen women were never able to realize their dreams, they took the first steps in breaking the glass ceiling for female astronauts.

Countless individuals worked behind the scenes to land the first man on the moon. While To Fly Among the Stars focuses on Mercury 7 and the 13 women who dreamed of going into space, the large group of characters makes it difficult to keep track of each individual. Often, a chapter will have a few paragraphs on one person and then jump to another person. The shifting topics make the story confusing.

To Fly Among the Stars highlights the brave women who dreamed of going into space and focuses on the discrimination they faced. While this is a valid point, the Mercury 7’s mistakes and bad behavior also become a focal point. The author states that “Accepting women as astronauts would mean that NASA—and all its feverish fans—would be forced to acknowledge that female aviators could do exactly what male aviators could do. And that might threaten the heroic, ultramasculine, tough-guy status the astronauts enjoyed.”

Black and white photographs help tell the story and the back of the book contains a two-page glossary. The difficult vocabulary, quickly changing topics, and the vast list of historical people make To Fly Among the Stars best for strong readers. The book would be excellent to use as a source for a research paper or a school project; however, those who are not interested in the history of flight will find the book difficult to slog through.

 Sexual Content

  • After Shepard went up in a space capsule, he had to go to a briefing. “During one interview, a pretty secretary delivered Shepard a cup of coffee. As she left, one witness reported watching ‘Shepard’s brain get up, leave the room, and follow her down the hall.’”
  • At a party, two astronauts performed a racist routine. “It was a cruel characterization of both homosexuals and Hispanics.”

Violence

  • Bill Odom, an air racer, “pushed his little green plane to nearly 400 miles per hour before losing control and punching right through a suburban home, killing not just himself but also a resident woman and her baby.”
  • Pilot James Vosyka died during an air race. “A wing on his racing plane collapsed on a hard turn, and his aircraft slammed into the ground in front of 12,000 spectators.”
  • Several times, the story talks about pilots shooting down MiG’s. For example, Wally Schirra “went on to shoot down another MiG in Korea.”
  • Many women joined the WASP in order to fly and help in the war effort. However, some men didn’t approve of women flying airplanes and played dangerous pranks on the women. After one prank, “Betty Taylor Wood’s airplane slammed into the ground near a runway, killing both Wood and her passenger. . . Someone had dumped sugar into the plane’s gas tank.”
  • During a training exercise, a pilot “ejected but died when he and his parachute slammed into the hard desert sand.”
  • Rankin had to eject during a high-altitude flight. “Immediately after exploding through the glass canopy of his cockpit, Rankin was overcome by the searing, stabbing cold. . .. His exposed skin froze almost instantly before going blissfully numb. And then the real pain started. . . His abdomen swelled. His skin stretched. Blood sprayed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Rankin made it to the ground alive but barely.”
  • When an engineer joked about astronaut Shepard’s bad attitude, “Shepard picked up an ashtray and whipped it at the engineer’s face. He missed his target by a hair.”
  • Several astronauts were killed “during a practice launch when a spark caught inside their Apollo 1 space capsule. Three men burned to death right there on the launch pad while dozens of ground crew members sputtered and coughed and tried frantically to claw the capsule door open.”

      Drugs and Alcohol

  • John Gleen was a military pilot who had “flown angry, confident, and even–dangerously—rip-roaring drunk.
  • A woman pilot had to listen as “a drunk senator slurred his sexist judgments.”
  • A woman pilot was married to an alcoholic. While the woman was in astronaut testing, her husband called her every night. “He was drunk, angry, and cruel.”
  • Some astronauts partied at Cocoa Beach. “They drank too much alcohol and pulled elaborate pranks on one another. They flirted with women who weren’t their wives.”
  • The astronauts liked the pool at Cocoa Beach and the manager “went to great lengths to keep their parties stocked with alcohol, girls, and food, and free from the press.”
  • One of the astronauts had to convince a reporter not to print a photograph of a “drunk astronaut getting frisky with a strange woman.”
  • As training continued, “Shepard’s booze-fueled hijinks were becoming more public. . .” Shepard “was clamoring onto nightclub stages, drunkenly giggling racist jokes into microphones.”

Language

  • After a flight, a pilot “flipped the jet the middle finger.”
  • NASA was working hard “on new procedures to prevent the next guy from pulling another boneheaded screw up.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • During a launch, someone “said a silent prayer for Glenn’s success.”
  • Sunsets “made Glenn think of his Christian faith and miracles and the mysteries of existence.”
  • Millions of Americans watched Glenn’s mission. As they watched, they were “praying and fretting. . . They pleaded for his safety. Oh please, oh please.”
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