Icon: Diverse Characters

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

In 1907, the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania became one of the most innovative football teams in the United States. Lead by Ivy League graduate Pop Warner and star player Jim Thorpe, this team would go on to challenge the most prominent football teams of the day, including Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.

This narrative nonfiction story highlights the history of football and of the United States’ direct involvement in the mistreatment of Native Americans. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first government-run boarding school meant to assimilate Native Americans into white society. The school opened after the Black Hills war and centuries of violent conflict. Native American children were taken from their homes to live in military-style schools, where they were not allowed to dress in traditional Native American clothing nor speak their native languages. This practice became standard in the U.S., effectively cutting children off from their parents and their cultures. This is the context that surrounded Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School football team. It is a history unknown by most and not widely discussed.

Undefeated weaves the history of football and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team into the United States’ treatment of indigenous people. Sheinkin masterfully presents history without holding back on the grim reality of boarding schools or the overwhelming obstacles Native American students faced both on and off the football field. Sheinkin effectively balances a creative narrative nonfiction style with more strait-laced historical aspects. These two facets create an engaging view of a lesser-known aspect of one of the United States’ favorite sports without sacrificing accuracy or becoming boring.

The football-heavy parts of this story delve into the danger the players faced before football was modernized. Sheinkin makes the game descriptions digestible even to those who don’t know football or the sport’s history well. Undefeated takes readers through the highs and lows of practices and games, giving readers the feeling of being there in real-time. Ultimately, Undefeated shows a love for football that is untarnished by time.

Undefeated is not a typical football story about the underdog team fighting for first place. The story is far more complicated and interesting, and it breathes life into its historical cast of characters. History rarely comes with clean-cut lessons, but Undefeated presents the need for perseverance when the going gets tough. The world that Jim Thorpe and his classmates from the Carlisle Indian School lived in was unfair to them, and their stories deserve recognition in American history. Their legacy lives on in one of America’s favorite pastimes and their influence upon football will carry forward for generations to come.

Sexual Content

  • Jim Thorpe liked classmate Iva Miller and told her upon meeting her that, “‘You’re a cute little thing.’ Iva was not impressed.”

Violence

  • Jim Thorpe attempts to try out for the football team, but Pop Warner sends him out to get tackled by the current varsity players. No one can touch Jim, though, because he’s incredibly agile and fast. Warner yells, “Hit him down so hard he doesn’t get up!”
  • Football-related violence occurs throughout the book. One memorable line comes from the first official American football game in 1869. During the game, “One of the Rutgers men, George Large, took a blow to the head and came up woozy. He stayed in the game. For the rest of his life, Large would boast that he was the first man ever injured playing American football.”
  • The football-related violence is heightened because early football had few real rules. In one description, “[The play] wasn’t over until the man with the ball quit moving. So while he squirmed and wriggled forward, more defenders piled on, and plays ended in massive, writhing mounds, inside of which guys would throw elbows and knees, scratch and bite, spit and choke, until the refs could untangle the heap.”
  • When Jim was young, his father Hiram “strode into the river in his boots, grabbed [Jim], hauled him out to deep water, and dropped him in the current. Hiram then waded back to the bank and watched.” This was Hiram’s way of teaching Jim how to “man up.”
  • Hiram carried “bullets in his belt.”
  • The story discusses the historical treatment of Native Americans by the United States government, including the Indian Removal Act of 1830. For instance, “President Andrew Jackson explained the objective in bluntly racist language. Native Americans were surrounded by what Jackson called ‘a superior race.’” Describing the Trail of Tears, Sheinkin writes “an estimated four thousand people died of disease, cold, and starvation before the nightmare journey ended.”
  • Of a town near Jim’s birthplace, one stagecoach driver said you could, “stay for half an hour and see a man killed.”
  • Losing one of Jim Thorpe’s childhood games came with a price. Anyone who fell behind or lost had to endure the slapping machine. He describes it as, “This consisted of scampering on hands and knees between the legs of others in the game, assisted by a brisk paddling.”
  • Jim hiked 23 miles home from school and Hiram “gave Jim a whipping” and took him straight back to school. This happens several times, as Jim tended to skip school and return home.
  • A player from Georgia died during a football game. The player “hit the ground headfirst . . . The blood drained from his face. His eyes were open, his lips quivering. A doctor ran onto the field and diagnosed a fractured skull . . .  he died the next morning.” Similar injuries and deaths are described in similar detail.
  • Thorpe and two of his teammates were going to the baseball field when a large white man stepped in their path. The white man said, “When a white man approaches, you get off the sidewalk and get into the street.” In response, Thorpe punched the man in the face, and the trio “walked around [the white man’s] fallen body to the baseball field.” They then “spent that night in jail.”
  • The Carlisle Indian School staff mistreated students, and the 1914 Congress investigated the claims. Students “came forward to testify about skimpy meals for non-athletes and cruel treatment, including beatings, by teachers.”
  • Coach Pop Warner reported that “If a player was too good-natured or easygoing . . . the coach would tell one of his own mates to sock him in the jaw when he wasn’t looking and then blame it on the other team so as to make him mad.”
  • As a child, Pop Warner stood up to his bullies. “One of the class bullies grabbed Pop’s hat, tossed it into a slushy puddle, and stomped on it . . . In a burst of rage, [Warner] pounced on the bully, knocked him down, and started pummeling him.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jim grew up near Keokuk Falls. The story was that “it was a place where even the pigs got drunk—a whiskey distillery near town dumped used corn mash behind the building, and hogs gorged on it and staggered down the dirt streets.”
  • After a game in Chicago, “the [Carlisle] players collapsed onto couches at their hotel and lit up cigars.”
  • Pop Warner smokes during practices with the Carlisle players.
  • The Carlisle football players were allowed to drink at the local bars, which “weren’t supposed to serve Carlisle students, but exceptions were made for football players.”
  • Jim Thorpe occasionally smokes cigars.
  • After a game, “Thorpe and Welch sat together with glasses of beer.”
  • Thorpe and his daughter Charlotte told stories one night “over drinks.”

Language

  • Profanity is limited. Derogatory terms include “sissy” and “crippled.”
  • Many derogatory names are referenced in quotes toward Native Americans. For instance, the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School fought in land disputes against Native Americans on behalf of the U.S. He said, “I had concluded . . . that as an army officer I was there to deal with atrocious aborigines.” In another example, newspapers referred to the Carlisle football team wins as “scalpings” and “massacres.” This occurs somewhat often throughout the book.
  • Pop Warner’s childhood nickname was Butter— “It was not a compliment . . .  [His classmates] pelted his broad backside with beans shot through straws, and pebbles launched from slingshots.”
  • When the first group of Native American students was brought to the Carlisle Indian School, “the townspeople waved their arms and made grunting sounds—mimicking their idea of Indian behavior.”
  • Pop Warner had a colorful vocabulary and used it during some practices with the Carlisle players, who did not appreciate his rudeness. The book quotes Pop as saying such things as, “Play @#$& football!” and “What in the %&*# you think you’re doin’?” It does not use the actual swear words.
  • At one point, Thorpe says to Pop “Aw, hell . . . what’s the use of going through ‘em when I can run around ‘em?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Alli Kestler

The Crossover (Graphic Novel)

Twelve-year-old Josh and his twin JB Bell are the kings of the basketball court. Untouchable and unstoppable—the sons of former professional basketball player Chuck “Da Man” Bell couldn’t be anything less than excellent. But when Alexis walks into the twins’ lives and steals JB’s heart, Josh is left without his best friend by his side. Meanwhile, the boys’ father’s health is on the decline, despite Chuck’s utter denial. Josh and JB must deal with the consequences of everyone’s actions—including their own.

The illustrations in the graphic novel, The Crossover, bring the story to life. Illustrator Dawud Anyabwile’s comic book style illustrations match the high-pace action of the novel, especially during the basketball scenes. Most of the illustrations are in black and white with detailed shading, but Anyabwile frequently utilizes orange to help features pop off the page. The text changes in size and shape which helps to capture the rhythm of the poem. Even though this is a graphic novel, the poetic language makes The Crossover a good choice to read aloud.

The pages vary in the amount of text and pictures. Some pages have full-bodied scenes with a few sentences, while others have smaller pictures with mostly narration or dialogue. Alexander’s free-verse poetry moves very well and, thus, lends itself to these variations in page styles. The text placement only serves to emphasize parts of the story. Even though the graphic novel has some difficult vocabulary, the words are often defined and the repetition of the words allows the reader to understand the term. Readers will learn new vocabulary, but the more advanced vocabulary is balanced with realistic dialogue and trash talk during the basketball scenes.

The words themselves rarely vary from the original book, though the verse orientation on the page serves to emphasize different phrases. Those who have read the original text will still find that the graphic novel conveys characters’ moods and personalities in different ways due to the addition of illustrations. Josh, JB, and their friends and family are all vibrant characters and the pictures give them new life and add to the reading experience.

The Crossover was already a moving story, but the story benefits greatly from the addition of illustrations. The illustrations enhance the characters’ emotions and the story’s stakes feel heightened. The story speaks truths about grief, love, and basketball, and the pictures serve to bring those wonderful themes to another dimension. Newcomers and fans of the original story will find this edition to be a worthy addition to their shelves.

Sexual Content

  • Josh and JB’s dad, Chuck “Da Man” Bell, tells his sons about how back in the day, he “kissed/ so many pretty ladies.”
  • Josh says that the only reason why JB has been “acting all religious” is because classmate “Kim Bazemore kissed him in Sunday/ school.”
  • Josh does his homework while “Vondie and JB/ debate whether the new girl/ is a knockout or just beautiful,/ a hottie or a cutie,/ a lay-up or a dunk.”
  • Josh teases JB and asks if “Miss Sweet Tea” (Alexis) is his girlfriend. JB dodges the question. However, it is clear that he likes her a lot because “his eyes get all spacey/ whenever she’s around,/ and sometimes when she’s not.”
  • Chuck faints, and his wife, Crystal, demands that he see a doctor. Chuck refuses, and they argue. In an attempt to diffuse the tension between them, he says, “Come kiss me.”
  • After Crystal and Chuck stop arguing about Chuck’s health in the bedroom, Josh narrates, “And then there is silence, so I put the/ pillow over my head/ because when they stop talking,/ I know what that means./ Uggghh!” This happens a couple times throughout the book, though it is never illustrated.
  • Alexis wants to know “am I [JB’s] girlfriend or not?”
  • Josh likes Alexis romantically as well, but JB doesn’t know that.
  • JB and Alexis walk into the cafeteria, and she’s “holding his/ precious hand.”
  • JB and Alexis kiss in the library, and Josh sees them. The kiss is illustrated.
  • JB tells Alexis “how much she’s/ the apple of/ his eye/ and that he wants/ to peel her/ and get under her skin.”

Violence

  • JB plays with Josh’s locks of hair. Josh “slap[s] him/ across his bald head/ with [Josh’s] jockstrap.”
  • JB accidentally cuts off five of Josh’s locks of hair. Josh gives JB several noogies over the course of a few interactions.
  • Josh nearly breaks JB’s nose with a hard pass during a basketball game. He does it on purpose because he’s upset with JB, and Josh is suspended from the team. The description is only a couple of words long.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Crystal’s younger brother “smokes cigars.”

Language

  • There are a few rude terms used occasionally by the younger characters. Some terms include crunking, stupid, and jerk.
  • When Josh narrates his plays in games, he talks big about his game and this leads to him occasionally threatening physical contact during the game. For instance, Josh says in part of his beginning speech, “Man, take this THUMPING.”
  • Josh’s nickname is “Filthy McNasty.”
  • JB suggests a bet against Josh. Josh responds with, “You can cut my locks off,/ but if I win the bet,/ you have to walk around/ with no pants on/ and no underwear/ at school tomorrow.”
  • JB responds with, “if you win,/ I will moon/ that nerdy group/ of sixth-graders/ that sit/ near our table/ at lunch?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • JB only went to one basketball summer camp because “he didn’t want to miss Bible/ school.”
  • The Bells go to church on Sundays before basketball. Josh says, “When the prayers end/ and the doors open/ the Bells hit center stage,” meaning the basketball court. Josh sometimes mentions team prayers or praying to win games.

by Alli Kestler

 

 

Patina

Ever since Patina and Maddy’s mom got diabetes and lost her legs, their lives have changed dramatically. Now they go to the fancy Chester Academy and live with Aunt Emily and Uncle Tony. Patina has fears other than trying to fit in at her school, though. She’s afraid “The Sugar” will take her mom from her too. Patina is finding that no matter how fast she runs, she can’t outrun her fears.

Even worse, Patina’s attitude has slipped, and Coach is making her run in a relay with the people she argues with. Depending on her teammates, especially the ones she doesn’t get along with, seems, well, impossible. When her aunt and Maddy get in a car crash, Patina realizes that depending on others is necessary. When her uncle steps in, it only shows further that she isn’t alone and doesn’t have to be the parent to her younger sister—or herself. She doesn’t have to do everything alone, including the relay. It’s okay to wait for the handoff, both in track and in life.

In the second installment of Reynolds’s Defenders Track Team series, Patina takes over as narrator. Tragedies shape her life: when she was young, one morning her dad never woke up. Her mother then developed Type II diabetes, or what she calls “The Sugar,” and lost her legs. Now, Patina lives with Emily and Tony, and although they’re good people, Patina misses her parents. For someone with her history, it’s no wonder why Patina runs with a chip on her shoulder. Anything less than first place, as far as she’s concerned, is losing. Because she runs for Ma and Maddy, she feels that anything less than first is her failing her family.

Patina is intense and often confrontational, but her fierce loyalty and love for her family make her relatable. With the help of her coaches and teammates, she is able to let go of her independent streak enough to let others in. Patina shows that the world needn’t be entirely on anyone’s shoulders. Not all burdens, especially emotional ones, should be carried alone.

Reynolds has a knack for writing unique characters in specific situations that, despite their specificity, contain universal themes. The power of each book in this series resides within the characters’ capacities to overcome their daunting situations. Patina knows her mom is living on borrowed time and that one day, she will lose her, too. What makes Patina strong is that she’s able to keep running, and she runs for her mom, her sister, her adoptive family, and her teammates. Family, blood-related or otherwise, remains a key component of the Defenders Track Team series, and particularly in Patina’s life.

Patina is a strong sequel to Ghost. The returning cast and newcomers blend together to create a realistic environment for Patina and her cohorts to flourish on and off the track. Track fans and non-sport readers alike will find that this story places importance on friendship and family. Patina’s story emphasizes one of the really beautiful parts of life: no one is ever really alone.

Sexual Content

  • Sunny likes Patina. They stretch together at practice and Sunny stares at her legs. Patina thinks, “Was Sunny checkin’ me out? If he was, now was not the time. Also…no…gross…stop it…right now…seriously.”
  • Cotton, Patina’s friend, likes Lu, who is one of the other runners. Cotton says to Patina, “’You think if I wink at Lu on the track, he’ll wink back?’”

Violence

  • Patina and Krystal, another runner, get into an argument while practicing the relay. Krystal says to Patina, “What makes you better? Your white mother?” To which Patty goes on a page-long rant that ends with her saying, “Better watch who you playin’ with.” Coach Whit “grabbed [Patina] by the arm and dragged [her] off the track to the gate.”
  • Patina has a temper. When she gets mad, she will imagine “breaking invisible teacups.” This is her way of dealing with grief and stress.
  • Patina thinks that she was “about to give Krystal a good old-fashioned Beverly Jones Funky Zone beat-down.” She does not do this.
  • Patina teases Lu, another runner, about Cotton. Then Patina ays to Lu, “Don’t deny my girl, Lu, or I’ll leave you laid out across this track.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Patina’s aunt Emily is on “heavy-duty pain meds” after her surgery and is a little loopy.

Language

  • Stupid, fool, and shut up are all used frequently.
  • Of two girls in Patina’s class (Taylor and Teylor/TeeTee), Patina thinks, “They’re like attached at the ponytail and call themselves T-N-T, which is funny because most of the time I just wished they’d explode.”
  • Patina has names for the different types of kids in her school. She thinks, “The mess of hair-flippers, the wrath-letes (kids feel like it’s a sport to make everyone’s life miserable), the know-it-alls, the know-nothins, the hush-hushes…The YMBCs (You Might Be Cuckoo)- the girls who wear all black and cover their backpacks with buttons and pins- and the girls whose boyfriends, brothers, and fathers all wear khaki pants.”
  • At one point, Patina’s nicknames for Taylor and Teylor are “Bony McPhony and her cousin Lie-Lie.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Patina’s mom (Ma) references God and Jesus frequently. There is a scene in their church where Patina says that Ma yells, “Yes, Lawd! Yessssss!” After, Patina thinks that Ma is in a good mood because “Ma’s all high off Jesus.”
  • Ma prays for people throughout the book. In one instance, she says to Patina, “You know I pray for you. I pray God put something special in your legs, in your muscles so you can run and not grow weary.”
  • Patina thinks church is “a whole lot of talk about grace and faith and mercy and salvation, which, to me, all just equaled shouting, clapping, and singing in a building built to be a sweatbox.”
  • Patina explains Ma’s religiousness. She thinks, “after Dad passed, that’s when Ma got all churchy-churchy. The beginning of catching the spirit and dancing in the aisle and ‘praying of peace in the eye of the storm.’”

by Alli Kestler

Love Like Sky

G-baby and her younger sister, Peaches, are still getting used to their “blended-up” family. They live with Mama and Frank out in the suburbs, and they haven’t seen their real daddy much since he married Millicent. G-baby misses her best friend back in Atlanta and is crushed that her glamorous new stepsister, Tangie, wants nothing to do with her.

G-baby is so preoccupied with earning Tangie’s approval that she isn’t there for her own litter sister when she needs her most. Peaches gets sick—really sick. Suddenly, Mama and Daddy are arguing like they did before the divorce, and even the doctors in the hospital don’t know how to help Peaches get better.

It’s up to G-baby to make things right. She knows Peaches can be strong again if she can only see that their family’s love for her is really like sky.

Youngblood creates a cast of realistic characters and tackles themes that are relevant. The story is told from G-baby’s point of view, and many readers will relate to G-baby’s difficulty figuring out how to navigate life in a blended family. G-baby has an array of feelings that often interfere with her ability to think logically. Instead, she is often overcome by anger and guilt. For instance, G-baby clearly loves her little sister, Peaches; however, when Peaches gets sick, G-baby feels guilty for not treating Peaches better.

Love Like Sky tackles many themes, including death, divorce, stepparents, racial inequality, peaceful protest, police brutality, growing up, and more. The story’s many themes are undeveloped and often do not feel like a natural part of the story. The story gives some examples of police brutality, but all of the events are relayed to G-baby. This allows the content to be appropriate for middle school readers. Love Like Sky’s many themes may spark readers’ interest in learning more about each topic.

The story’s main conflict is G-baby’s changing family. Throughout the story, G-baby discovers that even though her family may argue, they will always support each other to the best of their ability in the end. Despite the positive message, G-baby is not necessarily a likable character because she is sneaky, self-centered, and mean to those around her. When G-baby interacts with her best friend Nikki, the two spend so much time arguing, keeping secrets, and being snarky that it is difficult to understand why they are friends. Another negative aspect of the story is that Nikki, G-baby, and her stepsister all take unnecessary risks, like sneaking out of the house, that could have dire consequences. Instead of having to fess up to their parents, other people cover for their misbehavior.

Love Like Sky’s suspense revolves around G-baby’s conflict with her family and friends. While middle school readers will understand G-baby’s conflict, they may wish for more action. The story’s many topics and characters make Love Like Sky appropriate for strong readers. Readers interested in learning more about racial injustice should add A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée to their must-read list.  Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn is perfect for readers looking for an entertaining story about family relationships.

Sexual Content

  • G-baby doesn’t want to talk to her mom about “how to kiss a boy, or when it’s time to sneak a few cotton balls into my bra.”
  • G-baby’s stepsister has a boyfriend. G-baby thinks, “I know why Frank called the college boy ‘an octopus,’ and it wasn’t good. He might be like that one boy at my old school who got sent to the principal’s office for pinching girls on the behind.”
  • G-baby was spying on her stepsister when she “heard whispering and then…smacking. Loud smacking. Kissing.”
  • When G-baby’s stepfather leaves the house, he “kissed Mama’s lips and both cheeks… Mama walked to the door and kissed him again. A loud smack like Tangie and Marshall.”
  • G-baby’s best friend tells her, “I bet Tangie kisses boys. Just like you and your boyfriend.” G-baby gets upset because she has never kissed a boy and doesn’t have a boyfriend.
  • G-baby’s friend Kevin kisses her. She “felt his lips on my cheek like a buzzing bee had landed on it… I stood there with my hand on my cheek, like the kiss was gonna fly away.”
  • G-baby’s stepsister, Tangie, talks about her first kiss, which happened when she was 13. “One day he walked me to the porch. And I kinda knew it was coming because I closed my eyes… It lasted about five seconds. When it was over, he ran down the stairs… Neither one of use knew what we were doing. It was okay.”

Violence

  • When G-baby’s mother sees news stories on TV about Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer, she says, “Bless his mama, Lord. Bless his mama.”
  • Tangie wants to go to a protest for Roderick Thomas. She says, “A boy at Marshall’s school got beat up pretty bad. Roderick Thomas. Busted lip. Black eye. Police stopped Roderick on his way home from a friend’s house…”
  • When Tangie goes to the protest, “the police told us to leave. Marshall’s roommate started shouting. Others joined in. Next thing I know, Marshall’s roommate was on the ground. When Marshall spoke up, they put him in cuffs, too.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the character’s moms is a drunk. The character is talked about several times but never appears in the story.

Language

  • Darn is used three times.
  • Dang is used four times. For example, G-baby says that her stepmother can’t cook worth a dang.
  • “Oh my God” is used as an exclamation twice.
  • Lord is used as an exclamation once.
  • Tangie calls G-baby a “snoop tattler.”
  • When G-baby swears to God, she thinks, “Grandma Sugar was about to strike me for using the Lord’s name in vain.”
  • One of G-baby’s friends says, “No shit Sherlock” one time.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When G-baby’s mother sees news stories on TV about Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer, she says, “Bless his mama, Lord. Bless his mama.”
  • Tangie’s little sister was killed in a car accident. G-baby’s mom says, “Some hurt only God Himself can heal.”
  • When Peaches gets sick, G-baby prays, “God, I know I want a big sister, but Peaches is the best little sister in the world. Please, don’t let her die like Tangie’s little sister. I’ll do anything to make Peaches better, anything.”
  • G-baby prays. “Dear God, I’m so sorry for not being a better big sister. Please keep making Peaches better and don’t let her fall out of Your hands…”
  • G-baby’s best friend, Nikki, takes off. When she can’t be found, G-baby prays. “Oh, God. Please, please… don’t let my best friend be an Amber Alert.” When Nikki is found, G-baby thanks God.
  • When Peaches is moved out of ICU, someone says, “Thank the Lord.”
  • When G-baby lies, she “mentally asked God for forgiveness.”

Rebound

Ever since Chuck “Da Man” Bell’s father died, Chuck’s turbulent emotions are holding him back from his relationships. When his mom sends him to his grandparents’ house for the summer, Chuck finds healing through basketball. With the help of his friends and relatives, Chuck also learns about his family’s past.

Chuck is an emotional 12-year-old who disobeys his mother and gets into trouble with his friend, Skinny. However, Chuck’s attitude towards life adjusts as his grandparents and cousin, Roxie, teach him wisdom and basketball. Chuck realizes that his grandparents are suffering after their son’s death as well, and Chuck makes an emotional connection with them. This story presents the multifaceted nature of grief through Chuck and his family. The narrative emphasizes this shared humanity rather than suppressing the trauma that the family has endured. The family helps Chuck come to terms with his emotional turbulence, and the end shows him as a happy adult who learned how to cope.

Chuck’s story pairs well with Alexander’s creative narrative styles. The poetry might be off-putting to some readers, but the flow is similar to reading prose fiction thanks to his free verse. The graphic novel panels help build excitement in the basketball/daydream sequences and give a different look into Chuck’s imagination. This book is a good introduction into poetry for younger readers.

Told in free-verse poetry and graphic novel panels, Rebound shows the turbulent healing process after tragedy strikes. As Chuck learns about basketball and how his family members deal with loss, he begins to understand the world outside his emotions. The book is told from Chuck’s perspective, but his grandparents are a large focus of the story. His grandfather, Percy, uses humor and tough love to help Chuck come to terms with his father’s death. However, Percy is serious and kind when Chuck is struggling the most, but Percy never comes off as preachy.

Alexander’s writing style is unique, and it switches between poetry and graphic novel panels. However, the story flows well and has many fast-paced basketball scenes. Alexander uses different poetic techniques to emphasize sounds, emotions, and dialogue. These portions and the graphic novel panels depicting Chuck’s daydreams help enhance his narrative voice and his dreams of success. Rebound is the prequel to Kwame Alexander’s book Crossover, but Rebound can be read as a stand-alone book.

Rebound tells a story about shared humanity and suffering, and it reinforces the need for family in difficult times. Alexander writes interesting and complex family dynamics, and his integration of basketball and comic books into the text feels natural with these themes. He grounds the abstract nature of grief in a manner that is digestible for younger readers. Rebound is a good read because it presents a character who rises above self-pity and gains perspective in dire times. Anyone who has faced a difficult situation will enjoy Rebound’s blend of poetry and graphic novel elements because they effectively portray themes of grief, love, and the power of family.

Sexual Content

  • Chuck’s friend CJ likes Chuck, a topic that is revisited somewhat often throughout the book.
  • CJ pulls Chuck out on the roller rink and “kisses [him]/on the cheek,/and, just like that,/ lets go/of [his] hand,/ and skates away,/and [his] heart/ almost jumps/ out of [his] chest.”
  • Chuck’s grandparents, Alice and Percy, kiss. Percy says to Alice, “Now give me some sugar.”
  • Chuck’s friend, Skinny, meets Chuck’s cousin, Roxie, and calls her “a pretty young thing,” which does not make Roxie or Chuck very happy.
  • Uncle Richard brings his boyfriend to the Fourth of July party.

Violence

  • Skinny mentions that his cousin “Ivan got into a fight” when his team lost a basketball game, but no other context is given.
  • Chuck says, “I remember/my father spanking me/when I was little,” as his mom tries to hit him for smack talking.
  • Chuck’s mom tries to hit him when he talks back. Chuck says, “Her hand/is like/a razor-sharp claw/about to slice/the air/lightning fast/in the direction/of my face, /but I duck/before the blast/almost rips/my head off.”
  • In her way of showing affection, CJ occasionally gives Chuck “a punch/to [his] stomach/that hurts/in a good/kind of way.”
  • Chuck says to his mom, “Some of my friends’ parents got divorced, /remarried, and the new fathers abused the/ kids, and that’s not cool.”
  • On a walk, Percy tells Chuck, “My/mother wasn’t so easy. Used to make me/get a switch from our peach tree, then we/ got whupped good.”
  • When Roxie sees Chuck sitting in the truck, she “punches [Chuck]/ in the arm.”
  • After Roxie and Chuck lose a game, one of the boys on the other team taunts them. The other boy says, “Maybe you should play on a girls’ team,” and Chuck narrates, “She raises/HER fist, / ready to punch, but I grab it, / and get/in HIS face.” Percy pulls them apart before an altercation can occur.
  • While waiting outside the rink, Skinny’s cousin and his friends run over to “this other/ crew of guys/ like they’re about/ to throw down.” It is implied later that they fight off-screen.
  • Ivan walks into the roller rink “with specks/ of blood/ on his shirt/ and a sneaker/ in his hand.” It is inferred that he was in the fight that occurred off-screen, and that someone was seriously injured. No other details of the fight are given.
  • Chuck says that Ivan is bragging about “the beatdown/ they just dished out.”
  • Someone brings a gun to the rink, and everyone scatters.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Before Chuck’s father died, “he promised/to get me/ some fresh sneakers/and let me/taste beer, /as long as/You don’t tell/your mother, Charlie.”
  • At the end of the book, Chuck narrates, “my mom/ let me taste beer/ and it was disgusting.”
  • Skinny has an uncle that “smokes incessantly.”
  • According to Chuck, “Ivan/used to be/pretty cool/and fun/to be around/till he started/smoking/and hanging out/with a group/of delinquents/he met/in juvie.”
  • It is insinuated that the older guys hanging with Skinny’s cousin are drinking alcohol “hidden in/ brown paper bags.”
  • The police stop Skinny and Chuck outside the rink, and they unknowingly have Ivan’s bag containing “three sandwich bags/ filled with/ cannabis.” They are arrested for possession.

Language

  • Words like stupid, sucks, punk, wimp, nerd, loser, and fool are used frequently throughout the book.
  • There are some loud altercations near the beginning of the story when Chuck’s mom yells at Chuck in creative ways. For example, when Chuck defies his mom and slams his door in her face, she yells, “Boy, I am this/ close to wringing your neck.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • After Chuck scores the winning point in a three-on-three basketball game, he thinks, “The gym / roars like / a hyped-up choir / in church /after a sermon.”
  • Of Chuck’s father’s death, Alice says, “There’s a masterplan, and I’m not the / master. We just have to trust in the plan.”

by Alli Kestler

The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World

The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World switches between the perspectives of Billy and Lydia—two teenagers who live in a poverty-stricken area in the Pacific Northwest called Fog Harbor. After their high schools merge, the two outcasts form a strange friendship. As they learn more about each other, strange things begin to happen around them: they experience unexplainable weather events and earthquakes, and they see apparitions that nobody else sees. The narrative borders on magical realism, as the strange events that plague the narrative seem to be tied to the characters’ personal and emotional journeys.

Lydia, whose mother disappeared when she was a child, is emotionally closed-off and spends all her days in the makeshift dance studio behind her father’s bar. Billy lives in a decrepit house with his emotionally abusive grandmother, where he spends all his time watching therapy talk shows on the 24-hour Alcoholics Anonymous TV channel. The setting of Fog Harbor is set in a larger world that serves as an exaggerated parody of late-2010s America, where the president has been replaced by a king. Savvy readers may recognize the King’s mannerisms and policies, as the figure seems to be a caricature of America’s 45th president, Donald Trump.

Caleb, who is Billy’s uncle, Fog Harbor’s most famous resident, and one of the world’s most notorious musicians, frequently speaks in interviews about his upbringing in poverty-stricken, drug-addicted Fog Harbor. When Caleb—a heroin addict who has been through rehab several times—disappears following a violent breakdown and shows up in Billy’s attic, Billy is tasked with keeping a secret and is forced to reckon with his family’s dysfunctional past. Meanwhile, Lydia begins to take dance lessons for the first time and is followed around by a small apparition that seems determined to make trouble for her.

The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World is as wordy as its title, with many wonderful lines and genuinely touching moments in the main characters’ central friendship. It is honest and discomforting in its depictions of a small town ravaged by poverty and drug addiction. Whether or not readers recognize their own hometowns in the foggy surrealist landscape, they will find the characters’ narrative voices compelling and achingly human.

Despite the harsh language and troubling subject matter, this narrative shines, especially in its portrayal of the main characters’ innocence and unwavering hope in the face of despair. Billy’s dogged determination to see the best in everyone is a heartrending and almost blinding contrast to his grandmother’s neglect and his family’s history of addiction. Lydia’s outer sarcastic façade hides her inner sensitivity and unhealed trauma at having lost her mother. Secondary characters like Lydia’s father and Billy’s grandmother create a cast of irresponsible adults who are imperfect and real.

Despite its political undertones, The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World is not quite a call to action or to political revolution. It’s something more subtle—perhaps a call to be kinder to one’s neighbors—but it’s engaging and surprising in the way it delivers this message. This book is the perfect read for a curious older reader who’s looking for a unique, high-quality literary narrative.

Sexual Content

  • Billy sometimes watches a show called Sexy Sober Survivor, where “fashion models go to rehab, except the rehab is on a deserted island…and they’re naked the whole time.” He wonders “whose job it is to put all those black bars on their interesting parts,” and “inevitably started thinking about what’s under those black bars, and then things got awkward again, and I had to excuse myself and go upstairs to my room, and hope… that this won’t be the time the house decides to finally collapse on me.” When the firefighters dig him out, he won’t be trying to “hide my boner when my arms are pinned under this thousand-pound beam.”
  • A therapy-TV personality sometimes tells “the story of how she used to be a prostitute who lived in a van by the river.” The reader never actually learns the story.
  • Lydia remarks that her peers are “just hoping they’re not the one who gets pregnant… as if babies and death are things you catch, as inevitable as a cold.”
  • While walking home, Lydia is harassed. “‘Looking good, baby,’ some douchebag yells out of a truck.” She gets them to go away by shouting, “Hi, I have AIDS and gonorrhea and a very small tail fused to my spine. Want to fuck?’”
  • The book frequently references a fictional YA series called “Unicorns Vs. Dragons,” where the hero “keeps his unicorn love interest chained up in his mountain cave to ‘protect her,’ which strikes Lydia as ‘rape-y.’”
  • The King, America’s dictatorial monarch, “ordered up a girlfriend, kind of like how [Lydia’s dad] ordered up a wife from the Philippines.”
  • Billy’s grandmother used to tell him “how I’m just a late bloomer and that’s good because it’s better that I stay her sweet boy as long as possible instead of turning into a sex-crazed pervert too early like most guys do.”
  • Caleb, Billy’s uncle, supposedly “got a girl pregnant when he was fourteen and Grandma had to pay for the abortion because no one else would.”
  • Billy recalls how, upon being approached by a tour bus for photos, Uncle Caleb’s friend Gordon “whipped out his penis and started peeing in the tour’s direction.”
  • In an interview, Uncle Caleb’s girlfriend recalls how “the sex that night was amazing.”
  • In another interview, the girlfriend “starts kissing [Caleb], and then she straddles him right there on the couch and starts unbuttoning his shirt, and then the interview is over.”
  • Caleb says he once “screwed an old lady for a case of beer.”
  • Lydia recalls how a regular in her father’s bar “has been staring at me since I was thirteen… he feels the need to tell me I’m pretty enough to be a supermodel.” Lydia finds this “gross because it proves that he’s looking at me the way drunk lonely men look at girls that are way too young for them. This is not a healthy environment for a teenager.”
  • A local says, “I heard [Billy’s] mom was still turning tricks long after she was showing.”
  • Lydia tells Caleb, “I guess you think all women should dress like your girlfriend and drip sex diseases everywhere they go.”
  • Lydia, after experiencing an emotional moment with Billy, thinks, “This is probably something close to how people feel after they sleep with someone and regret it.”
  • Billy thinks, “I would probably jump at any opportunity to do anything the least bit sex-related with an even non-beautiful girl who miraculously wanted to with me.”
  • Billy says, “I think giving someone art is just about the most intimate gift a person can give, except for maybe sex toys or something.”
  • A teacher tells Billy about “some kind of magic stone egg she bought from her life coach that she puts in her vagina, which I’m pretty sure is illegal for her to talk to me about.”
  • Lydia kisses Natalie, a girl from her dance studio. “I lean in and feel the world expanding as my lips touch hers. I feel everything pulse open and wash clean.”
  • In the epilogue, Billy lives with his girlfriend. Billy says, “It’s not even like we spend all our time doing hanky-panky (though that is a large percentage of what we do).” The reader is never given a clarification as to what hanky-panky is.

Violence

  • Billy recalls how his grandmother “threatened to smack my chin, even though these days, smacking chins is mostly considered child abuse.”
  • Much of the violence in the story is observed by the main characters when their high schools merge. Billy’s grandmother suggests he bring a steak knife to the first day of school.
  • Students have to use plastic utensils now because “a girl stabbed a guy last week with her fork.”
  • During a fight at school, “one guy pummels another… and then blood starts flying.”
  • Billy recounts how a kid in his class “got so mad when he had to put his phone away that he started punching a teacher in the nose.”
  • Lydia throws a glass at a drunk man at the bar. “The glass barely misses his face as it smashes into the wall behind him.”
  • During his public breakdown, “Caleb’s tiny, sweatpantsed figure is swinging a guitar around, chasing his bandmates, who are fleeing off the stage… Then he throws the guitar into the audience, then the mic stands, then the drums, and the muffled voices turn to screams.”
  • In another public appearance, he “tears the mic off his shirt, jumps out of his seat, and smashes his beer bottle on the camera.”
  • Billy’s grandmother tells a journalist to kill himself.
  • A news report says that the King “accidentally bombed the wrong village somewhere this morning and killed a few thousand innocent people.”
  • Caleb’s girlfriend expresses a desire to “bomb all of Washington State west of Olympia so they can give it back to the trees.”
  • Billy’s neighbor, who is in an extremist religious cult, threatens another resident with “one of those big scary guns people only use in wars and mass shootings and starts chasing the guy down the street.” Billy watches the scene from his porch, and the situation de-escalates over three pages.
  • Caleb recalls how Billy’s grandfather “smashed up the house on a regular basis.”
  • Billy thinks that if he expressed his true environmental opinions, the locals would “probably murder me and tie my dead body to a tree and write on it with blood, ‘Are you happy now, tree hugger?’”
  • A riot breaks out over an announcement regarding logging rights in the forest. “One man pushes another, who falls into another man behind him, who falls into another, who falls into another man behind him, and then all hell breaks loose, the crowd a flurry of pushing, punching, shouting, glass breaking, and random things on fire.” Billy watches it on TV.
  • School is let out early because of a bomb threat.
  • Lydia tells Caleb, “If you try to commit suicide in my house, I will fucking kill you.”
  • In addition to verbal abuse, Billy’s grandmother hits him. This only happens once in the narrative, but it is implied to have happened before. When Billy tries to approach her after she’s heard a distressing news story, “She spins around, whacks my arm, lunges, and even sitting on the couch she’s strong enough to push me to the floor.”
  • The King drops a nuclear bomb in the Pacific, causing a tsunami to destroy most of Fog Harbor. The climax of the book follows the characters as they race to higher ground. Many people survive, but a loss of life is implied.
  • “Cult Girl” points a gun in a reporter’s face to get her to go away.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • An old town rivalry is rumored to have started with “opium-crazed mill workers.”
  • Billy’s town has “the highest per capita heroin deaths in the state.”
  • Billy says he’s never been tempted to do drugs because “I’m not cool enough to be straight-edge, and I’m not smart enough to be a nerd, so mostly I’m just sober out of fear.” His grandmother often tells him “that addiction is in my blood and I’m a junkie waiting to happen, and I figure going through withdrawal once as a baby is more than enough.”
  • Lydia’s father runs a bar, so she spends most of her time there. “Technically, it’s against the law for me to be in here since I’m underage, but no one cares about laws like that here.”
  • Caleb smokes cigarettes and weed. While hiding in the attic, he enlists Billy to buy him weed from his old friend and dealer, Gordon. Billy doesn’t want Caleb to relapse, but Caleb says, “In the great scheme of things I’ve done, weed is barely a drug.”
  • When visiting Gordon to buy weed, Billy watches him take “some kind of contraption with water in it from the table, grips it between his legs while the hand of his good arm holds a lighter to it, inhales, and exhales a giant cloud of sweet, but slightly rancid-smelling smoke.”
  • Billy completes the drug deal and receives “a plastic baggie of dry greenish-brown clumps” (marijuana).
  • During a later drug deal, Gordon hands Billy a beer and offers him “molly” and “nitrous cartridges.” Billy doesn’t drink the beer or take Gordon up on his offer.
  • When Caleb smokes all his weed and falls asleep, Billy wonders, “Can someone die of a marijuana overdose?”
  • Caleb tells Billy to ask his drug dealer “where to get some dope.” Billy tells him, “I’m not going to help you kill yourself. If you want heroin, you can leave this attic and get it yourself.”

Language

  • Fuck, shit, damn, hell, goddamn, and asshole are used frequently. Bitch, bastard, crap, and “screw you” are used infrequently.
  • Lydia works at a fast-food restaurant called “Taco Hell.”
  • A regular at Lydia’s father’s bar calls Billy “retarded.”

Supernatural

  • Some of the events that surround Billy and Lydia seem supernatural. During one of the final scenes, while the town is being threatened by a natural disaster, Lydia and Billy see unicorns and dragons running through the streets. “What looks like a dragon and two unicorns run by, way larger and way faster than anyone in costume could possibly be.” The narrators never get a good look at the creatures.
  • A small girl nobody else can see follows Lydia around, often kicking her or breaking things.
  • A fan asks Billy if he is Caleb’s ghost.

Spiritual Content

  • Billy’s neighbors are in a cult. Billy often sees the neighbors’ child—a girl his age— in the window, and he refers to her as “Cult Girl.”
  • Cult Girl and her family attend “some weird church in a trailer by the freeway that says women are supposed to stay in the home and kids should be kept pure and not have any contact with sinners, aka everyone else.”
  • When Billy gets the chance to talk to Cult Girl, he thinks, “For all I know, the only history she’s ever been taught is stories from the Bible. She might still think the Earth’s flat.”
  • Later, Billy asks Cult Girl what happened after the Biblical great flood. Ruth says, “The waters took a while to recede, but then there was a brave new world to conquer… Then God invented rainbows. But it’s just a story. God also said He’d never make it flood again. But He lied… God made it flood because He realized He made a mistake and humans were evil and needed to be destroyed.”
  • Lydia’s father, who is going through a “Wicca phase,” tells the kids, “Samhain is the ancient pagan holiday marking a time when the boundary between this world and the spirit world thins and can be more easily crossed… I can tell you some incantations you can use to summon the spirits.” The kids don’t take him up on his offer.
  • Billy says, “No one ever taught me how to pray, but I did it anyway. I got on my knees and everything. I asked God or whoever to protect my uncle and keep him safe.”
  • A group of kids at school form a “morning prayer circle table,” where they stand up from their seats and shout, “Who’s in the house? J.C.’s in the house!” Billy thinks, “Who in their right mind would thank God for any of this?”
  • A teacher tells Billy about “chakras and crystals.”
  • Lydia calls Christmas “a marketing conspiracy in the guise of a religious tradition I don’t even believe in.”
  • During an emergency, a girl from Lydia’s dance studio runs away from her parents because they “kept praying. It was driving me crazy.”
  • Caleb goes to a Thai meditation retreat and says he wants to become a monk.
  • Billy says, “Apparently that Buddha guy that Caleb likes came up with the idea [of living in the moment] way before therapists did.”

by Caroline Galdi

 

Serious Moonlight

Birdie has been raised in isolation and homeschooled by strict grandparents. With no friends, Birdie spent her time reading mystery books. Birdie’s overactive imagination keeps her entertained. When her grandmother dies, Birdie’s world expands. She takes a job working the graveyard shift at a historic Seattle hotel.

Birdie hopes that her new job will give her the opportunity to be brave and solve a mystery. When her cute coworker, Daniel Aoki, has a mystery to solve, he wants Birdie’s help. The two come together to investigate a hotel guest, who they think is a famous reclusive writer. Together they embark on an adventure to uncover the writer’s identity. As the two try to solve the mystery, Birdie must also try to understand her growing feelings for Daniel.

With a wide variety of unique characters, Serious Moonlight delves into the complications that come with relationships. Both Daniel and Birdie are connected by their love of mystery as well as the fact that their fathers are not present in their lives. Birdie struggles with understanding her feelings for Daniel, especially since the first time they met they had sex. Like many teens, Birdie has questions about sex, relationships, and her own motives.

Told from Birdie’s point of view, readers can understand Birdie’s insecurities, worries, and confusion. Many teens will relate to Birdie because she is a likable character who is just trying to figure out what adulthood looks like. Birdie has a positive relationship with her grandfather and her aunt, who want to help her navigate life’s difficulties. By the end of the story, Birdie learns that “Missing people is hard. Letting new people inside is harder. But the reward for making the effort was greater than I could have imagined… It took me a long time to figure out that not everyone in my life was meant to stay. But using that armor didn’t shield me from future heartache. And even heartache felt is a million times better than running away.”

While Serious Moonlight has some light, humorous moments, it is not a Hallmark romance. The story hits on several difficult topics, including grief, sexual relationships, and having a child out of wedlock. The descriptive sexual content and the profane language may surprise many readers. The ending of the story has a few surprises, but Birdie’s conflicts are neatly wrapped up in a way that is not necessarily realistic.

In the end, Serious Moonlight is an entertaining, suspenseful story best suited for mature readers. Readers who are looking for an entertaining, but tamer teen romance should read Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo or What Light by Jay Asher.

Sexual Content

  • Birdie doesn’t know who her father is because her mother “got knocked up by an unknown boy when she was a rebellious seventeen-year-old.”
  • Birdie loses her virginity to a boy she just met. They have sex in the back of his car. Birdie wasn’t thinking “because once we got back there and clothes started getting unbuttoned and unzipped, it all happened so fast… So when it was over, I bolted.”
  • Birdie reads Seattle’s local alt-weekly city paper. When she reads the ads, “a few were just begging for kinky hookups.”
  • When Birdie tells her aunt about having sex, her aunt says, “Do you know how much weird sex I’ve had in my life… Sometimes it’s good; sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes it’s just plain bad. It’s never the same.” Their conversation lasts for two pages.
  • Daniel tells Birdie about his father. “My dad didn’t want to have anything to do with me, so he basically gave my mom a big hunk of cash for an abortion, washed his hands, and said adios.”
  • Birdie thinks back to when she had sex. “I was transported back into his car, and my hands were in his hair, and he was kissing me into a wobbly, weak pulp.”
  • While driving a customer, Daniel “heard some Amazon bigwig order two male prostitutes on his phone.”
  • Birdie has a fling with one of her friend’s brothers. After basketball practice, “he kissed me by the fence. Then again, two days later, for much longer. Secret basketball make-out sessions became a regular thing for a few weeks.”
  • Daniel tells Birdie that it was a mistake to have sex because it was “pretty awful.”
  • While at a party, Birdie and Daniel are in character. They pretend to be teachers. When they talk about who their characters are, Daniel says, “We have ten [kids]… You couldn’t stay away from me. I tried to resist, but the smell of chalk dust and blackboards excited you, so we were constantly having sex in the classroom where we taught.”
  • While at the party, Birdie and Daniel are alone when Birdie kisses him. “Oh God, did he kiss me back. His mouth was on mine. Warm. Open. Eager. He kissed me like he meant it…” They were interrupted by other guests.
  • Birdie goes into a store and buys condoms. She’s surprised by the variety: “Fiery ice. Studded. Sensitive. Extra sensitive… Armor of the Gods.”
  • Daniel tells Birdie that he had sex with “someone I had a crush on.”
  • When Daniel tells Birdie that he loves her, they kiss. “We kissed like we were desperate, separated for years and had only minutes to spare until the world ended, rushing, breathless, all roaming hands-teeth-tongue…”
  • Birdie and Daniel kiss. Birdie “Kissed him back without thinking. His lips were soft and warm… Pleasure flooded my limbs. Then he was pulling away…” Daniel gives Birdie oral sex. At first, Birdie “nearly blacked out. First from embarrassment, then from pleasure.” The scene is described over two pages.
  • Daniel’s friend teases him about his good mood. His friend joked “about me having a look on my face as if I’d spent the weekend in Las Vegas with a bunch of male hookers and a bag of cocaine.”
  • While at work, Daniel and Birdie “may have taken advantage of our working situation and made use of an unbooked hotel room on our lunch break.”
  • Birdie’s aunt becomes pregnant after spending time with her ex-boyfriend. She says, “We’d been texting. One thing led to another, and we spent the weekend together in Scottsdale.”
  • Birdie’s mother died because of complications from a pregnancy. Birdie finds out that her mother “didn’t know who the father was, and she wasn’t planning on keeping it.”
  • Birdie and Daniel kiss, and “his mouth came down on mine. He kissed me quickly—small, desperate kisses all over my mouth, until I flung my arms around him and kiss him back.”

Violence

  • In the past, Daniel tried to kill himself. He “tried to overdose and was found in the school library by a janitor.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Birdie’s grandfather was in an accident, which “made him dependent upon mild opiates.”
  • When Birdie falls asleep on the ferry, an employee wakes her up. Birdie was “worried he thought I might be a drunkard or a heroin addict.”
  • During a dinner party, the adults have champagne. One of the guests gets drunk.
  • Birdie goes with her aunt to an art dealer’s house, where he has a “tray of vodka bottles.”
  • Birdie gets high when she accidentally eats gummy worms that are medicated with cannabis.
  • Daniel and Birdie go to an opera where “patrons cluster around a cocktail bar, drinking and chatting.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes asshole, crap, bastard, damn, fuck, hell, jackass, piss, and shit. For example after they have sex, Daniel tells Birdie that, “I feel like an asshole, and I wish I had a time machine so that I could go back and change everything.”
  • Jesus, Christ, God, Oh My God and oh God are used as an exclamation occasionally.
  • When Birdie was ten, her aunt taught her “a dozen words that contained the word ‘cock.’”
  • Birdie’s aunt tells her, “your mother was a goddess. Not a whore. Not a sinner. You know this.”
  • Birdie says “GD” instead of saying “Goddammit.”
  • Daniel tells Birdie a story about a man who was “a real prick.”
  • Daniel calls someone “a total dick.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Birdie’s “grandmother had been religious. However, Grandpa veered toward angel sighting and UFOs and people communicating with their long-lost Aunt Margie from Topeka.”
  • When her aunt embarrasses her, Birdie thinks, “If there were an all-powerful being that ruled the universe, it would have surely heard my desperate prayer to please, oh please, have mercy and strike me down. I needed a natural disaster pronto—earthquake, tornado, tsunami. Anything.”
  • Birdie is confused about Daniel and thinks, “I wished someone could tell me what to do about Daniel. I wished I believed in something, so I could ask for a sign. Fate. God. Myself. Elvis.”

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Vol 2

When Link travels to the Twilight Realm to save Ilia, he is transformed into a wolf and is quickly captured. A Twilight imp named Minda takes a liking to Link and helps him escape. Minda introduces Link to Princess Zelda, who explains how the King of Shadows has cast the kingdom of Hyrule into perpetual twilight. The King of Shadows seeks to rule everything under the light and dark. Princess Zelda is powerless to stop him. She prays every day that the gods will save her people. Is Link the prayed-for hero?

But as a wolf, what can Link do? He can talk to animals in his wolf form, but he cannot communicate with his friends or wield a weapon. As Minda leads Link on a quest, it is unclear to readers and to Link himself whether Minda is helping Link save his people or tricking him for her own gain. While this graphic novel has more action than the first book, video gamers who have played Twilight Princess may become bored, as this graphic novel follows the game so closely that it begins to feel like a recap. For readers unfamiliar with the games, this installment may be more interesting.

Link is a relatable character that readers will root for, but the other characters in the story remain two-dimensional, leaving much to be desired. This story has several battle scenes scattered throughout, but there are only a few violent images where Link is shown slashing monsters with his sword or attacking in his wolf-form. The images are not gory. The theme of Twilight Princess Vol 2 follows Link’s struggle to find his inner strength in order to protect his loved ones.

Twilight Princess Vol 2 is darker than the video game. However, the story will appeal to reluctant readers because the Manga-style illustrations tell the story through pictures and uses a limited amount of words. Each page contains 1-6 simple sentences, which appear in thought bubbles. Similar to the original Batman comics, Twilight Princess’s battle scenes use onomatopoeia words, such as “Bwommm” and “gyaaah.” Overall, Link fans may be better off sticking with the video game and skipping the graphic novels altogether.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A “demon thief” is banished to the Twilight Realm. He is stabbed with a sword, and the flesh melts from his face before he is sucked into the Twilight Realm.
  • When Princess Zelda tells the story of her kingdom being attacked, the illustrations depict an explosion and a monster slowly crushing a guard to death.
  • Link battles a shadow monster and eventually kills it. The fight is illustrated over six pages.
  • A demon monkey lashes out with fire, burning the forest and killing several animals, who are drawn terrified, aflame, and wounded.
  • Link fights the demon monkey. Their first battle takes place over three pages. Their second battle takes place over five pages.
  • Link battles a giant plant monster and slays it. This battle takes place over nine pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Link lives in a world with magic, shadow beasts, and demons. When people from the land of light are engulfed by the Twilight Realm, they turn into lost souls.
  • When Link travels to the Twilight Realm, he is transformed into a giant wolf. While in his wolf form, Link can communicate with animals.
  • Link meets an alpha monkey who “absorbed the power of shadow… He was originally a monkey, but now he’s a demon. He can’t tell friend from foe.”
  • When Link unlocks his instinctive wolf senses, he’s able to see the insects that are “the true form of the shadow demons.” One of the insects is controlling the monkey demon, making him act cruelly.
  • Link finds a boomerang, which speaks to him. It says, “I am the fairy of winds that inhabits the boomerang. You freed me from an evil force, so I can reclaim my true power… Please, use the boomerang in which my power resides.”

Spiritual Content

  • There is a legend that when evil people tried to use magic to take over the land, “the goddesses grew angry at this affront and sent four spirits of light to seal the upstarts’ magical power away in the shadow crystal. Furthermore, the mirror of shadow prevented these wizards from entering the world of light. They were exiled to the twilight realm.”
  • Link meets a light spirit who tells him, “By orders of the gods, I am one of the four spirits of light who protect Hyrule.” The spirit asks Link for his help in saving the land from darkness.

by Morgan Lynn

Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh

Maria is a nine-year-old growing up during WWII in Yuba City, California. Like most of the families in her community, her father is from India and her mother is from Mexico. Maria spends her time going to school, collecting tin cans for ration stamps, watching her younger brother, Emilio, and helping around the farm, but what she really dreams of doing is playing softball. Luckily, her teacher has just started an all-girls softball team. While Maria learns lessons about teamwork and determination, she also faces prejudice and discrimination on and off the field. With a little help from her parents and her strong-willed aunt, Maria realizes people from different backgrounds may not be so different after all.

Step up to the Plate, Maria Singh gives a new perspective of discrimination and prejudice that existed during WWII.  Maria’s parents are not American citizens, so they cannot own land and must rent their farm. This becomes a problem when their landlord decides to move. Maria is subject to racism, and she gets into a fight when a classmate calls Maria’s friend a “dirty half-and-half.” Through Maria’s story, readers will understand how a culture can normalize prejudice. Although the racism and discrimination in the book occurred during WWII, readers will see that many of today’s problems are similar.

Because Maria’s parents are of different religions, the book focuses heavily on religion, which is a fundamental part of Maria’s community. Although her household leans a little more towards the Catholic side, Maria’s father talks about Sikhism and brings his family to a temple. Maria is not partial to either religion and includes both in her prayers. While Maria appreciates her parents’ cultures, she doesn’t feel they are completely her own.

Readers will relate to Maria as she tries to make sense of the world and find her voice. Maria is a relatable character who, like most people, has flaws.  Maria lies to her mother but then feels guilty. While playing softball, she learns the value of being a team player.  When she faces prejudice, she learns what it means to hate and the importance of forgiveness. Through Maria’s eyes, readers will learn the importance of speaking up during difficult times.

Step up to the Plate, Maria Singh is a great way to introduce readers to this little-known part of history. The end of the book has an author’s note that helps readers understand the story’s context. Lovers of softball (or any sport) will identify with Maria’s softball obsession and how she uses it as a means of escape and personal victory. This story also shows the value of sports as a means of bringing a community together.

Step up to the Plate, Maria Singh takes the reader into history and deals with difficult topics of immigration, racism, faith, and family. Despite the heavy topics, Step up to the Plate, Maria Singh tackles them in a way that is accessible to younger readers. History fans who love sports should add The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Maria’s friend’s father, Gian, dies in the war. Maria asks Papi if Gian has ever killed anyone, to which Papi doesn’t respond. Gian’s death prompts Maria and her friends to talk about their fathers getting drafted.
  • While she is supposed to be watching Emilio, Maria wanders off. Maria comes back to find Emilio and his friend play fighting, “slamming into each other with arms and legs and fists.”
  • Elizabeth, a white girl, calls Janie a “dirty half-and-half.” Janie retaliates by “throwing herself upon Elizabeth, grabbing her hair with both fists, pushing her down…scratching and pulling and tugging, and both of them shrieking.”
  • When Maria is up to bat, Elizabeth purposely pitched overhand to try and hurt Maria. Maria realized too late how hard Elizabeth was throwing. She was unable to get out of the way in time, and “the ball cracked her [Maria] in the head.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • When Maria tells Emilio that she can play softball, she says he is about to get “pig-headed.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Maria explains the misunderstanding people have about her community. “People called the families Mexican Hindus even though the fathers were mostly either Sikh or Muslim in the God department.”
  • When Maria explains why she was late getting home from school, her mom “looked up at the ceiling as if she was asking God and the archangels for guidance.”
  • After lying to her mother, Maria guiltily looks at an altar in her house, on which stands “the Lady of Guadalupe, blessed Mother of Jesus,” a Sikh prayer book, “a wooden carving of the holy man who had founded Papi’s Sikh religion hundreds of years ago,” and “a rounded symbol…called Ikonkar, which meant ‘There is one God.’”
  • Maria goes to confession, which was “near torture.”
  • While the wives and children go to mass, the husbands stay outside and get a picnic ready. This is because, as Papi explains, “God is everywhere, so I will just pray to him out here, under this beautiful sky!” Their wives “would roll their eyes at their stubborn heathen husbands.”
  • Maria’s family attends Mass for Gian’s funeral. As Gian’s wife and daughters process in, someone whispers, “Was he ever baptized?” Maria thinks the service was so special, and “whether he was baptized seemed not to matter.”
  • During Gian’s funeral, Maria thinks, “grieving together for a good man, in the presence of the Holy Mother Church, did bring you closer to the Lord.”
  • Maria prays to Mary and the Sikh holy teachers, asking them to “make the world a better place.”
  • Papi says the bill that will allow people from India to become American citizens has to go to the Senate, and “God alone knows what will happen there.”
  • “Extra blessings were needed” when Papi announces their landlord is moving. “Papi prayed from his holy book and Mama said an Ave Maria. Sometimes life demanded help from every kind of god.”
  • When Maria is worried about not being able to play softball, Papi sings “an old Punjabi prayer” to comfort her. Then he tells her, “Don’t be afraid. God will provide.”
  • Maria asks Papi if he is sad that he can’t see his temple in India. He answers, “All the God you ever need, you carry in your heart.”
  • Maria suggests her parents buy their farmland in her name since she is an American citizen, and they are not. “Papi was singing ‘Waheguru satnaam.’ Mama crossed herself. There were many ways to praise the Lord for sending a really good idea into a girl’s mind.”
  • A minister prays before a softball game.
  • When Maria plays in her first softball game, “fly balls landed in Maria’s glove as if heaven itself was sending them there.”
  • After her team wins the softball game, Maria expresses her thankfulness in both of her parents’ religions. “Wahgeguru, Maria thought, and crossed herself in gratitude.”

by Jill Johnson

I’m Ok

Ok’s life takes a dramatic turn for the worse when his father dies. His mother works three jobs, yet barely makes ends meet. Ok feels that as the man of the house, he should help pay the bills. As a twelve-year-old, he has little opportunity to make money. He hopes he can win the cash prize at the school talent contest, but he can’t sing or dance, and he has no magic up his sleeves. With no talent, he has to come up with another business.

Soon, Ok is braiding hair for the girls at school, but the girls can’t pay him much. His braiding business makes Mickey McDonald notice him. The girl, with a larger-than-life personality, wants to be his friend. Ok is used to being by himself, and he doesn’t want to be friends with Mickey, who will distract him from his mission—making money.

Life gets worse when the pushy deacon at their Korean church starts wooing Ok’s mom. Ok doesn’t want his mom spending time with the deacon. His mom is so caught up in the deacon that she doesn’t even notice Ok anymore. Feeling lost and confused, Ok comes up with an exit strategy. Will being totally alone, give Ok the peace he needs?

I’m Ok deals with the difficult topics of grief, poverty, racism, and friendship. Even though the story highlights the importance of friends, Ok’s story is often dark and depressing. At school, Ok is bullied and made fun of because he’s Korean. He reluctantly becomes friends with Mickey, who is self-assured but also ignored by many of the students. The two team up to win the school talent contest, and Mickey begins teaching Ok to skate. Mickey spends time with Ok, gives him a pair of skates, and is kind to him. Despite this, the only thing Ok cares about is winning the contest’s money. At one point, Ok even steals from Mickey’s mother. While Ok’s homelife is understandably difficult, his negative reaction to all events and his self-centered, mean personality make it difficult to feel compassion for him.

Ok spends time reminiscing about his father, who he clearly misses. Even though Ok grieves for his father, most of Ok’s memories of his father are negative. His father treated both Ok and his mother terribly. For example, Ok’s father would talk under his breath, “loud enough that I could hear, but soft enough so I felt guilty about eavesdropping, ‘When’s this idiot going to be human?’” Ok’s father isn’t shown to have many positive aspects other than financially supporting the family.

I’m Ok shows the difficulties many Korean immigrants face. However, the story’s conclusion leaves several threads untied. Plus for the entire story, the deacon is portrayed in such a negative light that it is difficult to understand why Ok’s mother marries him. Even though Ok and several of the supporting characters are well-developed, readers may have a difficult time relating to Ok, who is often mean to those who care about him. If you’re looking for a book that tackles racism and/or poverty, you may want to leave I’m Ok on the library shelf. However, Katherine Applegate excellently tackles both issues in her books Crenshaw and Wishtree.

Sexual Content

  • While braiding girls’ hair, the girls talk about a lot of different topics. For example, “Jaehnia is in love with Asa, and Asa is not at all interested in her in that way ’cause he’s not into desperate girls… Kym’s parents are getting a divorce… Claudio got caught sneaking around under the back staircase looking up girls’ skirts.”

Violence

  • Several times Ok thinks about his father’s death. When Ok makes a mistake, he thinks his dad would have called him stupid. Ok thinks, “At least I didn’t trip while working on a roof and come tumbling down and land so hard and wrong on concrete that my neck broke.”
  • Ok’s mother accidently “Ran into a parked car, smashing its headlight. My father called her an idiot, yelled at her, took over the wheel, and raced out of there like it was a getaway… He told her to shut up. I crouched on the floor of the backseat, scared my mother would get kicked out of the country.”
  • Asa and Ok wrestle, and Ok “bite[s] his finger, grab[s] his shirt, and stretch[es] it over his face… He punches me in the stomach. I cough and punch him back… We tumble around some more, no longer really hitting each other, holding and rolling disguised as fighting.” A neighbor tells them to stop and they do.
  • Ok steals $10 out of Mickey’s mom’s purse. The next day, Mickey shows up at school with “a bruise on her cheek.” Mickey says, “Ain’t you ever seen a bruise before? If you gotta know, Ma did it.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ok’s father would play cards with his friends and drink beer. Ok thinks back to a time when his father “let me take a sip of his beer. When I grimaced at the taste, he laughed.”
  • Ok’s father often had a Johnnie Walker in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Language

  • After Ok’s father dies, a woman tells him that he will need strength to get through this hard time. “What a senseless mess. Makes you want to kick some idiot’s butt, she says, shaking her head…”
  • Pissed is used five times. When Ok is called to the principal’s office, he tells the principal he has to go to the bathroom and “pressing my knees together and making the I’m going to piss right here, right now face.”
  • A kid in Ok’s class makes fun of him, calling him “Okie Dorkie” and “Wong-chung-chung.”
  • Oh my god is used as an exclamation six times. For example, when Ok tells a girl that he saved a puppy’s life, she says, “Oh my God, you’re the bravest.”
  • Mickey McDonald uses “Oh my Lord Jesus Christ” once and “Oh my Lordy” as an exclamation seven times. For example, Ok accidently goes into the girls’ bathroom. When Mickey McDonald sees him, she says, “Oh my Lord, what on God’s green earth are you doing in the girl’s bathroom?” She then calls Ok a “perv.” Later she calls Ok a “snothead.”
  • A kid calls a girl a moron.
  • Ok calls a kid a jerk; later, he thinks the deacon is a jerk.
  • A kid teases Mickey, calling her “Old McD. White Trish-Trash. Mick the Hick. Mickey Gives Hickeys… Mickey McDonald looks like Miss Piggy and a troll doll had a baby.”
  • Ok thinks the deacon is a jackass.
  • Badass is used once, and hell is used three times. For example, a woman tells Ok, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
  • Ok tells Asa, “Aren’t you glad yo’ mama could spell? Otherwise yo’ name be like Ass… I’m calling you Ass ’cause you look like one, smell like one, and God knows you read and write like one.” Later, Ok calls Asa a butt-face and moron.
  • Ok calls Asa stupid and a nincompoop.
  • Ok tells Mickey that a classmate is a pervert.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Ok and his mother attend the First Korean Full Gospel Church. After a service, some of the women “moan and babble because the Holy Spirit has a hold on them.” Ok wishes “the Holy Spirit would get a hold of me so I could wail my sadness too.”
  • After his father dies, a woman from church tells him “to be good and strong for my mother and have faith in God’s will, because I’m the man of the house now. God works in mysterious ways.”
  • After his father dies, Ok’s mother tells him, “I’m not worried. God will take care of us. We just need to do our part and believe he loves us.”
  • When a classmate is mean to Ok, he “prayed I wouldn’t piss my pants, prayed I wouldn’t get beat up because I looked like one of those kids you couldn’t help but beat up.”
  • During church service, the pastor asks the congregation to pray. Ok closes his eyes and prays, “telling God that I need a talent for the talent show so I can win a hundred dollars…”
  • When a girl sees Ok writing in a library book, Ok “pray[s] hard that she doesn’t walk away and tell on me.”
  • After Ok earns some money, he wonders what to do with it. “I could offer the money to God tomorrow, drop my coins onto the plate… What blessing can $11.68 buy me?”
  • The deacon tells Ok’s mother, “Do not worry. What does the Bible say? Worrying is a waste of your time and energy. It is a sign of your lack of faith. Obey our Lord and don’t worry… All things work for the good of those who have faith in God.”
  • When Ok’s mother hurts her ankle, Ok prayed “that I had nothing to do with my mother slipping on some ice that had spilled out of a tub full of mackerel.” Ok wonders if God allowed his mother to get hurt because he stole something, then he blames God for allowing his mother to get hurt.
  • The deacon tells Ok, “God is in math. Oh sure. The concept of infinity. That is God.”
  • Many of the characters pray. For example, after making kimchi, Ok’s mother prays, “thanking God for her abilities, for our kitchen, and for me… She asks God to bless the kimchi, bless anyone who eats it, make the person strong and good and faithful.”
  • At church, the preacher told the congregation, “if we felt sad, we should count our blessings. Make a list of all the things we were grateful for. Not focus on what we lost.”
  • When the deacon is trying to teach Ok to swim, he says, “The Bible says that if you build a house on sand, that house will collapse, so you must build your house on stone, so it can withstand wind and storms.”
  • When the deacon clears his throat, Ok thinks, “here we go with the sermon about how God created the universe, the moon, and the stars, and how he created me in his image and loves me so much he killed his only son for the forgiveness of sins.”

The Princess and the Fangirl

Everyone knows that Jessica Stone hates everything to do with the beloved sci-fi franchise Starfield. When she signed on to play the beloved Princess Amara, Jess was expecting to use the role as a springboard into bigger and better films. But being an actress in a sci-fi universe comes with an overwhelming amount of criticism. Jess can barely handle the hatred she gets from fans on the internet, and she certainly isn’t looking forward to being surrounded by them at the annual ExcelsiCon.

Starfield fangirl, Imogen Lovelace, practically grew up on the convention floor. Every year her family runs a booth at ExcelsiCon, but this year Imogen has her own mission. She wants to #SaveAmara from being killed off, and she’s got thousands of signatures on an online petition to prove she’s not the only one. When an unfortunate case of mistaken identity leaves Imogen onstage at a panel in Jessica’s place, Imogen takes the opportunity to speak out in favor of saving the Princess.

Jessica is furious, telling Imogen she will ruin her if she even attempts such a thing again. But when an incredibly confidential script to the Starfield sequel leaks online, and Jessica’s script is nowhere to be found, she’s afraid the blame will fall to her. Jess needs to expose the real culprit before the end of the Con or risk losing her career. The solution? Trade places with Imogen so she can scope out the Con herself, a plan that turns out to be much easier said than done.

The Princess and the Fangirl is a modern-day Prince and the Pauper with a fandom twist. Both Jessica and Imogen think they can gain something by stepping into each other’s shoes, but they both end up with an unexpected perspective. Jess is longing for anonymity and an escape from the harsh gaze of the Starfield fandom. She finds herself dropped right into the middle of it all, getting a first-hand look at how the stories she always viewed as inconsequential can bring people together. Meanwhile, Imogen, who is searching for a sense of purpose, is eager to use her newfound influence to right a few wrongs. But her peek behind the scenes reveals a disturbing darker side of Starfield that only Jessica Stone gets to see.

This story is technically a sequel to Geekerella, bringing readers back to ExcelsiCon one year later. There are a few cameos from familiar faces, but Geekerella can still stand on its own. Fans of romance will enjoy the fact that each of the girls has an adorable love interest, while the mystery of the leaked script will keep readers on their toes. Both Jessica and Imogen struggle with self-image issues that teen readers will find very relatable. And, like in Geekerella, Poston’s commentary on fandom is clever and meaningful: behind every Princess, there is a normal girl.

Sexual Content

  • Jess contemplates her role as Princess Amara, thinking about how she’d accepted the role expecting it to launch her career into more meaningful roles that wouldn’t require her to look “hot in a suffocating dress while running in heels.”
  • Imogen makes several sci-fi references, including a mention of “sexy David Tennant,” the actor who played the Tenth Doctor on the television series Doctor Who.
  • While onstage next to Darien, the actor who plays Prince Carmindor in the Starfield movie, Imogen thinks of him as “the love of [her] Tumblr life.”
  • Jess is jealous of how the Starfield fandom has grown to love Darien while they continue to harass her. “Darien sort of got the same blowback when he was announced to play Federation Prince Carmindor—which is how he met his girlfriend, btw—but it died off as the fandom embraced him. Now they write love letters about his inky-black eyelashes and immaculate abs while I get dissertations on how the small mole on the left side of my mouth has ruined the beauty of Princess Amara.”
  • Imogen tosses a #SaveAmara pin to a cosplayer in a “sexy Xenomorph” costume.
  • When one of Imogen’s moms asks the other to put a Captain America figurine on the top shelf of their display, she makes a joke that could be taken sexually. She says, “I could’ve sworn he belonged on the bottom.”
  • Imogen says that her little brother met his boyfriend in the astronomy lab. Although she thinks they probably “spent more time studying each other’s astrological compatibility than learning solar physics.”
  • Imogen doesn’t look like either of her moms. Imogen says, “…although Kathy carried both Milo and me. I look like the sperm donor apparently.”
  • Ethan, Jessica’s best friend, changes his shirt in front of her. Jessica thinks, “Sure he’s pretty cute, but my eyes don’t really linger. He’d be a catch if someone burns all of his nerd shirts and puts him in some jeans that actually show he has a butt.”
  • When Jessica looks through the comments on her social media, they include, “I can tell her where she can put those pretty lips” and “fixed her chest with small kitties lol [censored photo].”
  • Imogen literally runs into Ethan, spilling coffee all over him. Before she recognizes him as Jessica Stone’s rude assistant, she thinks that he’s hot. “He’s very very Hot like I-want-to-be-stuck-in-an-elevator-with-you hot, not we-are-now-mortal-enemies-because-I-just-spilled-my-coffee-on-you-while-not-paying-attention hot.”
  • Before trading places, Jessica makes a list of rules for Imogen to follow. Rule number four is, “Don’t flirt with anyone.”
  • Jessica doesn’t give her number out freely because someone “put it on an unsavory message board.”
  • Imogen thinks that contact lenses feel like “condoms for [her] eyeballs.”
  • Harper, Imogen’s friend, is selling her fan art out of a booth next to someone “hawking sexy pin ups of burly men.”
  • When Jess first sees Harper, her mind blanks because Harper “is very pretty, with delicate features, brown skin, and natural hair pulled into twin puffs on the sides of her head.”
  • Harper’s artwork is displayed on a board in the boot. Jessica describes it as a “copious amount of fan art of Princess Amara in the arms of various characters—men and women.”
  • Actor Vance Reigns is introduced as the villain for the Starfield Imogen finds him very attractive. “He is face meltingly hot. His shoulders and chest are broad, his torso tapers down to thin hips and sturdy legs. I mean, not that his legs wouldn’t be sturdy, but you know the kind of legs where you just know, under the molten-golden trousers, that he can basically smash watermelons between them? Yeah that’s the kind of thighs I’m picturing, and I think my knees have gone numb and dear god he’s too close.”
  • When Jess sees a picture of Princess Amara embracing a female Starfield character, she says, “I can’t help but blush seeing a girl with my likeness kissing the likeness of Fiona Oro who plays Zorine.”
  • Imogen notices that Ethan is wearing Captain America-themed shoes, “And then I’m just thinking of Ethan punching Nazis, and that’s kinda hot, actually.”
  • When Ethan heads off to watch a panel, Imogen says, “Have fun with the tres horny bois.”
  • Imogen thinks she can tell that Ethan likes Jess “by the way I caught him looking at me while I was posing for pictures with a seven-year-old Carmindor, the softness of his gaze, the curl of his lips upward ever so slightly. He must’ve forgotten for a second that I wasn’t the real Jess. Those looks are probably only for her.”
  • At the Stellar party, Jess sees two girls kiss goodbye. She thinks, “I don’t mean to stare but their kiss is so simple and easy, like saying see you later, that I don’t think any thought was put into it, I wish I knew what that was like.”
  • Harper and Jess tell each other about their first kisses. Harper says, “My first kiss was a seven-minutes-in-heaven thing. I was at a birthday party in middle school. It was…terrible.” Jess’s first kiss was on a movie set. Jess says, “He was older and I was, like, fifteen. His stubble was scratchy and it gave me a rash—and he smelled like weed. He’d been smoking all day.”
  • Jess realizes she has feelings for Harper. Jess thinks, “I have a crush on this girl with curly dark hair and ink smudges on her brown fingers and trouble tucked into her maroon-colored lips.”
  • Imogen, overwhelmed by her feelings, jumps on Ethan in the pool. “Turns out he’s a lot heavier than I thought, especially for a beanpole. And his torso is very solid. Are those abs I feel? Oh sweet baby Daleks, please don’t tell me Ethan actually has a nice bod.”
  • While in the pool, Imogen and Ethan are very close. Imogen thinks, “I have to remind myself that I can’t like him, but it’s hard when a droplet of water beads at the end of a lock of raven hair in front of his face, and falls on his cheek, and rolls down his cheek slowly, languidly, like I want to run my finger down his jawline. It’s like there’s no one else but us in the world, and his eyes navigate steadily to my lips.” They almost kiss, but Imogen pulls away at the last second.
  • After having spent the night talking to Harper, Jess thinks, “I am not a serial dater. I simply never cared… I’m not built to take a random person into a bedroom, I’m not wired to want those things, and so it made all those dates and chaste kisses with celebrities so easy.”
  • Jess dislikes the internet because it makes it easy for fans to forget about the people behind the characters. “Your hot take shouldn’t dehumanize me, or tell me that I’m wrong, or that I’m worthless, or a slut who slept on some casting couch for the role.”
  • Imogen’s ex-boyfriend shows up at a meet-and-greet. When they hug, “his hands slip low.”
  • While at dinner with Vance Reign, Imogen (disguised as Jess) discovers Vince has been trying to get the real Jess to go on a publicity date with him for a long time. He tries to kiss her, but she pushes him away.
  • Jess crashes the final Starfield panel. When she starts to leave, the director asks her where she’s going. Jess responds, “The horizon is wide, and I have a girl to kiss.”
  • Jess apologizes to Harper very publicly, and when the two of them are reunited, they kiss. Jessica says, “I give her the Starfield salute—You and I are made of stars—and I hope that’s enough. She smiles and presses her hands to mine in the same pose, and then slowly, finger by finger, they fall together—And she kisses me.” The description of the kiss is about half a page.
  • Imogen kisses Ethan. She takes “his face in my hands and pull him down to kiss me. He tastes like Cheerwine, his hands rising to cup the sides of my face.” The description lasts about half a page.
  • Jess and Harper meet to get coffee and kiss again. Jessica says, “I kiss her in front of the entire world, the first word on the first page of the rest of my life.”

Violence

  • When Jess discovers Imogen has taken her place on stage, she has some murderous thoughts. “I am going to kill her. I don’t even know her name but I don’t need her name to put her in an unmarked grave. I am going to chop her up into so many pieces that when alien archeologists find her bones in a thousand years they won’t even realize she was once human.”
  • Imogen’s younger brother calls her an embarrassing nickname. She tells him, “If you weren’t my brother and I didn’t love you, I’d strangle you with your own jockstrap.”
  • In a leaked scene from the Starfield sequel script, “A group of soldiers push CARMINDOR, tied up and beaten, into the middle of the council. CARMINDOR stumbles and collapses onto the dais. Blood drips from his mouth where he has been punched repeatedly.”
  • Imogen tells Ethan a story. “When I had to debate a guy over women’s reproduction he told me that women are too fragile to have control over their own bodies. I got kicked out of the club for kneeing him in the nards.”
  • Imogen’s ex-boyfriend, Jasper, shows up at a Jessica Stone meet and greet, causing trouble. Ethan steps in to get him to leave. “Jasper whirls around, fists clinched, ready to swing. I don’t have time to shout to Ethan that a punch is coming before he raises a hand and deflects the blow with his lower arm, grabbing Jasper by the shirt and pull-throwing him out through the nearest curtain.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Imogen claims to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like “delivering someone’s homework to a frat party when the cops show up.”
  • Harper invites Jess to join her at the Stellar Party, a space-themed party that her friends throw every year, where they “drink a little, sing some karaoke, stuff like that.”
  • In the hotel room where the Stellar Party is held, “on the kitchenette bar is a wall of liquor bottles and sodas.”
  • There is a drink at the Stellar Party called “Oh No.” Harper says, “Oh No is way more vodka than common sense.”
  • Imogen hugs her brother and notices that he smells like Stellar Party, “vape juice and Oh No.”

Language

  • Imogen uses the phrase “Starflame” in place of curse words frequently. “‘Starflame!’ I curse. ‘I’m so sorry.’”
  • When Imogen and Ethan run into each other a third time, she calls him a “nerfherder,” an insult from the Star Wars “‘He is possibly the worst nerfherder in the—’ I say, while at the same time he says, ‘She’s that monster of a girl I was telling you—’ We both stop mid-sentence.”
  • When Imogen puts on a wig in order to pass as Jess, she thinks “the whole bit about long hair being more feminine is Noxballs.”
  • Ethan gets upset at Imogen and calls her a “Rapscallion look-alike.”
  • After the incident with her ex-boyfriend, Imogen appreciates that the remaining fans in line are decent people, but she thinks, “I hate that some of the dickwads in their midst are not.”
  • Natalia Ford, the actress who originally played Amara, rescues Jess from a crowd of angry fans. Jess notices that she’s wearing a shirt “covered in a pattern of tiny, artistically rendered middle-fingers.”
  • Right before the final panel, the director is looking for Darien, who is busy helping enact the girl’s plan to reveal who stole the script. Imogen tells him, “He went to take a piss.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Imogen runs into her ex-boyfriend, she asks herself, “God why do I feel so horrible?”

by Evalyn Harper

 

Goldie Blox and the Best! Pet! Ever!

Bloxtown is hosting a pet pageant and the winner gets to name the new animal shelter. Goldie’s friend Li wants to name the animal shelter “Dr. Zhang Animal Shelter” after his grandmother. To help Li, Goldie, and her dog, Nacho, enter the contest. Even though Nacho spends his time napping and chasing his tail, Goldie is confident that she and her friends can teach Nacho everything he needs to know in order to win the contest.

When rich and snobby Zeek Zander enters the contest, Goldie is even more determined to win. Zeek doesn’t like pets and wants to call the shelter “Flea Bag Hotel for Ugly Dogs.” With the help of Zeek’s Butler Phone, Zeek sets out to get the best pet and win the race. Will Goldie and her friends be able to teach Nacho to follow commands? Will they be able to beat Zeek?

Goldie and her friends turn to engineering in order to get Nacho to run an obstacle course and follow commands. However, Nacho is more interested in sleeping and eating. In order to help Nacho get ready for the contest, Goldie and her friends make many gadgets, such as a tuxedo programmed to music. Younger readers will giggle at Nacho’s response to the gadgets and his crazy antics.

Goldie and her friends demonstrate positive friendship traits. One morning Goldie discovers Nacho missing. Her friends quickly jump in to help find Nacho. Ruby uses a drone to help find Nacho. However, Ruby used questionable methods to obtain the drone. Ruby says, “I may have borrowed one from HiBo Prep. And I may have hacked the system. And I may need you to keep it secret.” At another point in the story, Goldie enters a contest and she doesn’t win first place. But that doesn’t stop her from celebrating. The story emphasizes that winning a contest doesn’t make Goldie a winner. Instead, Goldie celebrates because “We built an awesome go-cart and had an amazing race. It was so much fun!”

Goldie Blox and the Best! Pet! Ever! will appeal to younger readers because of its humor. The story introduces readers to the idea of engineering; however, the story doesn’t explain the process that goes into making gadgets. The story is accessible to younger readers because it uses easy vocabulary, short paragraphs, and cartoonish black and white illustrations that appear every three to five pages. Goldie and her friends demonstrate positive traits such as perseverance and working together. Readers who want to delve into more books that mix science and humor should put The Data Set Series by Ada Hopper on their must-read list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Zeek calls Goldie and her friends losers.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Spin

Spin centers around the murder of Paris Secord, an up-and-coming musician whose stage name was DJ ParSec. After finding fame and fortune on SoundCloud and YouTube, Paris begins to clash with some of the friends who helped her on her way to the top. When Paris is found dead on top of her signature turntables, her childhood best friend Kya and social media guru Fatimah (“Fuse”) find themselves suspects in the investigation. To clear their name, they set out to solve the murder themselves.

Kya and Fuse are the two main narrators of the story, which switches between their first-person perspectives. As Kya and Fuse delve deeper into Paris’s past, they must come to terms with the bitter fallings-out they had with Paris before she died. While Kya and Fuse start as enemies, they soon bond in their shared efforts to bring justice to Paris. As they investigate, the two encounter a conspiracy involving crazed fans who will do anything to prove themselves loyal members of the ParSec Nation. As Kya and Fuse unravel the mystery, some chapters flash back to Paris’s perspective, which reveals crucial details and reveals how she coped with fame.

 Spin is a fast-paced mystery that introduces readers to music industry concepts, such as ill-intentioned managers and nosy journalists. The story honestly portrays contemporary music culture and rabid fandom. While some of this portrayal comes across as well-researched and genuine, other parts feel forced. Readers might find the narrative’s dialects and buzzwords unnatural. For example, the book often shows tweets from rabid fans, but the style and syntax of the tweets is disingenuous and awkward.

Spin succeeds in its earnest portrayal of class tensions. Kya, Fuse, and Paris all must deal with their families’ financial situations and how their circumstances have shaped their worldviews. For example, Paris set up a bank account for her newfound wealth while trying to keep her grandmother from being evicted. “I learned quickly,” Paris says, “that black-folks rich and rich-rich aren’t the same thing.”

Spin delivers no central lesson about racial injustice. However, Spin is a diverse story set across a backdrop that shows readers how black music and culture evolve. From seeing Paris in the studio to seeing her fans’ blogs and bedrooms, readers will get a close-up look of how people of color influence and lead in the music scene. Readers will also see the anxieties Kya and Fuse experience while dealing with the police, because they are wary that, as people of color, they may become victims of police brutality.

Overall, Spin feels fairly one-dimensional, and readers may guess the ending before the murderer is revealed. The story is strongest in its theme of friendship, and readers will enjoy seeing Kya and Fuse bond as they begin to heal from Paris’s death. Equally important is the way art and culture bring people together, even as fame pushes artists to their breaking points.

Sexual Content

  • An internet troll asks Fuse, “If I hooked jumper cables to a car battery and clamped them onto your fingers and toes…would you blow?”
  • In a flashback, Paris narrates how she meets her boyfriend Shameik, who was “a CUTE-cute boy from my grade. Suddenly him invading my personal space wasn’t such a big deal.”
  • Paris’s boyfriend Shameik “kissed my neck again. It tickled, but I didn’t giggle because I liked acting as if those kisses didn’t affect me so he’d keep trying.”
  • Shameik and Fuse kissed once. It isn’t a big deal to Paris and is never described in detail, but the kiss keeps being brought up.
  • A character says, “If you made me leave so [Shameik and Fuse] could make out, I’m going to need some gas money.”

Violence

  • On the night of Paris’s murder, Kya punches Fuse in the face. “Her punch connected with my left eye. A solid POP! A white explosion of pain that washed out the room for a hot second.”
  • While questioning Fuse about the murder, a police officer “holds his hands at chest level, fingers curled, ready to grab” Fuse. Another cop grabs Fuse “so all I could do was kick, then he lifted me so those kicks only hit air.”
  • Fuse remembers finding Paris’s body. “That sheet of sticky, dark blood over half of ParSec’s [Paris’s] face. How she’d been a rag doll, arms spread wide, across the turntables…Her eyes bulged, the right one deep red where white should be, like something in that side of her head had exploded.”
  • A ParSec fan at school shoves Kya into a locker.
  • Fuse says, “Beyoncé could start the Purge with a tweet if she wanted.” (The Purge is a film about an anarchic period of unhinged murder and violence; the saying “The Purge” has become shorthand for such an event.)
  • Dedicated ParSec fans kidnap Kya and Fuse, zip-tie their hands and ankles together, and put them in the back of a van. Kya’s “turned—too late—to see two [people] rushing at me, duct tape stretched and ready. The first strip pressed hard against my lips while one of my assailants wrapped me [Kya] in a bear hug, pinning my arms.” During the attack a person in a mask “slammed a palm into my [Fuse’s] chest, pushing me back against the van wall.”
  • While they are captive in the van, Fuse is “angry enough to tear a chunk out of Kya” and aims “a two-heeled kick towards Kya’s chest.”
  • Someone tells Kya, “You should calm down. You’ll bust a blood vessel.” Kya responds, “I’ll bust your blood vessels!”
  • Devoted ParSec fans threaten to cut off Kya’s pinkie with garden shears. Later, they claim they were joking.
  • When they find the murderer, a group of ParSec fans deliver him to the police, “tied, gagged, and slightly bruised.” The fans have cut off his pinkie. The murderer’s hand “was heavily bandaged. A splotch of red seeped through.”
  • Fuse threatens Paris’s manager with a stun gun, but never uses it.
  • Fuse’s mother had the stun gun because “these days she preferred pepper spray and the spiked keychain her self-defense teacher gave her.”
  • When confronting a suspect, Fuse expects Kya “to kick the door in, snap this woman’s neck like Jessica Jones, and tear [her] out the house through a load-bearing wall.”
  • Paris’s narration reveals that her murder was an accident. She recounts, “His forearm grazed my chin, and I bit into his denim jacket sleeve. There were layers between my teeth and his flesh…I bit down with all the force in my jaws. He howled, tried to fling me off. He succeeded… The stand my laptop sat on was made of heavy aluminum… the corners were sharp… My temple connected with all the force generated from me and [the murderer]’s combined pain. A solid thunk, then my legs wouldn’t work.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A popular rapper smells “strongly of weed and cologne.”
  • Paris’s boyfriend, Shameik, finds beer bottles in Paris’s apartment and says, “Who was over here drinking beer?” Paris admits to sharing beers with a popular rap group. Shameik says, “My girlfriend’s alone with some drunk old guys, and I’m not supposed to be concerned?”

Language

  • “God,” “crap,” and “Jesus” are used infrequently.
  • “God!” and “Jesus!” are used as an exclamation occasionally.
  • Fuse says that ParSec fans view Paris as “their god.”
  • Paris says that Kanye West is “one of the gods.”
  • Paris’s grandmother sometimes says, “Lord.”
  • Paris says, “I promptly lost my ish [sic]” when she gets 8,000 plays on her SoundCloud.
  • Paris’s manager calls Fuse a “strumpet.”
  • Fuse says, “Screw it,” once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Kya’s mother thanks God for Kya’s safety.
  • Kya attends Paris’s funeral and observes that “The Fifth Street Baptist Church choir should’ve been here. That was [Paris’s grandmother]’s church…where Paris got dragged every Sunday before she could call shots. There was no ‘Amazing Grace,’ no ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow.’”
  • A music journalist finding a lead looks “like someone told him Christmas Eve got rescheduled to today.”

by Caroline Galdi

Ghost

Ghost (or Castle Cranshaw, as he would rather not be known) knows how to run all too well, and since the night his father tried to shoot him and his mother, running is all he can do to handle his wild emotions. When he shows up at a running practice, Coach Brody sees Ghost’s natural talent and insists he joins the team with one condition: that Ghost keep his head straight. For Ghost, who has a knack for running into trouble, this might be the most difficult task of all.

Ghost speaks to audiences that are otherwise underrepresented in middle grade literature, as Ghost and his friends are a diverse bunch. Ghost himself lives in a poverty-stricken part of the city. The novel tackles weighty themes like absent/abusive parents, race, and substance abuse; it contextualizes them through the lens of a thirteen-year-old who is learning to come to grips with his rage and fear. Ghost’s story in particular examines the effect of his father’s drinking and imprisonment on Ghost’s emotional state. Characters like Coach Brody and the other runners help him comprehend his situation, and their story is one about forging a new family through track.

As a character, Ghost can be arrogant. He delivers snap judgments of others. At times, he makes questionable decisions, including a major plot point where he shoplifts shoes because he cannot afford them. Despite these traits, he’s a sympathetic character who embodies what it’s like to be a kid dealing with a difficult home life, and emotions like humiliation, rage, and fear. By the end, Ghost realizes he “was the boy with the altercations and the big file. The one who yelled at teachers and punched stupid guys in the face for talking smack. The one who felt…different. And mad. And sad. The one with all the scream inside.” By the end, Ghost learns how to manage his emotions in a healthier way, as running track gives him a productive outlet.

Overall, Ghost is an entertaining read, and Reynolds does a good job delivering realistic characters that display both good and bad qualities. The plot is smart, straightforward, and doesn’t fall into predictable stereotypes. The biggest strength of the book is its ability to relate to students who otherwise don’t have a voice in middle school literature.

Although Ghost will resonate with those who love sports, any reader who has felt lost will relate to Ghost. The story shows how much of an impact one person or team can make in a kid’s life. Ghost is a must-read because it presents a growth in emotional maturity and shows that anything is possible with a support system and self-discipline.

Sexual Content

  • Ghost briefly mentions that Damon started a rumor at school. Damon “told everybody that I kissed a girl named Janine, who was the only pretty girl who liked me, but I didn’t.”
  • Some of the other runners tease Patty about having a crush on Curron, another runner. She quickly dispels that idea when she says, “Ain’t nobody got a crush on Curron!”

Violence

  • In a drunken rage, Ghost’s father tries to shoot Ghost and his mother. As they run away, Ghost “saw him, my dad, staggering from the bedroom, his lips bloody, a pistol in his hand… As soon as she swung the door open, my dad fired a shot… I didn’t look to see what he hit, mainly because I was scared it was gonna be me. Or Ma. The sound was big, and sharp enough to make me feel like my brain was gonna pop in my head, enough to make my heart hiccup.”
  • Ghost makes an offhand comment when he thinks about his mom meeting Coach Brady. Ghost says, “I’ve seen those weird shows where psychos pose like coaches and stuff and get you caught up and the next thing you know my mother’s in jail too for handling this guy.”
  • Another student bullies Ghost and strikes him with a chicken drumstick. The bully says a series of insults, and then the bully “threw the chicken wing at me. It hit me in the chest… I brushed the over-fried wing off my lap, opened my milk carton, took a swig, and then, with all my might, beamed the container at Brandon’s head…before he could even make a move, I had picked up my plastic tray and whacked him over the head.”
  • Ghost watches a fight break out between a group of men on the basketball court. One man, nicknamed Sicko, pushes someone. Ghost says, “A fight. As usual. Stupid Sicko pushed the wrong guy… And then Pop got into it. And then Big James. Then Big James’s girl. And then some other girl.”
  • Coach Brody details his father’s abuse. Coach Brody says that his father “punched me in the mouth when I was fifteen because I asked him to change the channel on the TV.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ghost’s father is an alcoholic, which Ghost talks openly about throughout the novel. Ghost says, “It was three years ago when my dad lost it. When the alcohol made him meaner than he’d ever been.”
  • Ghost observes the drug addicts hanging around the basketball courts. He says, “And junkies. They’d just be zombied out, roaming around the outside of the court… Goose was the dope man… Super flashy, but an all-around nice guy. Well, except for selling drugs.”
  • Coach Brody talks about his own father’s addiction and overdose. Coach says that his father “was an addict… Three weeks later, he…he stole my medal for a twenty-dollar high. He overdosed, right there on those steps.”

Language

  • Slang and otherwise grammatically incorrect sentences are used in dialogue to simulate authentic speech. For instance, Ghost says, “running isn’t anything I ever had to practice. It’s just something I knew how to do.”
  • Ghost frequently insults people’s appearances. For instance, upon seeing Coach Brody, Ghost says that Coach looks like a “turtle with a chipped tooth.” Later he calls Coach “this bowling-ball-head coach.”
  • When describing people, Ghost will sometimes refer to their race. For example, “milk-face running boy” and “fancy, white-black boy.”
  • Ghost compares a bully to Jack from Lord of the Flies, calling him a “power-hungry dummy.”
  • Ghost and the other kids frequently use words like dang, stupid, weird, crazy person, and jerk.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Ghost references God once, saying, “His skin was white. Like, the color white. And his hair was light brown. But his face looked like a black person’s. Like God forgot to put the brown in him.”

by Allison Kestler

 

Like a Love Story

Like a Love Story takes place in New York City in the late 1980s. The AIDS crisis is devastating gay communities, and activists are protesting the government’s reluctance to extend research or support to those affected. The narration rotates between three teenagers: Reza, Art, and Judy.

Reza is new in town, having recently immigrated to New York from Iran, where his family escaped a violent revolution. In the closet with a nearly hypochondriac fear of AIDS, Reza starts at a new school and soon meets Judy and Art, who have been best friends since childhood. Both Judy and Art are committed to gay culture and gay activism under the tutelage of Judy’s uncle Stephen, an AIDS patient and well-known member of the gay community. Art is an out-and-proud gay teenager, who is assertive and upfront about his identity. Brash and unafraid, Art is full of anger at the injustice of the AIDS crisis. Judy, a straight girl who shares Art’s love of Madonna and fashion, supports him in everything and shares his love of fashion and film.

A romance develops between Reza and Judy. But Reza, a closeted gay, knows he can only hold out for so long before his secret comes out. The first two acts of the novel largely concern their false relationship, eventual falling-out, and then the ensuing romance between Reza and Art. Each of the three narrators has a fairly equal stake in the plot, and each brings their own narration, perspective, and personality to the story. Like a Love Story is largely a coming-of-age story, but it is really three coming-of-age stories as each character grapples with their sexuality, their future, and their imminent emergence into the adult world.

Like a Love Story is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn about the AIDS crisis or the origins of the modern gay rights movement. Without preaching or lecturing, the narrative paints a rich and engaging portrait of the political climate through its three narrators. Each character in Like a Love Story has a completely unique voice; readers can open the book to any page and immediately know who is speaking.

Regardless of their own identities, readers will see themselves in the characters because of how authentically they are portrayed. Each character has uncertainty about their place in the world, an imperfect relationship with their parents, a faulty understanding of how the world works, and a yearning to belong—and readers get to see them grow as the story progresses.

 Like a Love Story has some of the most compelling adult figures in a genre where adults are often one-dimensional and cast to the side. The relationship that each teen has with their parents is complicated and imperfect, but masterfully written. It is genuinely heart-wrenching to see Art’s interactions with his homophobic parents, and it is genuinely moving to see Judy’s conversations with her mother evolve throughout the story.

Like a Love Story does not shy away from sexual content and depictions of sex acts, but it’s one of the few books that feels justified in its usage. Characters frequently talk of condoms and bodily fluids. The mechanics of AIDS transmission and the effects of the disease are explained as Uncle Stephen succumbs to infections. Readers who pick up this book in 2020 will already know the ending to some extent. Thanks to modern medicine, many people today can live full lives with HIV and new pharmaceuticals can help prevent transmission. However, the characters don’t know this, and they can only grieve the dead and dying members of their community while fighting for rights and recognition. The story highlights the importance of community, activism, and love.

Sexual Content

  • When asked how he knew he was gay, Art says, “I had a wet dream about Morrisey.”
  • During a make-out session, Judy tries to find out if Reza is aroused. “As nonchalant as I can, I move my hand down, feeling his crotch. I feel something hard. Is it him, or is it his zipper? I can’t even tell. I’ve never felt a hard-on before.”
  • Judy thinks, “Art told me once that the subway was the hottest place in the city, as in sexual heat, not physical temperature. He said that all those bodies rubbing against each other basically made it a clothed, co-ed bathhouse.”
  • Reza sees a naked male mannequin in a store window and thinks, “I look at the mannequin’s body and find myself getting a little hard. I cover my crotch with my hands. I imagine that Art is the mannequin, standing in the store window naked. How sick do you have to be to be turned on by a piece of plastic?”
  • After Reza sees a photo of Art, Reza thinks, “I need to stop thinking about him, and I know there’s only one way to do that. I lie back on my bed, close my eyes, and unzip my pants. I see Bartholomew Emerson Grant VI come to life, enter my room, climb into bed with me. He kisses me, undresses me, tells me not to be scared. But then he’s gone, and all I see are images of dying men with lesions.”
  • A big part of the second half of the plot is Reza’s shame and paranoia surrounding his sexual desires. Stephen teaches Art and Reza about safe sex and about how to use condoms safely. Stephen tells them, “If you want a tutorial, we can go home and practice with bananas. . . Lube is lubricant. Men need it, because we don’t naturally get wet down there . . . the jury is out on whether oral sex is safe or not, but my advice is to use a condom for that too.”
  • Stephen says, “The straight world has defined losing your virginity as intercourse. That’s their thing. But we get to define it for ourselves. And you never, ever have to do anything you don’t want to.”
  • Reza thinks, “I hate those words. Oral. Anal. I hate how graphic they are, how hostile they feel.”
  • In a photography darkroom, Art takes off his clothes for Reza. “There’s only one thing to take off. My boxer briefs. I remove them. I stand in front of him, exposed.” They kiss, but don’t do anything else.
  • Judy has an intimate moment with Reza’s brother, Saadi. As Judy makes out him, “It’s furious. Our tongues explore each other. Then his hands are all over me… his breath is heavy, and his hips are thrusting urgently. I feel what I never felt when Reza and I kissed, an erection. Saadi is so hard. He sits up and takes his polo off.” They don’t go all the way. “He wants to have sex, but I tell him I’m not ready.”
  • Art says, “The first time I read porn, I was twelve. I found my dad’s stash of Penthouse and Playboy magazines in the back of his closet. But Penthouse has these sex stories in them, and they were very hot because there were men in them.”
  • The characters all go to a Madonna performance wherein she masturbates onstage. The act is not described in detail.
  • When Art and Reza finally consummate their relationship, they use condoms and lube. Reza wraps “my legs around him, pulling him closer to me, or deeper into me, because he’s in me now. We thrust and grunt and sweat until we almost fall off the bed.” The scene takes up about three pages, but it is mostly dialogue and doesn’t go into more physical detail.

Violence

  • While attending a protest, Art hears bystanders say, “Hose those faggots down. They like that.”
  • During a protest, police officers “yank Art away and handcuff him.” The other police officer “pushes Reza to the ground.”
  • Some bullies begin to taunt Art, and he reacts violently. “My fingers tense into a fist. Before I know it, I leap out of my seat and tackle Darryl to the ground, taking him down like I’m one of the gorgeous ladies of wrestling. ‘Go to hell, you fucking ASSHOLE!’ I scream as he writhes below me, his scared, beefy body stronger than mine but unable to overpower the force of my rage. ‘Get off me, fag!’ he yells. ‘Not until I give you AIDS,’ I say, and I spit on his face.” Art describes later, “I pull Darryl’s foot toward my face. He pushes his leg up, kicking my chin hard in the process. My teeth hit my lips. My head doubles back, hits the wall with a thud… My eyes flicker with the shock of pain. When I open them, I see blood on my hand and on my shirt.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a party with some kids from school, Judy gets “drunk on fruit punch.” Her friend tells her, “You don’t want your parents to see you like this.”
  • When Uncle Stephen is on his deathbed, he asks for a glass of wine. Judy’s mom pours wine for him and a small glass for Judy.
  • Uncle Stephen has been taking morphine for his pain; by the time he dies, his bottle of morphine is empty.

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: fuck, shit, hell, ass, and damn.
  • “Oh my God” is often used as an exclamation.
  • Art is determined to reclaim the words “faggot” and “fag,” which is a recurring point throughout the story. Judy’s mom asks Art not to use the word because “I heard that word hissed at my brother like a dagger throughout his childhood, and I don’t want to hear it ever again.” They eventually agree to disagree.
  • After coming out, Reza has “heard every possible word a homosexual could be called . . . Faggot. Pansy. Mary. Butt pirate. Fruit. Turd burglar. Flamer. Nancy. Queen.”

Supernatural

  • Art can see “auras.” Readers might recognize them as a condition called synesthesia, but to Art they take on a spiritual and artistic significance. Art doesn’t “snap a photo unless I see its energy. I know they’re all black-and-white, but they have colors to me. Auras.”

Spiritual Content

  • Art says, “I think that if it weren’t for all the bullshit rules of Catholicism, then there would be no Madonna, because what is she if not a rebellion against all of this?”
  • In a church, Art thinks, “I don’t want to burn this place to the ground. What I want is to make them see that I AM HOLY. These thoughts of me and Reza, they are holy.”
  • A priest’s homily “makes multiple references to protecting ‘the unborn.’” Art thinks, “It’s amazing how gung-ho he is about saving the lives of fetuses, but then he turns a blind eye to all the actual humans DYING right in front of him.”
  • Art lights prayer candles in a church and thinks, “I know that I don’t believe in a God who can grant wishes, but if there’s even a chance that such a God exists, then I have some wishes I’d like granted.” He wishes for AIDS to be cured.

by Caroline Galdi

 

Many Waters

When identical twins Dennis and Sandy accidentally mess with their father’s scientific experiment on faster-than-light travel, they are transported to a desert wasteland. Stranded and confused, the two boys meet the locals—dark-skinned people who are only four feet tall. Between the strange people, the miniature mammoths, unicorns, and manticores, Sandy and Dennis are convinced they’re on a strange planet on the other side of the universe. After nearly dying from heatstroke, they are taken in by Grandfather Lameck. When they meet Grandfather Lameck’s son, Noah, the twins realize they have been thrown back in time and are on Earth in the time right before the Great Flood. But the flood is coming—will the twins find a way home before the rain starts to fall?

To make matters more complicated, humans are not the only intelligent beings to deal with. There are seraphim, a tall and beautiful winged people who know many things—maybe even how to get the twins home—but the seraphim do not like to interfere with the lives of men. Then, there are the nephilim, just as tall and beautiful as the seraphim, but they spend their time seducing women with worldly pleasures and extravagant treasures. The nephilim are suspicious of the twins’ sudden appearance, and they will do anything to find out what they are up to.

Once again, L’Engle spins a magical tale that centers on the battle between good and evil. Yalith and Jephath, two of Noah’s children, are kind people that do all they can to help the twins. But most people who live in the oasis are corrupt and evil, abandoning tradition to pursue pleasure and to get ahead in life. The twins and Yalith are all tempted to give in to worldly pleasures. While conflicted, all three reject temptation in exchange for kindness, unicorns, and listening to the stars.

While there are good and bad characters, several members of Noah’s family and Noah himself are more ambiguous, showing that even godly people are not perfect. While God is mentioned several times as “El,” the story centers more around the twins as they adapt to the time period and try to find a way home. The seraphim and the nephilim are revealed to be angels and fallen angels, respectively. They add intrigue and excitement to the story. Overall, Many Waters is a fun tale with a unique twist on the story of Noah’s Ark that will leave readers satisfied.

Sexual Content

  • In Noah’s time, bothmen and women only wore loincloths. Therefore, Sandy and Dennis see several women’s breasts, but none are described graphically. When meeting Yalith, Sandy notes “the girl, who wore only a loincloth . . . was gently curved, with small rosy breasts.”
  • Yalith kisses Aariel, a seraph, much as a child kisses a parent. “Like a child, she held her face up for a kiss, and Aariel leaned down and pressed his lips gently against hers.”
  • Yalith sees her sister with a nephilim. Her sister was “gazing up at him adoringly, leaning against him so that her rosy breasts touched his pale flesh.”
  • Japheth kisses his wife several times. Once, “Japheth leaned to her and kissed her on the lips. Dennis . . . thought that it was a nice kiss. It was the kind of kiss he had seen his father give his mother. A real kiss. If he lived through this, he would like to kiss someone like that.” Another time, Japheth’s wife “bent toward him to kiss him.”
  • A girl from the oasis flirts with Sandy. She “bent closer and brushed her lips against his.” Later, she tries to seduce him. “He was not prepared to have the light suddenly darkened by Tiglah’s face as she pressed her lips against his . . . he knew what she wanted, and he wanted it, too; he was ready, but not, despite her gorgeousness, with Tiglah . . . her breathing mingled with his. He knew if he did not break this off, he would not be able to. With a deep inward sigh, he pulled away.”
  • Sandy thinks about taking Yalith to the future with him. Sandy “looked at Yalith’s small and perfect body, barely covered by the loincloth, her breasts delicate and rosy, and had a moment’s absurd vision of her in one of the classrooms at the regional high school.”
  • When saying goodbye, “Yalith nodded, then reached up to Sandy and kissed him on the lips. Then Dennis. Full, long kisses.”

Violence

  • Sandy is kidnapped. “He tried to wriggle out of the clutch of whoever was carrying him, and a fish crashed into his belly, winding him, and something sharp pricked his arm.”
  • When Japheth tries to rescue Sandy, “the older man swooped on him with the spear, and despite Japheth’s quick reflex, the spear cut across his ribs, and a trickle of blood slid down his side.”
  • Japheth comes home with “an ugly bruise on his cheek where an angrily thrown stone had hit him.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Noah has the “largest and best vineyards on the oasis . . . the fame of his wine had spread to many other oases round about.”
  • A man is sick from drinking too much. Afterward, “the smell of Ham’s sickness mingled with the smell of wine, of meat form the stewpot, of the skins of the tent.”
  • Yalith remembers how her sister had a wedding with “far too much wine, inferior, at that.”
  • When Noah reconciles with his father, he “handed his father a small wineskin. . . The old man held the wineskin to his lips, then smacked them in appreciation.” Sandy also takes a small sip.

Language

  • When a woman’s family kidnaps him, Sandy thinks, “you slut.”
  • An angry man says, “Auk’s nuts to you.”

Supernatural

  • Sandy and Dennis accidentally mess up their father’s scientific experiment and are sent back in time. “Dennis groped through a pervasive mist, his hands touching nothing. Came a great sonic boom. Then absolute silence.”
  • In the past, there were miniature mammoths. “From behind the outcropping of rock came something grey and sinuous which the twins at first thought was a snake. But it was followed by a head with small, bright, black eyes, and great fans of ears, and a chunky body covered with shaggy grey hair.”
  • There are manticores in the past, which try to eat the mammoths several times. The manticore had a “man’s face with filthy hair. . . From the mat of hair came two horns, curved downward, with sharp points like boar’s teeth. . . The rest of the creature pushed into the tent. The head did not belong to a man’s body but to a lion’s . . . the lion did not have a lion’s tail but a scorpion’s.” The manticores can only say the word “hungry!”
  • There are unicorns that flicker in and out of existence. They can flicker out of existence in one place, then be called into existence miles away instantaneously. “On the horizon to the far left, moving toward them, appeared a creature which shimmered in and out of their vision, silvery in color, as large as a goat or a pony, with light flickering out from its forehead.”
  • There are seraphim (angels) and nephilim (fallen angels). Both have “Great wings. Much long hair. . . The seraphim are golden and the nephilim are white, whiter than sand.”
  • Both the seraphim and the nephilim can turn into animals; each has their own animal they transform into. One of the seraphim is a scarab beetle. “Grandfather Lameck took it on his palm, a scarab beetle, glinting bronze in the lamplight. The old man stroked it gently with a trembling forefinger, and closed his palm. Then came a vivid flash of light, similar to that of the unicorn’s horn, and a tall presence stood in the tent, smiling at the old man…Hair the color of wheat with the sun on it, brightly gold, long, and tied back, falling so that it almost concealed tightly furled wings.” One of the nephilim is a giant desert lizard. “As the lizard neared her, it rose straight upward to a height of at least six feet, and suddenly [its] arms were outstretched above the head; the tail forked into two legs, and a man came running toward her, a man of extraordinary beauty, with alabaster-white skin and wings of brilliant purple.”
  • Yalith shows Dennis how to listen to the stars. “He listened, listened, focusing on one bright pattern of stars. Closed his eyes. Listened. Seemed to hear a delicate, crystal chiming. Words. Hush. Heal. Rest. Make peace. Fear not. He laughed in excitement. Opened his eyes to twinkling diamonds.”

Spiritual Content

  • A woman tells the twins, “We don’t have any men on the oasis who are as tall and like gods as you are.”
  • The twins discover that Grandfather Lameck’s son is Noah, from the biblical story of Noah and the Arc.
  • Yalith recounts her family lineage, which includes the biblical figures Methuselah and Enoch. “Methuselah, my great-grandfather, lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years. And his father was Enoch, who walked with El, and lived three hundred and sixty and five years, and then El took him.”
  • The people in Noah’s time call God “El” and El sometimes speaks to them, though his words are never shared directly in the story. Noah says, “Yesterday, when I was working in the vineyard, the Voice spoke to me. El told me that I must find wives for you.”
  • Japheth mentions a curse on the land. “When our forebears had to leave the Garden, they were told, Accursed shall the ground be on your account. It will grow thorns and thistles for you. You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow.”
  • The seraphim mention the pattern. They say the twins “are part of the pattern,” but “the pattern is not set. . . It is fluid, and constantly changing.” They always maintain that the pattern “will be worked out in beauty in the end.”

by Morgan Lynn

The Dragon Thief

Jaxon had just one job—to return three baby dragons to the realm of magic. When he got there, only two dragons were left in the bag. His best friend’s sister, Kavita, is a dragon thief!

Kavita only wanted what was best for the baby dragon. Now every time she feeds it, the dragon grows and grows! How can she possibly keep it secret? Even worse, stealing the dragon has upset the balance between the worlds, and the gates to the other realm have shut tight! Jaxon needs all the help he can get to find Kavita, outsmart a trickster named Blue, and return the baby dragon to its true home.

The sequel to Dragons in a Bag continues Jaxon’s story; however, many of the characters from the first book only make a very brief appearance. Instead, The Dragon Thief jumps back and forth between Jaxon’s and Kavita’s points of view. Jaxon and Kavita both want to return the dragon to the realm of magic, but they don’t work together until the very end. Much of the story focuses on both Jaxon and Kavita trying to figure out how to return the dragon. With talking animals, magic, and a cast of helpful characters, the story has many interesting elements.

Readers may be disappointed that the dragon rarely appears in the story. However, several new characters add interest to the story. Jaxon meets a feisty fairy and gains the help of a classmate. At one point Jaxon thinks, “A week ago, a talking pigeon would have freaked me out. But over the past few days, I’ve encountered a very determined squirrel, actual dinosaurs, a talking rat, and three baby dragons. I’ve learned to take it all in stride.”

The Dragon Thief hints at some important themes, but they are undeveloped. Several times the story mentions slavery and freedom, but the information is not integrated into the story and seems random. Jaxon’s family only appears at the end of the story, but he thinks, “This is my family. Sure, we’re different from other families. Ma’s a witch, and I’m her apprentice. Mama’s a widow, and Trub’s reformed thief. We’ve all made mistakes—big and small—but we stick together because that’s what you do when you love someone.”

The Dragon Thief has some interesting elements, but the undeveloped plot will leave readers with many questions. One positive aspect of the story is that both Jaxon and Kavita are diverse characters who want what’s best for the dragon. Overall, The Dragon Thief has enough mystery and magic to interest fantasy fans, but the abrupt ending and the many characters may confuse some readers.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • At the end of the story, Ma tells Jaxon, “Then let’s get this party started boy! Bring me a beer!” Ma means a root beer, but readers won’t know that unless they’ve read the first book in the series.”

Language

  • As Jaxon is walking in a park, he almost steps on “a pile of dog crap.”
  • Kavita’s brother tells his friend that Kavita is a brat and a “pain in the butt.”
  • A boy tells Jaxon that “a lot of kids at our school are jerks.” Later, the same boy says Blue is a jerk.
  • While looking for Blue, Jaxon asks a rat for help. The rat tells Jaxon, “Blue’s a nasty piece of work. Trash, really…He hasn’t got a selfless bone in his freaky blue body.”
  • A boy calls Blue a creep.
  • Three times, someone calls the trickster Blue a fool.
  • Blue calls Jaxon and his friends “rotten brats.”

Supernatural

  • Ma is a witch who can travel to another dimension where magic exists.
  • Kavita and Aunty go to see Bejan, an astrologer and psychic. Bejan explains, “Jyotisha, or the science of light, involves the study of the stars and planets.” Bejan uses a dragon’s birthday to give Kavita and Aunty advice.
  • Jaxon can talk to animals.
  • Jeff, a fairy, “raises his arms once more, but this time when he lowers them, a circle of blue light appears. It’s as if the fairy traced a bubble in the air and then willed it into existence.” The bubble allows Jaxon to talk to someone who is in another dimension.
  • Blue takes animals from another dimension and turns them into tattoos. Blue explains, “These are my guests… We share space and show respect… Real tattoos are permanent, but these…are just temporary.” Later, Blue’s tattoos are taken away. “We see movement beneath his clothing and hear a faint clamor as Sis extracts the creatures tattooed on Blue’s skin. One by one the mermaid, parrot, sea serpent, unicorn, and others peel off and float toward Sis. Still in miniature, the creatures huddle together and are soon encased in a clear spear that forms above Sis’s outstretched palm.” The creatures are taken back to the realm of magic.
  • Blue uses the tattoos to give him power. He creates “potions, spells, curses, and hexes. Everything humans most desire—love, wealth, revenge, success. Put it in a bottle and slap on a price tag.”
  • A dragon appears and then changes into a “human form.”
  • Jaxon is given a potion that will wake up Ma. He is instructed to put three drops in a glass of water “before the moon wanes.” When Ma drinks the potion, she awakens.
  • In order to transport the dragon to the proper diminution, “Sis points at the creature and draws a circle around it once, twice, and by the third time another elastic sphere has formed. Unlike Blue’s tattoos, however, the dragon doesn’t accept its fate. It whines and claws against the sphere, but to no avail.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Tumbling

Tumbling takes place over the course of a two-day gymnastics meet, but it’s not just any meet—this meet determines who will represent the United States at the Olympics. The story is told from the perspectives of five different girls, each of whom deals with her own struggles.

Leigh is a closeted lesbian and worries about the implications if her secret gets out. Grace has a distorted view of what a perfect gymnast is and ends up paying the price. Monica is a nobody and feels she isn’t good enough to be there. Wilhelmina’s shot at the Olympics was taken from her four years ago because of a rule change, and now she is determined to prove she deserves to go more than anyone else. Camille was injured four years ago in a car crash and is making a comeback to gymnastics, but she can’t decide if this is what she truly wants. Is the Olympics worth sacrificing her boyfriend and her happiness?

Although each girl’s problem is unique, they all struggle with the complexity of competing against friends. Everyone is paranoid; no one’s words can be trusted. Tumbling explores the enormous pressures that come with gymnastics—on bodies, mental states, friendships, and relationships.

Tumbling is an intense book with routines so detailed that readers will hold their breaths as they read them. Readers will cheer when the girls land their routines perfectly and ache when they make mistakes. Readers who know nothing about gymnastics will be able to understand Tumbling, but there is a glossary in the back of the book to help with the gymnastics terminology if needed. Rather than focusing on the intricacy of the sport, the story focuses more on the girls’ struggles. Readers will relate to the girls’ problems, which include sexuality, eating disorders, confidence, family relationships, and boyfriends.

The characters invoke sympathy, but none of them are truly likable. They are petty and constantly play mind games with each other. Because the story takes place over two days, there isn’t enough time for the girls to develop. The book ends abruptly and leaves the reader with many unanswered questions. Overall, Tumbling is best suited for those looking to read an entertaining book. Readers who want a mix of spots, teenage drama, and intense competition will enjoy Tumbling.

 Sexual Content

  • Leigh has a crush on Camille and fantasizes about her a couple of times. Leigh is distracted at the meet and thinks about “Camille’s cushy lips.” Camille comes to Leigh’s room with the other gymnasts to watch an interview. “It wasn’t going to be like it had been in Leigh’s fantasies last night. When Camille had sat down with Leigh on her bed and told her she was dumping her boyfriend because she’d realized she thought Leigh was so much hotter. And then had laid down next to her and. . . ”
  • After Leigh performs a perfect floor routine, she hugs teammate after teammate until eventually, Camille hugs her. “Camille was hugging her, actually pressed against her body, like Leigh had imagined so many times in the privacy of her own head.”
  • Dylan Patrick, a member of a famous boy band, messages Grace and says she’s “hot.” He, Grace, and Leigh send flirty messages throughout the book, such as, “It means a lot to know someone is watching me. Especially someone as cute as you.”
  • Monica flashes back to when she got waxed “down there.” She describes how “…the wax job from a few days ago had replaced her pubic hair with angry red welts.” She remembers she lay “half-naked” and “her crotch burned like any other fifteen-year-olds.”
  • During the meet, Monica is uncomfortable being “basically naked” and having “every line on her body on display.”
  • A doctor asks Camille, who is sixteen, if she menstruates.
  • Camille lists the things that were different about her before she met her boyfriend. “Different height. Different weight. Different voice. Virgin.”
  • Camille talks about how she has grown since she took a break from gymnastics by saying, “…a woman of five feet and one inch with breasts and hips.”
  • Wilhelmina almost wishes she could be a mean gymnast, someone who would “message Dylan Patrick something suggestive tonight to get under Grace’s skin.”
  • There are several instances of Wilhelmina fantasizing about kissing her boyfriend, such as, “She’d wrap her arms around his and press her lips to his.”
  • Wilhelmina and her boyfriend almost kiss. Wilhelmina’s “lips were just centimeters away from his. She could feel her breath on his mouth.” They don’t kiss because he says he can wait until Wilhelmina is done with the Olympics.
  • Leigh thinks Grace wraps herself in multiple towels because she didn’t want Leigh to see “a bit of skin besides her face and her feet.”

Violence

  • Grace has an eating disorder. She “pared herself down to three hundred or five hundred calories a day just to be a bee to keep up with the skinnies.” She worries Leigh will “see how far my collarbone is sticking out today, afraid you’d notice that my legs are like twigs growing out of the hotel carpet.” She eventually confesses she doesn’t eat to Leigh and Camille, with the intention of confessing to her dad, and promises she will get help.
  • Wilhelmina sees evidence of Grace’s eating disorder a few times throughout the book and is saddened by it, but chooses not to do anything about it. She sees Grace throw away an entire plate of food twice. She notices how skinny her body is a few times. “Wilhelmina swore she could see through Grace’s quadriceps to her femur. Even when Grace was bent over, her hip bones were visible.”
  • In a flashback that takes place four years ago, Camille is ecstatic after making it onto the Olympic team. She is having an out-of-body experience when she gets into a car crash. “…almost like she wasn’t in the car but was instead floating about it, watching and saving the joy for later. And it was good she wasn’t in her body at that moment. Because that’s probably why she didn’t feel her head go through the windshield.” Her doctor says gymnastics caused “‘…the stress fractures in your back that caused it to break in three places during the crash.’”
  • Gymnastics is discussed as being dangerous to your health. Camille’s doctor tells her, “‘It’s gymnastics that almost killed you.’” Camille thinks, “Everyone had some sort of scare when she fell head-first off the bars or whacked her back into the balance beam from three feet in the air.”
  • Grace suggests to the reporters Leigh is a lesbian, and Leigh gets angry. “Leigh was going to slap her. If it weren’t for the cameras still in the vicinity, her hand would be imprinted on Grace’s face.”
  • Grace almost falls off the bar due to her eating disorder. During her routine, “her body almost crumpled off the bar and whacked it before falling 8.2 feet to the floor.”
  • Leigh falls off the beam and gets injured. “A hammer bashed into her forehead just above her right eye. Her body stiffened and her blood was sharp and painful, like razors running through her veins, and her eye was going to fall out and roll on the floor, that floor, which was coming up beneath her limbs much too quickly, and then, thankfully, she blacked out.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Leigh and Grace watch as Monica picks her wedgie. They say she needs to “‘buy better butt glue’” and call her the “Wedgie Queen.” They continue to joke about this a few more times throughout the book.
  • God, Oh God, Oh my God, and For God’s sakes are used frequently as exclamations.
  • Christ is used once as an exclamation.
  • Leigh’s coach calls a reporter an asshole.
  • Leigh worries she is a bitch on the mat.
  • Profanity is used sparingly throughout the book. Profanity includes: shit, bullshit, damn it, damn, badass, freaking, and kick ass.
  • “For the hell of it” is used once.
  • A girl says, “That was some effed-up stuff.”
  • Wilhelmina tells Camille to “cut the crap.”
  • “Get her butt back on the beam” and “Kicking butt” are each used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Grace meditates before her beam routine. “It would look like she was praying, but Grace didn’t pray…It was her own body she counted on, not some Great Unknown Creature in the Sky.”
  • Camille made the Olympic team four years ago, but she had to withdraw due to a car accident. She describes her moment of happiness in the car as “this hoped for, prayed for moment was almost otherworldly, almost like she wasn’t in the car but was instead floating above it, watching and saving the joy for later.”
  • Leigh is tired of being mean during the gymnastics meet, so she promises to be nice and still win the meet. “So when Leigh had closed her eyes last night, she had made a promise to the Gods of Gymnastics or the Universe or whoever was in charge out there. Tomorrow, I will be me, and I will still win. I will win while being nice.”
  • After Leigh falls, Grace says, “I think I accidentally prayed for it.”
  • After Leigh falls, Monica tells Grace and Ted, “You aren’t gods.”

by Jill Johnson

 

Up for Air

Annabelle is relieved to be finished with seventh grade, and she’s ready to swim the summer away with her two best friends, Jeremy and Mia. In school, Annabelle struggles due to a learning disability, but when it comes to swimming, she’s the fastest girl in middle school. In fact, she is so fast that she is recruited to join the high school summer swim team. She is excited to hang out with her new teammates, especially Conner, a cute sophomore who just can’t seem to take his eyes off her. However, after an accident that leaves her unable to swim, she realizes how fragile her popularity really is. She starts to question if Conner really likes her, who her real friends are, and who she is without swimming.

Morrison addresses difficult topics through the eyes of an incredibly perceptive thirteen-year-old. Annabelle wants to express her sympathy to others, such as Jeremy’s older sister, Kayla, who is recovering from an eating disorder. Although Annabelle has never had an eating disorder, she understands how hard it must be for Kayla to wear a swimsuit or go to an ice cream parlor. She tells Kayla, “I’m sorry you had to go through that. It must have been really hard. And I’m really happy you’re better.”

Annabelle also struggles with the changes in her home life. Annabelle’s parents got divorced four years ago due to her father’s drinking problem. Since then, her father moved away and her mother remarried. Annabelle feels guilty for having a good relationship with her stepfather when she isn’t even sure she wants a relationship with her biological father.

Although Annabelle is a competitive swimmer, Up for Air hardly talks about the sport itself. Instead, it focuses on how being on the high school swim team affects Annabelle, her friends, and her family. Even though Annabelle makes mistakes throughout the book, readers will still love her as she grapples with the changes that come with adolescence. Like many girls, Annabelle struggles with insecurities, anxiety, and the desire to be liked.  Up for Air explores the themes of self-confidence, friendship, and trust, making it the perfect bridge between elementary and young adult books.

Sexual Content

  • Annabelle describes her new swimsuit, which is more revealing than her previous ones. “The straps were thin and the front dipped low enough that she could see the freckle in the middle of her chest – the one most of her shirts covered up. Her other racing suits flattened her out, but this one didn’t. And the leg openings were cut extra high, which meant her legs looked extra long.”
  • At the pool, Annabelle notices she looks more like the high schoolers now that her body has changed. She is excited when Conner looks at her in her swimsuit and tells his friend she is “all grown up.”
  • It is implied that Annabelle cannot buy a shirt because it is too revealing. “When Annabelle had stepped out of the dressing room, Mia’s mom had said, ‘Va-va-voom! Honey, I don’t think you can wear that shirt to school!’”
  • Elisa, an older swimmer, tells Annabelle, “Coach Colette was practically salivating about how she’ll get to coach you once you’re fourteen.” Conner says, “What’s that now? Who’s salivating?” Elisa responds, “If anybody says anything that could in any way be twisted around to sound inappropriate, there you are.”
  • Annabelle admires her swim coach, Colette’s, body. “Annabelle hoped that when she did peak, her body would look a lot like Colette’s. People talked about how hot, pretty, and strong Colette was. Annabelle wanted people to talk about her like that, too.”
  • Annabelle invites Mia to get ice cream, so Mia can see the guy who was flirting with her last time they went.
  • At lunch, Annabelle sits with a few high schoolers. They are playing a game where one person names two people, and the others have to choose one. The high schoolers tell Annabelle the purpose of the game is to choose who they would want to “spend an afternoon alone with.” Annabelle doesn’t understand the underlying meaning.
  • When a guy asks Annabelle to choose between two guys, she says, “I don’t know. Why don’t you choose first?” She feels bad for making this joke. She knows they only laugh because they’re uncomfortable with homosexuality.
  • At a meeting with her principal to discuss her low test scores, Annabelle reflects that while her body is developing earlier than her peers, her brain is developing later than her peers.
  • When someone suggests going swimming, Annabelle notices no one has a swimsuit. “Were they going to swim in their clothes? Or – ack – not in their clothes?” In the end, they don’t swim.

Violence

  • Annabelle and her friends attempt to sneak into the backyard of a famous director. They hoist her up to unlock the gate, but she falls when the alarm goes off. “Her left knee smacked one of the iron bars halfway down, and her right ankle twisted under her weight when her foot hit the ground. But that was nothing compared to the pain that knifed through her right wrist when she put down her hand to stop her fall.”
  • Annabelle looks at her injured wrist a few minutes after falling. Her wrist “had puffed up pretty badly, and the tender skin on the side of her thumb was turning blue.”
  • The morning after she injures her wrist, “her wrist and thumb were even bigger, and the tender skin was pink and purple, like the ugliest sunset imaginable. She couldn’t rotate her hand at all. She could barely even flex her fingers.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Annabelle’s biological father had a drinking problem. She flashes back to one day when he came to pick her up from swim practice. He was swaying and talking “funny, as if he had marshmallows inside his cheeks.” Annabelle’s mom drove her home.
  • When Annabelle’s dad still lived with her and her mom, Annabelle would “wake up in the middle of the night and find him sitting on the couch with a glass of amber liquid in his hand.”
  • Annabelle remembers her mom telling her dad, “I’m worried about the drinking. I’m worried you haven’t started looking for another job. I’m worried you don’t seem like your old self.”
  • Annabelle goes to a party where a few high schoolers are drinking beer. Annabelle does not drink.
  • Annabelle has “never been able to forget the way her dad had slurred late at night or the way he swayed and couldn’t focus his eyes on her that terrible day when he showed up drunk at swim practice.”

Language

  • Jeremy tells Annabelle, “I can’t believe those dicks left you!”
  • Mia tells Annabelle, “It sounds like you really treated Jeremy like crap.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Jill Johnson

 

Geekerella

Elle Whittimer is living in an impossible universe. Her father died, leaving her with her awful stepfamily. Now her only connection to her father is through Starfield, an old science fiction television show that he loved so much he started a fan convention for it. These days ExcelsiCon is one of the biggest cons in the country, but Elle hasn’t been back since her father died. Instead, she finds her solace in late night Starfield reruns, posting on her blog, Rebelgunner, and dreaming of the day when she can escape to California and become a screenwriter. When a movie reboot of Starfield is announced, Elle is afraid that her favorite story is about to be ruined. But this movie just might be the ticket to her dreams because this year, the first-place prize for ExcelsiCon’s cosplay contest is a chance to attend the premiere in Hollywood. With a little help from her coworker Sage, Elle decides to turn her father’s old costume into a prize-winning cosplay.

Darien Freeman just landed the role of a lifetime: Federation Prince Carmindor in the Starfield movie reboot. However, as a lifelong fan, he’s afraid he won’t be able to do the character justice. There are already fans, like the blogger behind Rebelgunner, who are convinced that casting a teen heartthrob was a terrible idea. The last thing Darien wants to do is surround himself with a bunch of angry, hardcore Starfield fans, which means he really needs to get out of judging the ExcelsiCon’s annual cosplay contest. When Darien sends a text hoping to contact someone at ExcelsiCon, he ends up reaching Elle. After connecting through a mutual love of Starfield, their anonymous friendship begins to grow into something more. But what will happen when their paths cross on the convention floor?

Geekerella is part modern-day Cinderella story and part love letter to fandom culture. Poston does a wonderful job exploring the ways in which art can bring together creators and fans alike – across time and distance. Themes of love and acceptance are an integral part of the story. At the same time, some darker topics are addressed, like Elle’s mistreatment by her stepfamily and how Darien has lost his personal life to overzealous fans and toxic paparazzi.

At its heart, Geekerella is an adorable fairytale. Even if readers are unfamiliar with fandom culture, they can still have fun picking out the parallels to the classic Cinderella story. Elle is a charming heroine, whose wit and determination make her easy to root for, while Darien’s sweet optimism makes him an incredibly endearing character. When these two lonely souls find each other through a mutual love of Starfield, it’s nearly impossible not to hope that their budding romance will overcome all the obstacles thrown in their way.

Sexual Content

  • Darien says he doesn’t want to think about the “creepy google searches” that male fans of his costar Jessica Stone make, implying that they might be sexual in nature.
  • Elle describes Darien’s face as “annoyingly beautiful.”
  • When Darien takes off his shirt on live TV, Elle says, “His abs and chest beam across Catherine’s plasma TV, piercing through [her] sleepy brain like a ray of hope in this godless universe.”
  • A fan jumps on stage and forces herself onto Darien. “Her mouth connects with [Darien’s] with such force that it sends them both tumbling over the sofa.”
  • When Darien discusses the kissing incident with his bodyguard, Darien says he thought he’d “choke on her tongue.”
  • Darien and his co-star Jessica must kiss for a scene. When Jessica asks where Darien learned how to kiss, he jokes that he’s had “two hours of practice by now.” In the same scene, Jessica refers to herself as “the best kisser in Hollywood.”
  • Elle daydreams about what life in a better universe would be like. “And maybe at that midnight release, I’d see a guy across the theatre dressed in a federation uniform, and we’d lock eyes and know that this was the good universe. Maybe a guy with dark hair and chocolate eyes and—for a moment Darien Freeman flashes across my mind.”
  • Darien thinks to himself that when he was kissing Jessica, he was really thinking about Elle. “The truth is, it wasn’t just when we’d kissed that I’d thought about Elle. I’d thought about her during every step of that dance.”
  • During a text conversation with Darien, a.k.a. Carmindor, Elle describes an episode of Starfield as “the one with the other Carmindor being sexy in the shower.” She then panics and adds, “Not that YOU couldn’t be sexy too.”
  • Elle worries about what would happen if she met Carmindor, a.k.a. Darien, in real life and thinks to herself, “I hate that I’m falling for someone I don’t even know.”
  • Darien refers to Elle as “ah’blena” during one of their text conversations, in the universe of Starfield this is a phrase meaning “my heart.”
  • Darien’s handler says that whoever wrote the negative blog posts about him “has a serious crush.”
  • After filming the final scene for the movie, Jessica asks Darien if he’s thinking about “the absolute sadness that we didn’t make out more?”
  • When Elle meets Darien for the first time, she describes him as “beautiful in person,” but thinks that his personality is “the biggest turn off.”
  • When she enters the cosplay ball, Darien is captivated by Elle. Darien watches “the top of the stairs, the girl with glowing red hair stares down at the rest of us from behind a sparkling golden mask. Her bowlike lips are painted the flaming color of a red giant. She’s beautiful.”
  • As Darien watches Elle enter the ball, he compares the moment to a meet-cute from a movie scene. “But this isn’t a movie, and I’ve already missed my meet-cute. The sky doesn’t suddenly crash in around us. The world doesn’t lose sound. Because this isn’t where I fall in love. I fell in love across the cell signals and late-night texts with a girl I barely knew.”
  • A rude stranger at the cosplay ball insinuates that Elle is simply a Darien Freeman fangirl, not an actual Starfield fan, and tells her that she is “too cute to play dumb” when she gets offended.
  • Elle and Darien share a dance at the cosplay ball and start to fall into familiar banter. “We’re so close, I can feel his breath on my lips, and my heart is tugging, telling me to kiss him even though I don’t know him. Even though my heart, battered and bandaged and taped together, is still rattling from the text a few hours before. But there’s something familiar in the cadence of his words, the way he phrases sentences, the way he articulates thoughts, like a voice I’ve heard before.”
  • Realizing she’s stayed too long, Elle rushes out of the cosplay ball. Darien, having realized who she is to him, chases after her. “His mask has fallen off and I can see the shiner on his nose, dark as a rainstorm, and the alarm in his eyes. The kind where you’re afraid you’ll never see someone again. ‘Wait, ah’blena!’ Ah’blena? I stumble and one of Mom’s shoes slips off.”
  • One of Elle’s stepsisters tells her friends that Darien is “way sexier in person.”
  • When Darien shows up at the country club looking for Elle, Chloe throws herself at him. Elle thinks that “flirting comes as natural as breathing” to her stepsister.
  • Darien reflects on seeing the real Elle for the very first time. “I won’t say that she is perfect or that she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, but the moment her gaze finds mine, she’s the best part of the universe. She’s a person I would love to spend a lifetime with on the observation deck of the Prospero.”
  • Elle and Darien share a kiss upon being reunited. “‘Ah’…,’ he begins, enunciating every syllable, raising his hand to my chin, ‘blen…,’ tilts my face up, slowly drawing toward me, like two supernovas about to collide, ‘…a.’ And somehow, in this impossible universe, his lips find mine.”
  • Elle and Darien kiss a second time and she describes it as “the kind of kiss that creates [possibilities].”
  • Sage and her girlfriend are holding hands in the limousine before the Starfield Elle says, “I don’t think they’ve stopped holding hands since that day at the country club.”
  • Sage’s girlfriend says she loves Jessica Stone, to which Sage responds, “Maybe we can share her.”
  • When a reporter asks if Elle and Darien are a couple, he tells her, “I want you, ah’blena. I want to try this thing with you, whatever this is. I want you to be my copilot. And I want to ask you before the movie, in case you really hate it.”
  • Darien kisses Elle on the red carpet. “He bends close, despite the crowds, despite the cameras, despite Franco’s nose-diving into his suit pocket where he’s probably keeping a snack, and kisses me. Around us, the flashes flare like the thrusters of the good ship Prospero, sending my heart rocketing into the farthest reaches of this impossible universe.”

 Violence

  • During a fight, Elle’s stepmother, Catherine, hits her. “With a crack, Catherine’s manicured hand strikes the side of my face.”
  • Darien films a choreographed fight scene. “There’s an explosion behind us—bright lights, the actual effects to be added later—as half the ship blows. Calvin lunges at me. I dodge left, grab his right hook, but he powers through it and sends me careening backward. I slam against the floor, pulling my weight back, scrambling to get my feet under me. He picks me up by the collar; I grab his hand and wrench it away. Quickly, I reach for my gun. Too slow. He rams his shoulder into my chest, and I stumble into the console. The entire structure shakes. He grabs hold of my neck and pretends to squeeze.”
  • Elle accidentally hits Darien in the face with a door, causing his nose to bleed. He describes the blood as leaking “into my mouth and down my chin and onto my favorite T-shirt.”
  • Darien gets into a physical altercation with his former friend, Brian. “If one good thing has happened over the last few months of preproduction and soulless salads and four A.M. workouts with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cousin, it’s that I learned to throw a punch. Thumb out, clench fist—swing. Brian stumbles from the force of it.” The fight scene lasts for three pages.
  • Sage tells a dog, “The next time you jump on me I’ll skin you and wear you as a hat!”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Prior to the beginning of the story, Darien was in an accident that prompted headlines to speculate about his health. When he describes the accident he says, “I wasn’t drunk, or high, or tripping on anything besides my own feet.”
  • Darien describes his former relationship with Brian, a friend who sold him out to the paparazzi, as “shoot-the-shit, drinking beer in the back of pickups friends.”

 Language

  • Elle uses the phrase “Nox’s crack” in place of a curse. The Nox are a race of aliens from the Starfield
  • Anon, the director of the Starfield movie, tells Darien that he has “brass balls” right before he films a stunt sequence.
  • Darien describes one of his lines as a “kiss ass goodbye.”
  • Elle describes sitting inside the food truck on a warm day as “hot as balls.”
  • Sage refers to Elle’s stepsisters as “the hell twins.”
  • Sage describes Princess Amara’s character arc as a “crappy subplot.”
  • When Elle first sees Darien in person, she thinks to herself, “Holy Federation Prince, Batman. It’s Darien effing Freeman.” This is one of three times this phrasing is used as an exclamation.
  • Miss May, one of the people running ExcelsiCon, says that Elle gave Darien “a snowball’s chance in hell.”
  • When Sage enters ExcelsiCon, she says, “Holy shit.”
  • Darien uses the word “fracking” in place of an f-bomb.
  • Darien tells Brian that he’s “not trying to be a dick.”
  • Elle calls the stranger harassing her a “left-testicled Nox.”
  • During his fight with Brian, Darien imagines a headline describing the incident: “DARIEN FIGHTS WITH SLEAZY PAPARAZZO AND MURDERS HIS ASS.”
  • During an argument with his father, Darien asks, “Why the hell insure my abs anyway?”
  • Sage tells Darien that she has been grounded by her mother, adding, “like hell I am.”
  • Elle says that her stepmother got rid of all of her Starfield memorabilia, including “one hella rare Pez dispenser.”
  • Elle tells Darien that she will make his life “a living hell” on her blog if he screws up Carmindor.

 Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Elle describes herself as sending a prayer to “the Lord of Light or Q or whoever is listening.”

by Evalyn Harper

 

King & Kayla and the Case of the Secret Code

Kayla and Mason both get mysterious letters written in code. Neither of them knows where the letter came from or what it means. King, a lovable dog, knows which one of their friends left the letter, but Kayla doesn’t understand him.

Kayla and Mason use clues to discover who left the letter. Kayla makes a list of “everything we know about the case” and a list of “everything we don’t know about the case.” The two friends find out who sent the letter, but it isn’t the clues that lead them to the culprit. Instead, King leads them to the answer. The person who sent the letter gives Kayla and Mason a clue so they can figure out what the letter says.

Readers will giggle as King tries to tell Kayla who left the letter. He sings, dances, and barks, but Kayla can’t figure out what King is trying to say. King is a loveable dog, who thinks that everything is his favorite thing. The bright illustrations do an excellent job showing King’s and Kayla’s emotions.

King and Kayla are likable characters who solve a relatable problem. Much of the humor comes from King’s desire to communicate with Kayla. The fun, easy story is perfect for readers transitioning out of picture books and into chapter books. Each page has a large picture that allows the text to be spaced out so younger readers will not get discouraged by the amount of text. The simple, fun plot and interesting characters will keep readers engaged until the very end.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Project Middle School

Eleven-year-old Hope is excited to start JFK Middle School and be in advanced classes. However, Hope is nervous because for the first time, she won’t be in the same class as her best friend, Sam. When Hope heads to her first class, she discovers that middle school may be harder than she thought.

Hope makes her first embarrassing blunder in science. She makes her second embarrassing mistake in Spanish. When she goes to science club, Hope becomes frustrated because the boys don’t listen to any of the girls. That’s all just on the first day.

Hope may know a lot about science and her favorite superhero, Galaxy Girl, but that may not be enough to survive middle school. Can Hope navigate homework problems, changing friendships, and prove girls can do anything?

Hope has relatable problems that every middle school student can understand. She struggles to make friends, has embarrassing moments, and gets frustrated that others do not always listen to her and the other girls in the science club. In order to prove girls can do anything, Hope takes on more work than she can handle, which causes a colossal disaster. In the end, Hope and her peers are able to “acknowledge that failure is a key ingredient in success. Great scientists make mistakes all the time, and that’s how they learn and grow.”

Project Middle School is told from Hope’s point of view and focuses on both her home and school life. Even though the story has relatable conflicts, the story’s flow is choppy. Several of the events felt like they were incorporated to prove a point instead of being a natural extension of the story. For example, Hope asks a Latinx classmate if Spanish is her superpower. Hope then realizes that she shouldn’t make assumptions about other people.

Middle school readers will enjoy Project Middle School, which is told from Hope’s point of view. The story uses easy vocabulary and cartoon-like black and white illustrations. Large illustrations appear on almost every page. JFK Middle School’s students are diverse. The story teaches valuable lessons about not making assumptions and apologizing. The story illustrates that every voice counts. Despite this, Hope doesn’t have a clear voice and her story is bland. Even though Project Middle School isn’t a memorable story, middle school readers will understand Hope’s struggles as well as learn positive life lessons. Readers who enjoy Project Middle School should add You Go First by Erin Entrada Kelly to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • During class, Hope accidentally reads the wrong page from the science textbook. She reads to the class, “The mating habits of fruit flies will be the main subject of this selection.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Darn is used once.
  • OMG is used as an exclamation four times. For example, when Hope’s friend sees her in the school hallway, the friend says, “OMG, Hope! I was just thinking about you.”
  • Hope calls her dogs “little fluff butts” twice.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Hope goes up to the whiteboard, she was “praying no sweat marks are visible under my arms.”

Crooked Kingdom

When Jan Van Eck, a member the Merchant Council of Kerch, hired Kaz Brekker and his team to infiltrate the infamous Ice Court to extract the maker of the drug jurda parem, no one believed they really stood a chance. Yet Kaz, Inej, Wylan, Jesper, Matthias and Nina pulled it off, even if it was just barely. They extracted the drug maker’s son, Kuwei Yul-Bo, and were ready to receive the money that would make all their dreams come true. At least, until Van Eck betrayed them all and kidnapped Inej.

And the problems don’t stop there. Ketterdam has become a dangerous city, one that sees old and new enemies stream in to get a hold of Kuwei’s knowledge of jurda parem. To corner Kaz and his team, Van Eck will force the group to test their loyalties and use up all the wit they have to offer. With nowhere to run, there’s only one option available to Kaz: fight back.

While wanted posters display Kaz and his crew, the six are busy planning and plotting to find a way to get everything they’re owed. They’ll save Inej, get Kuwei out of the city, and make Ketterdam theirs again. One way or another, they’ll even the score.

Bardugo’s Crooked Kingdom is just as fun and exciting as the first novel. Building off their trip into the Ice Court, Crooked Kingdom delves deeper into the main conflict between Kaz’s crew and Jan Van Eck. From the very beginning, the claustrophobia of Ketterdam, its sense of despair, and its dwindling hope take center stage, laying the foundation for the story to push the main characters into finding their own way out of the hole they’ve found themselves in.

That’s where the main theme of standing up for yourself comes in. Learning to fight for yourself in a cruel, greedy world comes across easily through Kaz’s determination to see his crew properly rewarded for helping stop the production of jurda parem, the drug that enhances Grisha power. This theme also comes through with the other five main characters, like Inej’s desire to hire a ship and go after slavers or Wylan’s realization that he needs to overcome his father. It’s safe to say that each member of Kaz’s crew is a role model in their own right. Each person grows stronger from the trials they encounter.

Overall, Crooked Kingdom is a wonderful follow-up to Six of Crows. This sequel is definitely a must-read. The book is chock full of action, suspense, and plot twists from beginning to end. The main cast of characters really shine in the hectic moments of the plot. While the pacing can feel relentless at times, that only raises the stakes.

Sexual Content

  • When going over the plan to con Smeet, one of Kaz’s targets, Kaz tells the others, “Smeet never cheats on his wife.” During the job, Wylan thinks when he sees Nina, a member of Kaz’s group, “She was dressed in a sheer lavender gown rigged with some kind of corset that pushed her cleavage to alarming heights, and though she’d lost weight since her battle with parem, there was still plenty of her for Smeet to grab onto.” And, again later on, Smeet “was ogling those guns almost as much as Nina’s cleavage.”
  • When thinking about her past as a working girl, Inej, Kaz’s love interest, thinks, “The man with sharp teeth like a kitten who had bitten at her breast until she’d bled.” Later, when thinking about the worst client she had, Inej thinks, “because when the man who smelled of vanilla had begun to kiss her neck and peel away her silks, she hadn’t been able to leave her body behind.” Finally, when her thoughts stray to Kaz, Inej thinks, “What if he had come to her, laid his gloves aside, drawn her to him, kissed her mouth?”
  • When Inej is attacked by Dunyasha, an assassin, Dunyasha says, “I hear you whored for the Peacock.”
  • When confronted by a group of thugs, Nina tells the leader, “‘I’m fast enough to make sure you never’ —her eyes gave a meaningful slide below his belt buckle—‘raise a flag on West Stave again.’”
  • When thinking about his first few nights in the Barrel, Wylan remembers, “The couple in the room above him were fighting. The couple in the room below him were definitely doing something else.”
  • Later, Wylan remembers how a man told him, “Young dollop of cream like you should be able to make fine coin on West Stave.” When Wylan thinks about getting help from his father, he thinks, “But he would sell himself in the pleasure houses of West Stave before he’d ask for his father’s mercy.”
  • When Wylan first met Jesper, his “first thought was that this boy had the most perfectly shaped lips he’d ever seen.”
  • When waiting to meet Ravkan Grisha, Matthias is alone with Nina and thinks, “It was too easy to imagine himself kneeling like a penitent before her, letting his hands slide up the white curves of her calves, pushing those skirts higher, past her knees to the warm skin of her thighs.”
  • When Jesper meets Wylan in the music room of a hotel, he “moved slowly, deliberately, kept the kiss quiet, the barest brush of his lips, giving Wylan the chance to pull away if he wanted to.” Then later, when Jesper sees Kuwei standing in the doorway, he asks, “Do the Shu not kiss before noon?”

Violence

  • When Retvenko, a Grisha, thinks about his previous employment, he thinks, “After Hoede had died, the Kerch Merchant Council had let Retvenko take on sea voyages to pay his way out of the indenture.” Later on, Retvenko thinks about his role in a former war. “He’d murdered former comrades, civilians, even children.” When Retvenko is later attacked, he “peeked around the desk in time to see the shotgun blast strike the woman directly in the chest.”
  • When thinking about a past conversation with Kaz about a working girl, Wylan remembers that Kaz said, “Tante Heleen beat her to death.” After that, Wylan remembers, “They were the last words he’d spoken. If he’d talked less, he might have lived.”
  • When speaking to a little girl who could give Kaz and Wylan away, Kaz tells her, “Because if you do, I’ll slit your mother’s throat and then your father’s, and then I’ll cut out the hearts of all these sweet slobbering hounds.” Afterwards, Kaz justifies what he said by saying, “It was that or snap her neck and make it look like she fell down the stairs, Wylan.”
  • When Inej is detained by Van Eck, she thinks about her friend Nina “squeezing the life from a man with the flick of a wrist.” Later, Inej is trying to free her wrists “After what seemed like a lifetime of sawing and scraping and bloodying her fingertips on the shard’s edge.” And, when Inej is about to be tortured, Van Eck tells the torturer, “I don’t want it to be a clean break. Use the mallet. Shatter the bone.”
  • When Jesper and Wylan go to meet Colm, Jesper’s father, “A shot rang out against the walls of the courtyard. Jesper shoved his father behind him as a bullet pinged off the stones at their feet, sending up a cloud of dust.” Later, Wylan tells Jesper, “I’ve got two flash bombs and something new I rigged up with a little more, um, wallop.” When someone sees Jesper, Wylan and Colm fleeing through a library, he says, “I won’t go with you! I’ll kill myself first!”
  • When Nina realizes Kaz has the jurda parem, she tells Matthias that Kaz would “slit my throat” if she tried to take some from him. Later, Nina’s Grisha power doesn’t work. After she killed a guard, she says, “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
  • After the panic about a plague, Wylan muses over how “people were bruised and concussed, and Wylan had heard that one woman’s hand had been crushed when she’d gotten knocked to the floor.”
  • When Matthias is confronted by a Fjredan drüskelle warrior, the warrior says, “You killed my friends. In the raid on the Ice Court.” After that same warrior shoots Matthias, he passes away. “The light vanished from his eyes. His chest stilled beneath her hands.”
  • When threatening Pekka Rollins, the former King of the Barrel, Inej tells him, “I left pretty Dunyasha’s brains dashed all over the Ketterdam cobblestones.”
  • When Kaz threatens Pekka Rollins, he says, “‘I buried your son,’ he crooned, savoring the words. ‘I buried him alive, six feet beneath the earth in a field of rocky soil.’” Later Kaz says, “‘Inej, I could only kill Pekka’s son once.’ He pushed the door open with his cane. ‘he can imagine his death a thousand times.’”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • As with the first book, alcohol is mentioned frequently in the novel.
  • Retvenko, a minor character, is drunk at the very start of the book. At a bar in the Barrel, where the thugs and cheats of the city live, Retvenko realized, “The whiskey had failed to warm him.” Later, when speaking to a barman he thinks, “His Kerch wasn’t good to begin with, and it was worse after a few drinks.”
  • Wylan, a member of the Dregs, has to pretend to be a waiter at a gambling hall. When signaled to serve champagne, he thinks, “He at least knew how to pour a proper glass of champagne without it foaming over.”
  • When thinking about Wylan’s change in appearance, Jesper thinks, “It always left him feeling a little off-kilter, like he’d thought he was reaching for a cup of wine and gotten a mouthful of water instead.” Later Jesper says to Wylan, “I mean, just think of the heights of debauchery we could reach if no one kept this city in check. Champagne for breakfast.” When Jesper and Wylan later speak with Jesper’s father, Jesper thinks, “They’d eat. They’d talk. Maybe they’d drink. Please let them drink.”
  • As with the first book, jurda parem, a harmful drug that enhances a Grisha’s (magic user’s) powers, is a main plot device in the story. Kuwei, the son of the creator of jurda parem, says that he can discover “An antidote for parem.”
  • Nina, a member of the Dregs, comments that she could “masquerade as a jurda parem dealer” as a joke when going over Jesper’s role in a job. Later in the story, Nina thinks about the aftereffects of jurda parem on her body. “She’d still been trying to purge the parem from her body, caught in the haze of suffering that had begun on the voyage from Djerholm. She told herself to be grateful for the memory of that misery, every shaking, aching, vomiting minute of it.” Later, she remembers how she acted towards Matthias, her boyfriend, while dealing with the aftereffects. “The shame of Matthias witnessing it all, holding back her hair, dabbing her brow, restraining her as gently as he could as she argued, cajoled, screamed at him for more parem. She made herself remember every terrible thing she’d said, every wild pleasure offered, each insult or accusation she’d hurled at him.”
  • When trying to use her Grisha power, Nina remembers how her jurda parem addiction affected her. “She’d broken into a sweat from the effort, and as soon as the bruised color faded, the hunger for parem hit, a swift, hard kick to her chest. She’d bent double, clutching the sink, her mind filled with breakneck thoughts of how she could get away, who might have a supply, what she could trade.” Later on, when Nina asks Kuwei about whether the drug affects Grisha power, Kuwei responds, “I don’t know. You took the drug only once. You survived the withdrawal. You are a rarity.”
  • When sneaking into someone’s home, “Nina had suggested drugging the dog’s food.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently in the novel. Profanity includes words like: ass, hell, bastards, damn, bitch, and fuck.
  • When telling his team about his plan to con a man named Smeet, Kaz says, “So you all need to do everything you can to keep his ass firmly planted at that table.”
  • When debating with Matthias about whether one of their targets will invite Nina back to her room, Nina says, “Like hell he won’t.” When speaking to Wylan about the Smeet job, Kaz says, “We can’t be here when he gets back or the whole plan goes to hell.”
  • When Kaz is musing over a certain type of lock, he thinks, “They were complicated little bastards.”
  • When Jesper talks to Kuwei, he says, “You have that damn travel pack.” Soon after that Jesper says, “There’s only one way out of the tomb, and we’re on a damn island.”
  • When Nina is attacked by a group of thugs, one of them yells, “They’re coming for the Grisha bitch!”
  • When Nina demanded Matthias get her more jurda parem, she tells him, “Then break the fucking door down, you useless skiv.”

Supernatural

  • The Grisha, AKA the magic users, are an integral part of the world of Crooked Kingdom, just like in Six of Crows.
  • Like in the first book, the Grisha are categorized into groups based on their powers. The Corporalki, also known as the Order of the Living and the Dead, include Heartrenders and Healers. The Etherrealki, who are the Order of the Summoners, include Squallers, Inferni, and Tidemakers. The Materialki, who are the Order of Fabrikators, include Durasts and Alkemi. For instance, “A Corporalki could manipulate the human body, not inorganic matter.”
  • Many Grisha are brought into the city of Ketterdam to work “As a treasured Grisha indenture,” though this is more often than not just a masked form of Grisha slavery. Retvenko, a Squaller, thinks about how dangerous it is to be a Grisha. “But when you were a Grisha, even staying still could mean courting trouble.
  • Retvenko, a Squaller, thinks about how his powers will help his job. He thinks, “so the crew would rely on Retvenko to master the air currents and guide the ship calmly to whatever port they needed to reach.”
  • At one point in the past, there was an army of Grisha that fought for the nation of Ravka, called the Second Army. The “young king was said to be handing out pardons like penny candy, eager to rebuild the Second Army, the Grisha military that had been decimated by war.”
  • The Council of Tides, the ruling council of Grisha in Ketterdam, are a very mysterious group of people. “They were supposedly Grisha, but had they ever lifted a finger to help the other Grisha in the city?”
  • Kuwei, the son of the man who made the drug, jurda parem, says at one point, “My father was a Fabrikator. I am just an Inferni.” When Kuwei asks Kaz to get a Grisha to change his appearance, Kaz says, “The only Tailors powerful enough to make you look like someone else are in Ravka, unless Nina wants to take another dose of parem.”
  • Nina is a Corporalki Grisha. When thinking about her jurda parem addiction, she thinks, “They needed her to be a Corporalki, not an addict with the shakes who wore herself out with the barest bit of tailoring.” Later on, when she needs to use her power, she thinks, “Slow their pulses. Send them quietly into unconsciousness without ever letting an alarm sound.” Immediately after that, Nina’s power doesn’t work, “It was like stumbling blind through the dark…Dimly, she was aware of the suggestion of their frames, a trace of knowing, but that was all.”

Spiritual Content

  • Like in the first book, the most mentioned god in the novel is Ghezen, the God of Commerce in Ketterdam.
  • When Retvenko goes to a work assignment aboard a ship, the first mate says, “Ghezen, Retvenko. Have you been drinking?” When Kaz bumps into one of his targets accidentally, he pretends to be a humble young man saying, “Too kind, sir. Too kind. May Ghezen be as generous.” Later, Van Eck talks about his future fortune by saying, “When I leave this world, the greatest shipping empire ever known will remain, an engine of wealth, a tribute to Ghezen and a sign of his favor.”
  • When speaking about Van Eck’s illegal practices, Jesper says, “Isn’t not paying your taxes…I don’t know, sacrilegious? I thought he was all about serving Ghezen.”
  • Like in the first book, the Suli Saints are mentioned again. Inej thinks, when she’s still in the villain Van Eck’s custody, “Saints, what if she was in Van Eck’s mansion?” When Inej thinks about her sins, she muses, “Would her Saints sanction such a thing? Could forgiveness come if she killed not to survive but because she burned with a living, luminous hatred?” Just as she’s about to be tortured by Van Eck, Inej thinks, “Saints protect me. Saints protect me.”
  • The Church of Saint Hilde is a famous sight in Ketterdam. When Kaz tells Wylan where the latter can find his mother, he says, “Well, he’s been making donations to the Church of Saint Hilde for the last eight years. If you want to pay respects to your mother, that’s probably the place to start.”
  • On Black Veil, an island full of graves, some of the graves “bore the stamp of Ghezen’s Coins of Favor… A few were watched over by Ravkan Saints in flowing marble robes. There was no sign of Djel or his ash tree.”
  • Djel, the Fjerdan god, is also mentioned a few times in the novel. When Matthias is reflecting over his past actions, he comes to a revelation. “Now he was sure of nothing but his faith in Djel and the vow he’d made to Nina.”
  • Colm tells Kaz, “You haven’t been Alice long enough to rack up your share of sin.”

by Jonathan Planman

The Wishing Pearl

Princess Clarabel loves being a Rescue Princess. She and her friends are committed to saving animals in trouble wherever they may be!

When Clarabel finds an injured dolphin during Ampali Island’s Royal Regatta, she knows just who to call for help—her fellow Rescue Princesses! Her friends are brave, talented, and super smart. They’re so amazing in fact, she’s worried that she’ll fall behind, but Clarabel is about to discover that she has an incredible gift.

In the first book of the series, the princesses worked together to solve a mystery. However, in The Wishing Pearl, the princesses spend some of their time lurking around, trying to spy on a prince who is up to no good. At one point, they sneak into his room to look for clues. The princesses also try to avoid Queen Trudy because she wants the princesses to help prepare for an event. Instead, the princesses stay true to their desire to help injured animals by helping an injured dolphin.

Even though the vocabulary isn’t difficult, the story uses some complex sentence structures that are appropriate for strong readers. Cute black-and-white pictures appear every 2-7 pages. Many of the pictures are full-page and show the princesses in action. On the inside cover, the princesses are shown in full color and include characters of different ethnicities. However, in the black-and-white illustrations, the princesses look very similar to each other.

Readers will enjoy the interaction between the princesses and relate to Clarabel, who worries that she isn’t as good as the other princesses. Throughout the story, the princesses help each other and encourage each other. Even though the princesses find a lost treasure, they never consider keeping the treasure for themselves. Instead, they give it to the queen to use for her kingdom. The Wishing Pearl has positive princesses, action, and teaches about the importance of taking care of animals.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Each of the four princesses has a ring. “Even though they looked like ordinary rings, these magical jewels enable the princesses to call one another for help. Jaminta had invented them. . . By shaping jewels carefully, she could give them special powers.”
  • Jaminta has made several magical jewels including “emeralds that light up, diamonds that detect metal, and the rings that we use to call each other.”
  • Clarabel uses a pearl to heal a dolphin. “With her whole heart she said, ‘I wish he could be healthy again, I wish he could be healthy again. . .’ The pearl’s rainbow shine grew brighter. A fine white mist floated from the pearl to the dolphin. Under the haze, the dolphin seemed to fill with light.” The dolphin’s injury is completely healed.

Spiritual Content

  • None
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