Reading Level: Junior High

New Kid

Tommy Rust is a pro at being the new kid. So when his dad marches onto his baseball field, he knows that time is up. In his new town, he goes by the name Brock, and he’s having a hard time fitting in. And being friends with the bully from the wrong side of the tracks isn’t helping. But thanks to a prank gone wrong, the baseball coach of the travel team notices Brock’s skills and offers him a place on his failing baseball team. But can Brock prove himself on and off the field before he strikes out and becomes the new kid . . . again? 

Unfortunately, New Kid is an underwhelming book with a shaky premise that makes the story difficult to believe. Brock’s father is on the run and hiding from someone. Despite the imminent danger, Brock’s father leaves him alone for long periods. Brock is expected to keep a low profile by keeping himself isolated from other people. However, Brock’s anger and confusion over his situation causes Brock to rebel. Soon Brock is hanging around Nagel, a troublemaker from the wrong side of the tracks. 

Even though readers will find themselves sympathizing with Brock, his situation is not relatable. The details behind Brock’s constant moving are murky, which makes it difficult to connect with him. In addition, Brock’s new friend Nagel is portrayed as a bully and a troublemaker. While the book hints that Nagel has some redeeming qualities, the story thread isn’t well developed and Nagel never has a time to shine. In the end, Nagel’s involvement in Brock’s life highlights Brock’s desperate need for attention and reinforces the reasons that Brock has begun rebelling. 

The book’s mystery and danger are interspersed with play-by-play baseball action that breaks up Brock’s personal drama. While the coach believes Brock has great potential to be a pitcher, Brock falls apart at his first game and then hides in the bus, refusing to talk to anyone. Brock’s immature behavior makes it difficult to feel sorry for him. Since Brock isolates himself from his teammates, the baseball scenes focus on Brock whose newfound talent isn’t realistic. Then, with a little help from a professional baseball player, Brock overcomes his obstacles and leads his team to a championship. Despite this, the winning has less impact because Brock never connects with the team. 

Readers who want an exciting baseball book with well-developed characters may want to leave New Kid on the shelf. The story’s underdeveloped characters and confusing plot make the story difficult to enjoy. In addition, in one scene Brock’s dad admits that he has killed people and then explains how killing someone in self-defense is not wrong. However, the details are so murky that the purpose of the scene is lost. In addition, the conclusion is rushed and doesn’t resolve any of Brock’s problems. Sports-loving fans can find an array of baseball books to choose from, which makes New Kid easy to pass up. Fast Pitch by Nic Stone, Baseball Genius by Time Green and Derek Jeter, and Heat by Mike Lupica all have compelling stories that readers will cheer for. 

Sexual Content  

  • A girl from school, Bella, and Brock confess that they “like” each other. Then, Brock “closed his eyes until he felt her lips on his cheek.” Then they held hands. 
  • Right before leaving town, Brock “took Bella’s face in his hands and kissed her cheek.”  

Violence  

  • On Brock’s first day at a new school, another student, Nagel pushes Brock. “Brock sprang up off the polished wood and turned to face his tormentor. . . Brock turned and attacked the much smaller boy without hesitation. Nagel landed a quick jab to Brock’s nose on his way in. Brock saw stars. He heard a pop and tasted the warm flow of blood down the back of his throat.” A teacher, Coach Hudgens, breaks up the fight and the boys are suspended.  
  • After the fight, Nagel says Brock gave him a concussion. When Brock apologizes, Nagel says, “Don’t worry about that. . . man gives me one every other frickin’ week.”  
  • Nagel is upset that Coach Hudgens “manhandled” him in order to break up the fight. In retaliation, Nagel and Brock go to the coach’s house and throw rocks at his house. “Brock’s stone hit the shutter so hard it sounded like a gunshot. The window exploded with a tinkling shatter. Nagel whooped and flew.” Nagel runs away, but Brock gets caught. Afterward, the coach’s wife says, “Torturing cats. Blowing up frogs with firecrackers. You’re sick.”  
  • Brock looks into a box that his dad has hidden. In the box is a story “of a young woman brutally murdered, her body found floating snagged by a buoy in the East River. His mother.”  
  • While running away from Coach Hudgens, Brock goes through an alley. “It was in those shadows that he suddenly found himself surrounded by the dark shapes of boys. No, not boys. They were young men. . . One of them stepped forward and shoved Brock backwards with a stiff hand. . . Nagel’s brother gripped the front of his shirt and raised him up off the ground, grinning at him with jagged teeth lit by the moon.”  
  • When Nagel tries to stop his brother, Jamie Nagel, from hurting Brock, “Nagel’s brother sent him flying with a punch to the side of his head. Nagel sprawled on the grass, bawling.” 
  • When Coach Hudgens sees Jamie holding Brock, the coach throws a baseball at him. “THUNK. Jamie Nagel’s chest rang out like a bass drum. He dropped to the grass. . . [he] tilted sideways and collapsed on the grass, gasping for air, then sobbing like a baby.” Coach Hudgens says he didn’t mean to hurt Jamie, just scare him. 
  • Brock and his father are getting ready to eat dinner when they hear “a crash from the garage . . . His father moved like a panther, swift and smooth. In a blink he was in the living room with one hand on the door to the garage. In the other hand was his gun.” They discover the intruder is Nagel; Brock’s father sends him away. 
  • While walking through a field, Brock and his friend Bella are chased by Jamie Nagel and his friends. Brock falls and “hit the ground hard. . . He had almost regained his feet before Jamie Nagel tackled him and knocked the breath from his chest. . . Jamie took a knife out of his pocket and snapped it open. The long thick blade gleamed in the dappled sunlight. . .” When they hear sirens, the boys run. 
  • As Brock’s dad goes into their house, Brock is waiting in the car. A man tapped the window. “In the man’s hand, tapping on the window, was a gun.” When Brock opens the car door, the man grabs him. “With a swish and a snap, swish and snap, the man taped Brock’s hands behind his back, then plastered a piece across his mouth.” The man shoves him in a seat. Brock’s dad hits the man in the head, who then falls to the ground.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Coach Hudgens is known to be a drunk. According to Nagel, Coach drinks right before school, at lunch, and right after school. Nagel also says that at a tournament, the coach “passes out in his bathroom.”  
  • While at home, Coach Hudgens often drinks beer.  
  • While at Brock’s house, Nagel tries to smoke a cigarette. “Brock took three quick steps and slapped the match out of Nagel’s hand.”  
  • While hanging out with Brock, Nagel offers to “swipe some beer from my brother.” Later, Nagel is caught trying to steal a six-pack of beer from Brock’s garage.

Language  

  • At school, someone “flipped the middle finger” at Brock. 
  • Nagel says people think he is “white trash.”  
  • Frickin’, darn, and crap are each used once.  
  • Brock’s friend calls Jamie Nagel and his friends “fatheads” and “losers.” 
  • The kids frequently call other people jerks. Several times someone is called a rat. 
  • Heck is used three times. 
  • Oh my God and God are both used as exclamations once. 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • Before dinner, the coach says a prayer. He thinks family is more important than sports. His niece says, “God, family, school, sports.” 
  • Coach’s wife, Margaret, offered to help take care of Brock. “She said she thought God put you in their lives. She said she loved you the minute she met you.” 

Stone Fox

Based on a Rocky Mountain legend, Stone Fox tells the story of Little Willy, a young boy who lives with his grandfather in Wyoming. Little Willy loves living on the farm with his Grandfather, but one day Grandfather falls ill and is no longer able to work the farm. Little Willy tries to work the farm himself, but then he learns their farm is in danger of foreclosure. If they cannot come up with the money in time, the government is going to take away their home and break up their family.   

Little Willy is determined not to let this happen. Then one day, he discovers a solution. He is going to enter and win the National Dogsled Race, because the prize money will be enough for Little Willy to save the farm and his grandfather! But he isn’t the only one who desperately wants to win. Willy and his brave dog, Searchlight, must face off against experienced racers, including a man named Stone Fox who has never lost a race.  

Stone Fox will keep readers up late into the night because once they start the book, they will not want to put it down. While most readers may not want to read about a potato farmer, Stone Fox makes the protagonist so relatable that his life becomes interesting. Readers will connect with Little Willy because all readers can understand wanting to save someone they love. While Little Willy’s love for his grandfather is admirable, it is his persistence and hard work that make Willy a compelling protagonist.  

Since Stone Fox has never lost a dogsled race, many townspeople tell Willy that he is foolish for entering the race. But this doesn’t deter Little Willy! Instead, he works harder. Readers will root for Little Willy and his dog, Searchlight, but the unexpected tragic ending may leave readers in tears.  

Stone Fox is a compelling story about the love of family and Little Willy’s refusal to give up. When his grandfather becomes sick, Little Willy takes on the responsibility of caring for his grandfather and the farm. Through it all, Little Willy treats others with respect even when he disagrees with them. Little Willy’s action-packed adventure shows that “there are some things in this world worth dying for.”  

When Stone Fox was published in the 1980s, it was well-received and was taught in many classrooms. However, the book describes Stone Fox, a Native American man as “an Indian—dressed in furs and leather, with moccasins all the way up to his knees. His skin was dark, his hair was dark . . . His eyes sparkled in the sunlight, but the rest of his face was as hard as stone.” Due to Stone Fox’s portrayal, some, such as American Indians in Children’s Literature, now believe the book uses stereotypes and should not be read in schools, while others disagree.  

One thing is certain: Stone Fox is an exciting book that adults can discuss with their children. If you’re looking for a book that portrays Indigenous people in a more diverse light, you can read Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac and Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Survival Story by Andrea L. Rogers. If you’re interested in Navajo mythology, read Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • When little Willy gets home, a man is standing at the door, “holding a small derringer and pointing it at Searchlight. His hand was shaking.” An illustration shows the silhouette of the man holding the gun. 
  • The town drunk tells a story about Stone Fox. There “was this time in Denver he snapped a man’s back with two fingers.” But people don’t believe the story.  
  • Willy hears dogs barking in an abandoned barn. He goes in and sees Stone Fox’s dogs. When Willy “held out his hand to pet them. . . There was a movement through the darkness to Little Willy’s right. A sweeping motion. . . A hand hit Little Willy right in the face, sending him over backward.” That night, “Little Willy couldn’t sleep—his eye was killing him.” The next day, Little Willy’s eye is swollen shut. 
  • Little Willy thinks about how he killed a bird with a slingshot. He never killed another animal again. 
  • At the end of the race, Searchlight “gave it everything she had. She was a hundred feet from the finish line when her heart burst. She died instantly. There was no suffering.” 
  • To allow Little Willy time to carry Searchlight across the finish line, Stone Fox draws a line in the snow. When the other racers appeared, “Stone Fox fired his rifle into the air. They came to a stop. Stone Fox spoke. ‘Anyone crosses this line—I shoot.’”

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • While at Little Willy’s house, Clifford Snyder, a tax collector, “lit up a long, thin cigar and blew smoke toward the ceiling.”  
  • Little Willy goes to the bank to see Mr. Foster, the president of the bank. “Mr. Foster was a big man with a big cigar stuck right in the center of his big mouth.”  
  • Before the race, Little Willy sees Mr. Foster “chewing his cigar” and the town drunk, “took a powerful swig from a whiskey bottle.” 
  • The town drunk is mentioned several times. 

Language  

  • Doc Smith tells Willy, “I think you’re a darn fool for using your college money to enter that race.” 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse

Jimmy McClean is a Lakota boy, though you wouldn’t guess it by his name. His mother is Lakota; his father is half white and half Lakota. Over summer break, Jimmy embarks on a journey with his grandfather, Nyles High Eagle. While on the road, his grandfather tells him the story of Crazy Horse, one of the most important figures in Lakota and American history. Through his grandfather’s tales about the famous warrior, Jimmy learns about his Lakota heritage and, ultimately, himself. 

Expertly intertwining fiction and non-fiction, author Marshall chronicles the many heroic deeds of Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse took up arms against the U.S. government. He fiercely fought against encroachments on the Lakota’s territories and to save the Lakota’s way of life. Crazy Horse led a war party to victory at the Battle of the Greasy Grass (the Battle of Little Big Horn), and he played a major and dangerous role as a decoy at the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands (the Fetterman Battle). Alongside Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse was the last of the Lakota to surrender his people to the U.S. Army.  

By drawing references and inspiration from the oral stories of the Lakota tradition, Marshall gives readers an inside perspective of the life of Tasunke Witko, better known as Crazy Horse. Jimmy and his grandfather follow in the footsteps of Crazy Horse, which allows Jimmy to better understand his heritage and to learn lessons from Crazy Horse’s life. For instance, Crazy Horse conveys the importance of generosity when he uses his hunting skills to “take care of the helpless ones.” Crazy Horse didn’t help others “because he wanted people to notice. He didn’t even want people to thank him. He just didn’t want anyone to go hungry.”  

When Crazy Horse’s best friend and his daughter died, Crazy Horse wasn’t afraid to show his grief. Crazy Horse openly cried, and his tears demonstrate that “even tough guys cry.” Many times, Crazy Horse proves his bravery when he puts his life on the line to help others. The Lakota believed that “courage was a warrior’s best weapon, and that it was the highest honor to give your life for your people. . . That’s what being a warrior was all about: facing the scary things no matter how afraid you were. That’s what courage is. And what’s more, it doesn’t only happen on the battlefield. You can have courage and face the tough things that happen to you anywhere.”  

While many warriors wanted to continue fighting the U.S. army, Crazy Horse ultimately surrendered for the tribe’s well-being. “He did it for the helpless ones, the old people, the women, and the children.” Surrendering was courageous because it meant acknowledging defeat and giving up his people’s freedom. In the end, Crazy Horse’s decisions emphasize the importance of bravery, generosity, and putting others’ needs first.  

Most of In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse focuses on Crazy Horse’s life. Since the story is being told to Jimmy by his grandfather, this allows Jimmy to ask questions and connect Crazy Horse’s experiences to his own life. In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse is an engaging story that teaches the importance of storytelling and remembering the past. The story allows readers to see history from the Lakota’s point of view and examines the reasons that Crazy Horse fought to keep his people free. To learn more about Native American’s culture and their unique struggles, you can also read Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • The Lakota called the American soldiers Long Knives. “Long Knives were known to attack any Lakota—man, woman, or child. They were mean people—if they were people at all.” 
  • When Light Hair [Crazy Horse] was a boy, his village was attacked and set on fire. “The ground was scorch black where the flames had passed. Every buffalo-hide lodge was burning or had already been turned into a pile of ash. . . Light Hair saw that the bundles on the ground were people.” As Light Hair walked through the village, he saw many bodies. “Some of the bodies were small children.” 
  • After the attack, Light Hair finds a woman hiding. She says, “They shot people. My husband is . . . He’s gone. . . So is my baby.” The Long Knives took some of the people captive. The battle is described over four pages.  
  • A cow wanders into the Lakota’s village and is “butchered and the meat given away to old people.” Soon, soldiers appear, wanting the cow. The Lakota offered payment, but the man wanted his cow. Soon, Long Knives had gathered at the village. A soldier “demanded that the man who had killed the cow be brought to him.” 
  • When the Lakota can’t turn over the cow, a soldier fires a cannon into the village. “Conquering Bear was one of the first to fall, severely wounded. The waiting warriors attacked, charging the Long Knives. . . Many soldiers fell, and some ran away. Those fleeing were chased and cut down.”  
  • When the Long Knives were away from the fort, the warriors attacked. “Crazy Horse could hear the screams and shouts of the soldiers. Frightened horses were screaming too. . . Many of the soldiers were running, crowding together in the narrowest part of the ridge, and warriors on both slopes were firing arrows at them.” The soldiers tried to hide “but many had already fallen, struck down by bullets and arrows.”  
  • The warriors flanked the soldiers. “At a signal from Crazy Horse, the flanking warriors charged the remaining soldiers. Crazy Horse struck down with his war club.” Eighty soldiers were killed, and “some say forty warriors were killed.” 
  • During the fight, Crazy Horse’s best friend, Lone Bear, was killed. “Lone Bear had been shot through the chest. But it was so cold, the blood froze around the wound and stopped the bleeding.” Crazy Horse “held his friend in his arms until he died.”  
  • A Cheyenne woman dressed like a man and followed the warriors into battle. “When her brother’s horse was shot down, she raced in to rescue him. Soldiers were shooting at her from two sides, but she still managed to save him.” 
  • During a battle, “firing from the soldiers and the [enemy] warriors was constant. Every moment was filled with the sound of gunshots.” Some soldiers tried to take cover, but the Lakota “fired guns and bows and started fires.” The soldiers tried to cross the river, but “soldiers were falling, hit by bullets and arrows.” The scene is described over six pages. 
  • Later that day, the warriors attacked the soldiers who made a barricade. “Custer’s soldiers, his five companies, began to suffer casualties. That is, soldiers were being hit by bullets and falling. . . The sad fact is that Custer lost all his men, including himself. Every man in the five companies he led was killed in this second part of the battle.” The second part of the battle is described over three pages. 
  • After a battle, people from the Lakota village sought their loved ones. “Many of them were angry at the Long Knives . . . Then someone took a knife and cut a soldier’s body. All that anger was hard to hold back. So they began stripping bodies, taking things, and then mutilating them. . . Cutting arms and legs.” Grandpa Nyles says, “I personally think it’s a bad thing no matter who does it. But that’s the way it was then.”  
  • Soldiers and jealous warriors tried to capture Crazy Horse to imprison him. “When the Indian policemen saw [Crazy Horse’s] knife, they surrounded him. [An Indian leader] Little Big Man grabbed his arms from behind.” A soldier came and saw “a Lakota fighting with the Indian policemen, so he thrust his rifle with a long bayonet on the end of the barrel, at Crazy Horse.” The wound killed Crazy Horse. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Code Talker

The United States is at war, and sixteen-year-old Ned Begay wants to join the cause—especially when he hears that Navajos are being specifically recruited by the Marine Corps. So he claims he’s old enough to enlist, breezes his way through boot camp, and suddenly finds himself involved in a top-secret task, one that’s exclusively performed by Navajos. He has become a code talker. Now, Ned must brave some of the heaviest fighting of the war, and with his native Navajo language as code, send crucial messages back and forth to aid in the conflict against Japan. His experiences in the Pacific—from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima and beyond—will leave him changed forever.

Throughout World War II, in the conflict fought against Japan, Navajo code talkers were a crucial part of the U.S. effort, sending messages back and forth in an unbreakable code that used their native language. They braved some of the heaviest fighting of the war, and with their code, they saved countless American lives. Yet their story remained classified for more than twenty years. But now, Joseph Bruchac brings their stories to life for young adults through the fictional tale of Ned Begay.

While Code Talker includes pieces of Ned’s early life, most of the story focuses on Ned’s experiences in the war. While at the mission school, Ned and the other Indians were taught that “it was no good to speak Navajo or be Navajo. Everything about us that was Indian had to be forgotten.” This is one reason why Ned was eager to join the Marines. He wanted to use his “sacred language” to help the United States win the war. While in battle, the code talkers proved their worth by becoming an integral part of their battalions.

Ned and his battalion fought through the Pacific and often endured heavy fighting. Ned describes the battles without using gory details; however, many people were killed and wounded, and these scenes may upset sensitive readers. Since the story includes Ned fighting many battles, the fight scenes become repetitious, and the story begins to drag. Another downside of the book is that none of the supporting characters are well-developed, and they lack unique personalities. Nevertheless, the supporting characters help readers understand that on the battlefield, Ned was able to make lasting friendships that helped him through this difficult time.

When Ned returned home after the war, he still faced discrimination. “It didn’t matter that I had fought for America. It didn’t matter that I had made white friends who would have sacrificed their lives for me when we were at war.” Some people only saw Ned as “another stupid Navajo.” Despite this, Ned learned to be “self-confident as a Marine, to believe that I could succeed in even the hardest battle.” Ned’s self-confidence and pride in his culture are inspiring, and Code Talker shines a light on how the Navajos were a critical component of winning the war. Anyone interested in history will find Code Talker a worthwhile read, especially because the Navajo code talkers’ role was kept a secret. In fact, it wasn’t until 2001 that Congressional Gold Medals were given to the Navajo and other code talkers.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When the Americans came to the Navajos’ territory, “the Americans made war on all of the Navajos. They burned our crops, killed our livestock, and cut down our peach trees. They drove our people into exile. They sent us on the Long Walk.”
  • At the mission school, the principal heard Ned speak Navajo. The principal “slapped his hand over my mouth and picked me up under his arm like I was a little puppy who had done something bad. He carried me inside to the sink where there was a bar of brown soap. . . forced me to open my mouth, and then shoved that big, wet bar of soap into it. . . I choked and coughed and thought I was going to die.”
  • The children who refused to give up Navajo “were beaten with heavy sticks. . . Sometimes [the principal] would beat the boys and girls so badly that they would not be able to walk the next day.” One boy who refused to speak English was “taken into the cold stone basement and chained in a dark corner. He was kept there for a week with nothing to eat but pieces of stale bread and nothing to drink but water.”
  • When Ned goes into battle, he often describes the violence he witnesses so not all of the violence is listed below.
  • When Ned and his unit got to Guadalcanal, “shells landed all around [the American soldiers] . . . They heard the crack of the .25 caliber rifles of hidden snipers. . . There were plenty of bodies. Taking care of the American dead was the first priority in combat and as a result, the bodies of the Japanese soldiers were often left unburied for days.”
  • In Guadalcanal, “although the Japanese said they were liberating the island, they used the native people like slaves, beating or killing them if they tried to escape. . . [One man] had terrible scars all over his chest from when the Japanese had tied him to a tree and tortured him by stabbing him with bayonets.”
  • The American soldiers waded through the water to get to the beach. “The noise of hostile fire, the sound of men crying out as they were hit by shrapnel and bullets, we kept pushing forward.” Ned’s friend was injured by shrapnel, and Ned knotted a bandage around the wound. Ned learned that “seventy Marines [were] killed or missing. Another 124 wounded.”
  • The Japanese set up booby traps. “Two Marines had just been wounded in their arms and legs by shrapnel when they tried to retrieve a seemingly discarded .35 caliber Japanese machine pistol.”
  • Ned took a message to the Second Battalion, but they thought he was a Japanese soldier. An American soldier “stuck me right in the back with a bayonet. Before it could sink in, I rolled headfirst into a foxhole.” Someone recognized Ned and saved him from further attack.
  • Ned’s battalion was sent to the Mariana Islands to fight the Japanese. “The Marines stopped them with machine gun fire. The enemies fell like tall grass cut by a scythe. . . The Japanese women and children ran from the Marines in terror. They’d been told that Americans were devils who would kill and torture them.” The people were so afraid of the Americans that “they didn’t allow themselves to be captured. They blew themselves up with grenades. They climbed to the tops of cliffs and threw their children off before hurling themselves into the rocks below.”
  • Ned walked through one town that looked “broken.” “No living people were to be seen, but there were many bodies of native people, who’d been slaughtered by the angry Japanese as they pulled back.”
  • When night came, the Japanese attacked. “Many of those attackers were killed by our machine guns, but others fought through. Each time a wave of attackers was wiped out, another human wave came screaming in . . . Thirty-five hundred enemy soldiers had died, including many of their high officers.”
  • Ned was out in the jungle and described, “One moment I had been walking along. The next I heard a sound like the buzzing of an angry bee just as something slapped me on my shoulder. . . when I looked at my shoulder I saw blood welling out and felt my knees getting weaker.” Ned recovers from his injuries.
  • During a battle, “tracer bullets stitched the air above our heads. Once again I heard the sound. . . the dull thud, between the sound of a slap and a bunch, of a bullet hitting the body of a human being. I heard it again and again, followed by cries of pain from those who were not killed when burning pieces of lead struck them.”
  • While in the thick of battle, Ned heard a cry from his friend Georgia Boy who was “holding his own throat. Blood was spurting through his fingers, and his helmet had been knocked off . . . Someone was yelling for a medic. It took me a moment to realize that the person was yelling in Navajo. . . Then I realized I was the one doing the yelling.” Georgia Boy survived.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When some of the men had free time, they drank heavily. “When they were drunk, they no longer could think of those things. Some of our Navajo code talkers joined in the heavy drinking. After the war, they still kept on with that drinking to try to keep that terrible world of war out of their minds”
  • On New Year’s Eve, some of the men drank beer. Ned and his friend poured beer over each other.

Language

  • Some of the soldiers called the Navajo code talkers “Chief.” Ned “knew that my own white friends who called me Chief didn’t mean to insult me and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by correcting them.”
  • A General said, “We’ll catch seven kinds of hell on the beaches and that will be just the beginning. The fighting will be fierce and the casualties will be awful, but my Marines will take the damned island.”

Supernatural

  • Some American soldiers wore cotton waistbands called sennimbari, or Cloth of a Thousand Stitches. “They believed that those sennimbaris had the power to protect their wearer from being hit by enemy bullets.” Ned doesn’t believe the sennimbaris can save people.

Spiritual Content

  • After the Navajos were forced on the Long Walk, “Our people prayed. They did a special ceremony.” Afterward, the Navajos were allowed to return home.
  • Before Ned went to the reservation school, his uncle “had been praying life would not be as hard for me at school as it had been for him…”
  • The Navajo “men and women always kept their hair long. It was a sacred thing. Cutting your hair was believed to bring misfortune to you.” Despite this, when the Indians got to the mission school, their hair was cut off.
  • Since the school was a mission school, some Navajos belonged to the Catholic church. Ned’s parents “had been baptized and went with us when we attended church. But being Catholic did not mean we would forget the Holy People and our Navajo Way.”
  • A Marine said, “You know. . . That Golden Rule and those other things that Jesus Christ said people needed to live by? Well, that Golden Rule and those other things he did makes me believe that maybe Jesus was a Navajo.”
  • Before Ned goes off to war, he is given a Blessingway. During a Blessingway “many family members and friends and well-wishers gathered around the hogan, all of them putting their minds together to wish success and goodness for you.” Corn pollen is “sprinkled on the earth into crosses where you kneel. Then you, too, are blessed with that pollen. . .”
  • Before Ned is shipped out, he “rose before dawn and prayed with my corn pollen. I asked the Holy People to remember me and help keep me safe on the ocean from the monsters that hid beneath its surface.”
  • Before going out to battle, Ned “reached down to touch my buckskin pouch filled with corn pollen. I had prayed earlier that morning, but now I whispered the words again in our sacred language, asking the Holy People for protection.”
  • The Navajo “tradition tells us that we must avoid the bodies of those who have died. A bad spirit sometimes remains around the corpse. To even look upon the body of a dead person may make you sick.”
  • Ned’s parents sent him a letter saying, “We are continually praying in church for your safety and for our other Navajo boys over there. We are praying for your quick return home.”
  • Ned sent his unwashed battle fatigues home “to stand for me in a protection ceremony. . . On the day when prayers and songs would be offered to ask help for me, my clothes would be there, in the hands of my family. On that day I would feel the presence of the Holy People.”
  • When Ned got to Iwo Jima, “I faced the east, took a pinch of pollen from my pouch, and placed it on my tongue. I put a little dab of pollen on top of my head and spoke to the Holy People. ‘Let me have clear thoughts, clear speech, and a good path to walk this day,’ I prayed.”
  • When the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, Emperor Hirohito talked over the radio. “It was a shock to those people in many ways, grandchildren. None of them ever expected to personally hear their emperor. Remember that Hirohito was a distant god to them. They had never heard a god’s voice before.”
  • When the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, Ned prayed “that such bombs would never fall on human beings again.”

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Junior is a young Native American boy living on the Spokane reservation in Washington. He was born with hydrocephalus, a condition that leads to extra spinal fluid in his brain; he survived the surgery that removed the fluid but the disease left him with a lisp and a stutter, too many teeth, and uneven eyes. His best friend, Rowdy, protects him from bullies. But Rowdy has plenty of problems to deal with in his own life especially because poverty is felt in every corner of the reservation. 

A few days into his freshman year, Junior gets suspended from high school due to an accident. He asks to be transferred to Rearden, the high school in the nearest all-white town. Junior’s teacher at his old school tells him that he is smart and has great potential, but he will never know what he can achieve trapped on the reservation. Junior’s parents agree, and soon Junior enters a new world, completely separate from the one he knew before. After a bit of a rocky start at Rearden—his new classmates have never met an indigenous person before, and aren’t quite sure what to make of him—he settles into a new routine. He makes friends and even joins the basketball team. 

But Junior’s transfer to Rearden has made his home life even harder. The other families on the reservation feel betrayed, believing Junior has abandoned them by choosing to leave. Rowdy, too, is no longer on Junior’s side. In fact, Rowdy feels the most betrayed of all. Caught between two worlds and two identities, Junior has to decide where his real home is. Does he belong to the place and the people he has known all his life? Or does he belong in the place that offers more opportunities than he ever dreamed of, with no one of a similar background to him? 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a brilliant and moving coming-of-age story. It deals with complex themes such as identity, family dynamics, friendships, bullying, and death. Readers will enjoy getting to know Junior through his diary as he navigates growing up caught between two worlds. Because this novel is told in first person, readers can see inside Junior’s head, making him easy to sympathize with and relate to. Junior’s experience gives insight into what it means to grow up in two different cultures simultaneously and the difficulty that can arise in trying to reconcile them both. 

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this novel is Alexie’s prose. The language is simple but always exact and precise enough to elicit just the right emotional response. Alexie has beautifully captured a teenage boy’s voice. Much of the novel reads as if it could be a direct conversation between Junior and the reader. The vivid language produces a captivating novel that readers will not be able to put down.  Readers will think about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian long after they have closed the final page. 

Overall, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a novel that every teenager should read growing up and revisit as an adult. It teaches readers to be kind to those different from them – just because they are different, does not mean they are any less human – and that it’s possible to make a home even in seemingly contradictory situations. The story’s themes of complex identity and loss can be universally felt; everyone who reads this book will find a bit of themselves in it, and will also be able to learn about an experience distinct from their own.  

Sexual Content  

  • Junior talks about masturbation. “I spend hours in the bathroom with a magazine that has one thousand pictures of naked movie stars: naked woman + right hand = happy happy joy joy. Yep, that’s right, I admit I masturbate . . . And maybe you’re thinking, ‘Well, you really shouldn’t be talking about masturbation in public.’ Well, tough, I’m going to talk about it because EVERYBODY does it. And EVERYBODY likes it.” 
  • In the woods, Junior mentions that he loves trees, and Rowdy calls him a “tree fag” because he “likes to stick [his] dick inside knotholes.”  

Violence  

  • Junior remembers how mad he was when his father had to put down the family dog, Oscar, because they couldn’t afford to go to the vet. “I wanted to punch my dad in the face. I wanted to punch him in the nose and make him bleed. I wanted to punch him in the eye and make him blind. I wanted to kick him in the balls and make him pass out. I was hot mad. Volcano mad. Tsunami mad.” 
  • Junior describes Rowdy’s rough home life. “His father is drinking hard and throwing hard punches, so Rowdy and his mother are always walking around with bruised and bloody faces.” 
  • Rowdy often gets into fights to defend himself and Junior. Rowdy “got into his first fistfight in kindergarten. He took on three first graders during a snowball fight because one of them had thrown a piece of ice. Rowdy punched them out pretty quickly. And then he punched the teacher who came to stop the fight. He didn’t hurt the teacher, not at all, but man, let me tell you, that teacher was angry.” 
  • Rowdy gets mad at Junior for laughing at him when he trips and stumbles into a minivan. “[Rowdy] shoved me to the ground and almost kicked me. He swung his leg at me, but pulled it back at the last second. I could tell he wanted to hurt me for laughing. But I am his friend, his best friend, his only friend. He couldn’t hurt me. So he grabbed a garbage sack filled with empty beer bottles and chucked it at the minivan. Glass broke everywhere. Then Rowdy grabbed a shovel that somebody had been using to dig barbecue holes and went after that van. Just beat the crap out of it.” 
  • Junior is suspended from school after throwing a book and accidentally hitting his teacher in the face. Junior “wanted to hit something when I threw that ancient book. But I didn’t want to hit somebody, and I certainly didn’t plan on breaking the nose of a mafioso math teacher.” 
  • Rowdy gets angry and hits Junior when he discovers that Junior is transferring to Rearden. “Bang! Rowdy punched me. Bang! I hit the ground. Bang! My nose bled like a firework.” 
  • Junior mentions that his dad’s best friend, Eugene, was “shot in the face in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven in Spokane. Very drunk, Eugene was shot and killed by one of his good friends, Bobby, who was too drunk to even remember pulling the trigger. The police think Eugene and Bobby fought over the last drink in a bottle of wine.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Many adults on the reservation are alcoholics. Some, like Rowdy’s father, are violent as a result. Others, like Junior’s parents, are not. Junior says, “My mother and father are drunks, too, but they aren’t mean like [Rowdy’s father]. Not at all. They sometimes ignore me. Sometimes they yell at me. But they’ve never, ever, never, ever hit me.” 
  • Junior describes his dad’s best friend, Eugene, as “a good guy, and an uncle to me, but he was drunk all the time. Not stinky drunk, just drunk enough to be drunk. He was a funny and kind drunk, always wanting to laugh and hug you and sing songs and dance.” 
  • Junior’s grandmother is killed by a drunk driver. “She didn’t die right away. The reservation paramedics kept her alive long enough to get to the hospital in Spokane, but she died during emergency surgery.” 

Language  

  • The words bastard, retard, ass, and fuck are used occasionally. 
  • The N word is used once 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Native American Heroes: Osceola, Tecumseh, & Cochise

Osceola, Cochise, and Tecumseh are three Native American heroes who fought valiantly for their land and people. This book is divided into three parts—each part recounting the life of one of these great heroes.  

Osceola, a Seminole leader, fought to keep his people’s native land and to protect all Seminoles, including those who had black skin. The Seminoles were not just fighting the army; they were also fighting the slave traders who wanted all black Seminoles turned over to them. The whites wanted the Seminoles to sign a treaty, agreeing to move to lands in the West. One of the reasons Osceola refused to sign a treaty was because the treaty said “that no Seminole who had the blood of the black man could go to the western country. How this would tear brother from brother! Child would be torn from parents!” 

Thompson, an American general, pretended that he wanted to discuss the treaty with Osceola, and instead, Thompson had Osceola put in irons and thrown into prison. A soldier who witnessed the capture of Osceola wrote to a friend: “I shall never forget that day, nor the sad, disappointed face of Chief Osceola and the other Indians. We were outraged by the cowardly way he was betrayed into capture.” Osceola died in prison, and many of the Seminoles agreed to move west.   

Tecumseh was born into a world of war between the Shawnee Nation and the Americans. The men of his tribe taught Tecumseh how to be a warrior, but his sister “taught him to be honest, to respect the rights of others, and to obey his elders.” Even though the Shawnee Nation and the Americans were at war, Tecumseh still had compassion for the enemy and did not let his men torture captives. Tecumseh tried to unite all of the tribes; however, he was unsuccessful. Despite this, “Tecumseh was a great man. He was truly great—and his greatness was his own, unassisted by science or the aids of education. As a statesman, a warrior, and a patriot, we shall not look upon his like again.” 

Cochise, an Apache leader, brought peace to his people by cooperating with the whites. “Not all of the Chiricahua warriors believed that peace was the way to survive. . . But every warrior knew that Cochise had pledged to keep his peace and that he would never break that pledge. Truth and honor had a value among all Apaches, but in no man was it stronger than in Cochise.” Unfortunately, Cochise’s honesty and cooperation weren’t enough to keep the peace, and fighting resumed. After Cochise’s death, the Americans broke their promises and the Apache “were driven out of their mountain home and moved to a distant reservation.”  

Native American Heroes is a tragic and true story that highlights the violence and racism that the Indigenous people endured. Osceola, Cochise, and Tecumseh are heroes who fought to keep their tribes from being pushed off their native land. The trickery and deceit that the Americans used against the Indigenous people is heartbreaking. These tragic stories include violence but do not include gory details.  

Native American Heroes teaches about history by using black-and-white original source materials, including photographs, maps, portraits, and newspaper articles, to supplement the narrative text. This engaging and educational book will help readers understand how the colonization of America affected the indigenous tribes. In addition, the book doesn’t shy away from showing the cruelty that the white man inflicted upon the Native Americans.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Osceola would not sign a treaty with Thompson, who represented the United States. Thompson then had Osceola arrested. “It took four soldiers to subdue Osceola. They put him in irons and threw him in prison.” 
  • Chief Emanthla agreed to give Black Seminoles to the whites, who would sell them into slavery. “To Osceola, this act of betrayal was punishable by death. Osceola raised his rifle and fired.”  
  • The whites captured Osceola’s wife, Morning Dew, because “her mother was believed to have been a black woman, so in the eyes of the white men, Morning Dew was a slave.” This caused Osceola to wage war against General Thompson and the whites.  
  • Osceola and a war party hide in the woods waiting for Thompson to go on his usual morning walk. “It was Osceola who struck down the general. And it was the Seminole war cry – Yo-ho-ee-tchee! — that Thompson heard as he fell dead.”  
  • After Thompson was killed, General Clinch arrived with his army. The Seminoles watched as the army began crossing a river. “Suddenly the Seminoles came out from their hiding places and attacked. The general’s army was now split in two. The five hundred men who were unable to cross the river watched helplessly as their comrades and the Seminoles fired at one another.” One hundred whites were killed that day. 
  • As the war continued, the whites “died as often from the bites of the snakes and the mosquitoes as they did from the weapons of the Seminoles.” 
  • Slave traders wanted all black people to be turned over to them. The slave traders couldn’t tell if a black person was a runaway slave or a Seminole so they “seized anyone with black skin.” 
  • General Hernandez asked Osceola and other Seminole leaders to discuss a peace treaty, but then Hernandez ambushed them. “Hernandez gave the signal. His troops, hidden nearby, moved in. Osceola was captured, together with twelve chiefs, seventy-five warriors, and six women.” Osceola was put in prison, where he eventually died. 
  • The Shawnee leader Cornstalk is killed while visiting an American fort. “A mob of soldiers, angered by the killing of a white man, had shot the Shawnee leader.”  
  • When war came to the Shawnee’s territory, Tecumseh “watched his village vanish in flames, as American soldiers drove the Shawnees from their homes.”  
  • To protect their land, the Shawnees attacked the flatboats carrying the settlers down the Ohio River. “After one such attack on a group of settlers’ boat, the Shawnees burned a captive at the stake. Tecumseh watched in horror.” 
  • The battle of Tippecanoe “lasted only a day. . .[General Harrison was] not satisfied with smashing the houses, Harrison’s army also destroyed all of the corn the Shawnees had harvested.”  
  • Tecumseh returned to the fort to find “a group of Native Americans was torturing twenty American soldiers. Tecumseh charged at them at a gallop. He grabbed a knife from one warrior and sent others sprawling to the ground.”  
  • A white man accused Cochise’s men of kidnapping his son. Lieutenant Bascom asked Cochise to meet with him. Cochise took his family with him. Bascom tried to take Cochise and his warriors as prisoners. When Cochise “cried to his people to run,” Bascom’s guards started shooting. “One of [Cochise’s] brothers’ sons was stabbed in the stomach with a bayonet. His wife, brother, and nephews – and Cochise’s son — were seized.” 
  • Cochise tried to take several of Bascom’s men. “An Apache warrior fired and one of the white men fell dead.” Later, the Apache took several of Bascom’s men captive. “They killed the four white men and left their bodies there as a message to Bascom and his men. . .  In retaliation, they hanged the male Apache hostages.” Cochise “saw, hanging from a tree, the bodies of his relatives along with three other Coyoteros Apaches that had been captured.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • The white men introduced whiskey to the Native Americans. The whiskey “destroyed their bodies” and “turned brother against brother.”  
  • Governor Harrison met with several chiefs to convince them to sign a treaty. “Harrison may have first supplied the chiefs with whiskey and then pressured them to sign this new treaty.”

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Tecumseh’s brother, Laulewasika, “gave up whiskey and turned to religion.” Laulewasika had many followers. Laulewasika told “his people to stop warring among themselves and to stop drinking the white man’s whiskey.” 
  • Laulewasika was called the Shawnee Prophet.  
  • The Shakers may have influenced Laulewasika.  
  • Governor Harrison told the Delaware Indians that if Laulewasika was really a prophet, he could cause “the sun to stand still, the moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow or the dead to rise from their graves.” Laulewasika used the solar eclipse to prove that he was a prophet.  
  • The Native Americans did not understand why the whites owned land. Tecumseh said, “Sell a country? Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the Great Sea as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?” 
  • Tecumseh tried to unite all of the Indians. He said, “This is the will of the Great Spirit.”  
  • After Cochise’s relatives were killed, the dead men’s faces were painted. They were dressed in their finest clothes “so that they would look their best for the long journey to the gods. . . Everything the dead men had owned was thrown into the flames.” 

Rain is Not My Indian Name

It’s been six months since Cassidy Rain Berghoff’s best friend, Galen, died, and up until now she has succeeded in shutting herself off from the world. But when controversy arises around Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp in their mostly white midwestern community, Rain decides to face the outside world again, and takes a job photographing the campers for her town’s newspaper. 

Soon, Rain has to decide how involved she wants to become in Indian Camp. Does she want to keep a professional distance from her fellow Native teens? Or, though she is still grieving, will she embrace new friends and new beginnings? 

Rain is Not My Indian Name focuses on Cassidy, a 14-year-old girl who has closed herself off to the world after her best friend, Galen, dies. In addition to Galen’s death, Cassidy is dealing with a friendship breakup, her brother’s girlfriend’s unexpected pregnancy, as well as trying to connect to her indigenous heritage. Readers will connect with Cassidy, who is dealing with many messy life situations. While Cassidy is dealing with a lot of heavy topics, her voice is heartfelt and authentic. Like many teens, Cassidy is struggling to understand her conflicting emotions, which do not always have easy answers. 

Each chapter begins with an excerpt from Cassidy’s journal that helps readers understand how past events continue to affect Cassidy’s daily life. The journal excerpts allow readers a glimpse into Cassidy and Galen’s friendship. Cassidy’s experiences examine small-town politics and the town’s prejudices. The large cast of characters allows the book to explore different types of prejudices. However, none of the supporting characters are well-developed and some readers may have difficulty remembering how everyone connects.  

Cassidy uses a conversational tone to tell her story. Even though she is dealing with heavy issues, she is never whiny or melodramatic. Cassidy’s experiences establish the importance of connecting with the community and accepting yourself and others. Cassidy’s problems are resolved, and her personal growth allows her to reconnect with her Indigenous community. Teens will connect with Cassidy, and come away learning the importance of surrounding themselves with a caring support group.  

Sexual Content  

  • A girl who works at the grocery store has a bad reputation and is known as “the Lorelei Express.”  
  • When Rain was younger, she asked her brother, Flynn, “why he’d been carrying the same condom in his wallet for six years.” Her brother said he kept it for “emergencies.”  
  • Flynn’s girlfriend lives with him and Rain. She moved in after the fourth date. 
  • After Galen dies, Rain discovers that there was a rumor that Galen and she were “fooling around. . . like making out, mashing, tonsil hockey, swapping spit.” 
  • The night Galen died, he kissed Rain. “It was only one kiss. It wasn’t a deep kiss, a French kiss, the kind of kiss that redefines a teen life.”

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Flash, a reporter who works with Rain, carries a flask of tequila in his coat pocket. Flash allows Rain to sniff the flask and “the smell of tequila burned the back of [her] throat.”  
  • Rain sees Flash’s flask on his desk. 
  • Rain “finished a half-empty beer Uncle Ed had left on my porch. . . Grampa grounded me for a month.” The beer made Rain throw up. 
  • Rain’s uncle sold his gold tooth for beer money. 
  • At dinner, Flynn drinks a bottle of Coors.

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • Rain’s brother and his fiancée plan to be married at the First Baptist Church. However, the bride’s mother wants them to get married at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church. 
  • The book mentions that some of the characters attend church. For example, Rain was the only “Indian” who “prayed at the First Baptist Church.” 
  • After Rain finds out that her brother’s girlfriend, Natalie, is pregnant, Rain prays, “Dear God, please take care of Natalie. Thank you and amen.” Rain thinks, “I hoped all of the times I’d skipped church wouldn’t count against me.” 
  • After Natalie has to go to the hospital, Flynn says he will “pray for the best.” 
  • When Rain thinks about Galen, she recites a Bible verse. “‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’ –Psalms 30:5.”

Missing in Action

Dirty. Lazy. Good-for-nothing.

Jay Thacker is used to being called names because his dad is half Navajo. But he gets a chance at a new life and a new identity when he and his mom move to the small town of Delta, Utah to live with Jay’s grandfather. In Delta, Jay can convince everyone, and maybe even himself, that his dad—who is missing in action as he fights in WWII—is really a POW and military hero, and not gone forever.

As the summer wears on and Jay finds himself growing up a little faster than he expected, he learns to look at some truths that had previously been impossible to face. Truths about his father; about Ken, his new friend from the Japanese internment camp nearby; and about himself, too. 

Jay, a ten-year-old boy, is an interesting character; however, readers may struggle to connect with him. Jay believes that people will look down on him because he looks like his father, who is half Navajo. To make matters worse, Jay wrestles with conflicting emotions about his abusive father. Jay pretends that his father is a war hero, but this doesn’t stop bad memories from invading his thoughts. Jay also refuses to believe his father is dead, even though there is no way his father could have survived the bombing of his ship. In the end, Jay accepts his father’s death but he never deals with the negative emotions associated with his father. 

Jay feels self-conscious because he looks like an Indian, and this affects how he interacts with others, especially Ken, a teen farmworker who lives in the Japanese Internment Camp. At first, Jay tries to keep his distance from Ken, but Ken’s humor and honesty make it difficult for Jay to dislike him. When others are around, Jay tries to pretend that he doesn’t know Ken. Jay thinks, “Gordy [his friend] didn’t seem to care if he was part Indian, but what would he say if he found out he worked with a Jap? Then he’d probably be a dirty Indian, not a Chief.” 

Because Jay struggles with accepting himself, he often makes decisions based on how others might perceive him. Instead of standing up for himself and being honest about Ken’s friendship, Jay allows Gordy to push him around. Jay wants to fit in and make friends, but Gordy is mean and doesn’t respect Jay or the other boys. For instance, Gordy often uses derogatory names such as calling Jay “Chief” and Ken a “Jap.” Both Jay and Gordy are unlikable characters without healthy boundaries which makes it hard to become emotionally invested in their conflicts.   

Missing in Action explores several serious topics including prejudice against Native Americans and Japanese Americans. It also explores family violence and Japanese-American internment camps. However, Jay never fully embraces his Navajo heritage and he only has one brief experience at the internment camp. While the book is an accurate depiction of the time, it doesn’t do enough to dispel the harmful perceptions of Native Americans and Japanese Americans. The multiple themes are wrapped up in an unrealistic and unsatisfactory conclusion that doesn’t shine a light on Jay’s character growth.  

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of World War II, Missing in Action is worth reading. However, if you want to learn more about internment camps, the picture book Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki would be an excellent addition to your reading list. If you’d like a book that mixes history with baseball action, read the Baseball Card Adventure Series by Dan Gutman. 

Sexual Content  

  • One of Jay’s new friends, Gordy, tells a story about how him and another kid “snuck up on some girls skinny-dipping down at the canal. We watched ‘em for a while, and then we started hollering that would could see ‘em and they about drowned trying to stay under the water. It didn’t matter. They didn’t have much of anything anyway.” 
  • Gordy says he knows what a girl’s body should look like because he accidentally saw his sister naked. “I know it ain’t like those flat-chested girls we seen down at the canal.” 
  • Gordy wants to be a professional baseball player so “all the girls want to smooch with him after the games.” Gordy asks Jay if he has kissed anyone. Then Gordy says, “I kissed Elaine Gleed one time. I chased her down at recess, back in fifth grade, and I tried to kiss her on the lips, but she turned her head.” 
  • Gordy wants to learn how to dance so he can “take old Elaine to a dance sometime, and she’ll wear a dress. . . all low in the front—and I’ll take a look right down her neck while I’m dancing with her.” 
  • When Gordy was in fourth grade, he and a friend “tried to hide under the stairs, over at D. Stevens department store, and look up girls’ dresses. . . But the only thing we seen was a big old lady wearing a girdle with all those straps to hold up her stockings. It made us both want to puke.” 
  • Jay’s father was unfaithful and “went out with other women.” Jay remembers him bringing home a woman. “Dad put him to bed early, but he hadn’t gone to sleep. . . He had heard his dad talking to someone, heard his voice all slurry, the way it was when he drank, and he’d heard a woman laugh.” 

Violence  

  • While talking about Jay’s father, Jay tells Gordy that his father may be a prisoner of war. Gordy replies, “The Japs starve people and torture ‘em. They pull out their fingernails with pliers—all kinds of stuff.” 
  • Gordy says that Japs are “about the worst people in the world—except for Nazis. They bombed Pearl Harbor . . . for no reason at all. . . They were ugly little yellow guys with glasses.” In the war, they “kept coming and coming, dying until they were stacked up like cordwood. They like to torture people too.”  
  • Gordy says he heard on the radio that, “Our air corps guys shot down fifty Jap planes yesterday. Something like that. I think they said more than fifty. If it keeps going like that, we’ll wipe out every plane the Japs have.” 
  • Gordy, Jay, and some other guys go out into the desert to hunt. Gordy shoots a horny toad. “Jay watched the lizard, still twitching. Its legs were working, like it was trying to run, but it was on its back and most of its middle was torn away.” 
  • Because of peer pressure, Jay kills a bird. Jay “was surprised when he saw a puff of feathers. The sparrow leaped up, like it was going to fly, but then it rolled in the air and dropped behind the brush.” 
  • One boy repeats his father’s words about the people living in the internment camp. The Japanese “don’t have guns out there at the camp. . . but some of those guys hide away knives and stuff like that. Japs are sneaky, and if they can, they’ll figure out a way to crawl into your bedroom and cut your throat.” 
  • Gordy starts talking about girls and Jay gets upset. Gordy says, “‘You better watch it, Chief. You mess with me and I’ll scalp you.’ He jumped up and got him in a headlock, grabbing some of his hair, and pretending that he was hacking away at some of it.” Jay “threw him off” and the fight ended. 
  • Ken, a Japanese American, wants to join the war to prove that he’s “somebody.” Ken plans to join the war and “kill about a thousand Krauts.” 
  • Jay’s father was abusive. Jay remembered that, “His dad had spanked him a lot, had slapped him hard across his legs, his back. And he had screamed at Jay, calling him filthy names, accused him of things, called him ‘worthless.’ Always that word.”  
  • Jay gets upset and begins yelling at Ken. Ken tries to get him to calm down, but “Jay charged him, thrust his hands into Ken’s chest, sent him flying backward. Ken struck the table as he went down, shoving him in the back. The plate and the glass of milk flew. . .” After Ken falls, Jay runs away.  
  • During a baseball game, “a tall kid who had been on first was barreling in hard. He slid with his foot high, caught Jay in the chest, and sent him flying. Jay landed on his side and rolled over in a puff of dirt, like smoke. His vision was swimming.” Gordy hits the kid’s jaw, “then rolling over on top of him. . . He popped Gordy in the eye, and went down again.” Ken breaks up the fight.

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Jay’s dad would go out at night to dance. When he came home, he smelled of smoke and beer. 
  • When Jay was younger, he wanted to play baseball with his father but, “his dad had been drinking beer.” 
  • Jay’s dad used to smoke and sometimes his mom would drink with his father.  
  • Jay jumps into a train car and discovers three men. One man is a drunk. The men begin arguing, and one says, “I ain’t like these two. I may take a drink now and then, but I ain’t no wino. Jak here, he’s feebleminded now, his brain all burnt up from drinking anything he can find with alcohol in it.”

Language  

  • The book contains many microaggressions and derogatory language towards both Native Americans and Japanese people. 
  • There is some name-calling. For example, one of the kids calls the other team’s baseball players “sad sacks” and “boneheads.”  
  • Most of the name-calling is said by Gordy. For example, Gordy calls Jay “Chief” because Jay, “Look[s] like an Indian.” He also refers to a Japanese person as a “Jap” and says the Japs are “chicken.”   
  • Gordy tells one of his friends that his face “looks just like my butt.” He calls another person “four-eyes.” 
  • Gordy says, “A lot of Navajos are drunks. And they’ll steal anything that ain’t tied down.” 
  • While living in Salt Lake, some boys “had called [Jay] ‘Injun,’ and they ‘d made Indian noises, slapping their mouths and whooping.” 
  • Ken, a Japanese American, refers to Germans as Krauts. 
  • Jay’s grandfather uses darn and heck once. He says, “I was a heck of a ballplayer when I was a boy.”  

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • Jay’s grandfather, a patriarch in the Mormon church, encourages Jay to pray that his father will come home. Jay’s grandfather believes “God did answer prayers.” 
  • Jay’s mother wants him to go to church and “she wanted him to be a missionary someday. She wanted him to do everything right. . . and be careful about the kind of kids he ran around with.” 
  • When talking about Jay’s father being missing, his grandpa says “They had to trust God and have faith, and pray to God that his dad would come home. . . [Jay] prayed every night.” 
  • When Jay tells his mom that he has been praying for his father to come home, she replies, “But people die in war. That’s just the way it is. Every family prays, but Heavenly Father can’t bring all the boys home.” 
  • Jay tells his mom that his father isn’t dead, “but if you don’t pray and have faith he will be.”  
  • Jay and his grandfather discuss prayer. Jay’s grandfather says, “We have to trust the Lord. He knows what’s best.”  
  • Jay often prays that his father will come home. But neither his mom nor grandfather believe that Jay’s father is alive. Jay wonders, “What good did it do to pray, if they had given up? 
  • When Jay’s friend kills a horny toad, Jay says, “Navajos don’t kill anything unless there’s a reason. For food, or something like that.” Jay wonders “if the horny toad felt pain. He wondered if there was a heaven for animals. His grandpa Reid had told him that every life had a spirit. Maybe that was the same thing that Navajos believed.”  
  • Jay goes to a church-sponsored dance. 
  • Ken wants to join the war to prove himself loyal to America. Jay’s grandfather says, “What God wants is for us to stop shooting each other. That’s what I hope for you, that you never have to go to war.”  

Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe

Following the events of Hernandez’s previous novel, Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, Sal and Gabi are dragged into even more multiverse shenanigans when versions of Gabi from other universes begin showing up in their universe. Sal is approached by a Gabi from another universe who says that she wants to help Sal protect his universe from meeting a terrible fate like hers. While Gabi from another universe, whom Sal calls “FixGabi,” claims to want to fix holes in the universe, Sal realizes that she is tricking him and hiding her true intent. Sal realizes, “FixGabi, it turned out, was a supervillain bent on cosmic destruction.” To protect the universe, Sal and Gabi must enlist the help of their families, as well as their understanding of what Sal’s Papi calls “Calamity physics.” 

Considering the perspectives of others is one of the major themes in the novel. For instance, one of Sal’s teachers explains, “People make art because they want you to learn what life feels like to them. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s scary, sometimes it’s sad or uplifting or gross or deep or a million other things. But whatever it is, it’s always about what the artist thinks of life.” This theme becomes specifically important to Sal later when he interacts with FixGabi. Even though FixGabi has tried to trick Sal and cause havoc in his universe, Sal realizes that FixGabi “has lost a lot of loved ones. She’s seen her world ravaged by rips in the universe. She felt helpless and afraid. But rather than give in to those feelings, she fought back, as hard as she could.” Sal and his friends accepting FixGabi makes her decide that, “I want to make up for everything . . . I was so lonely.” 

Another major theme is friendship and found family. Just like in the previous novel, Sal and Gabi support their friend, Yasmany, as he struggles with problems at home that ultimately culminate in Children’s Services removing him from his home. Yasmany reveals that he has nowhere to live because “My [grandparents] are trying to get me to move back in with Mami. They said they’re too old. They can’t handle me . . . I got nowhere to be. Why doesn’t anybody want me?” But Sal and Gabi are great friends to Yasmany; Sal offers to let Yasmany stay with him for a few nights and Gabi’s parents ultimately decide that Yasmany will come live with them. When Yasmany asks Gabi’s family why they would do this for him, Gabi tells Yasmany, “You deserve a family that deserves you.”  

Readers who loved the first book in this two-part series will be thrilled by Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe. Sal and Gabi’s friendship gets even stronger and readers will be compelled by their friendship and how they always have each other’s best interests in mind. For instance, Sal tells Gabi, “There’s no one like you in the world, Gabi Reál. You are one of a kind.” And Gabi tells Sal how much she appreciates him, saying, “You saved my baby brother, Sal, and therefore my whole family. Thank you. Thank you forever.” Hernandez’s novel will appeal to readers because it has science fiction, theatre productions, and amazing friendships.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Following up on a situation discussed in the previous novel, Sal describes how his friend, Yasmany, had to leave home for his own safety. Sal says, “[Yasmany] was living with his abuelos now because life with his mami had gotten intolerably bad. I don’t know why exactly, since Yasmany wouldn’t go into details, but I knew Children’s Services had gotten involved.”  
  • When Yasmany witnesses Sal’s dad ground Sal for messing with his calamity physics equipment, Yasmany says to Sal, “Nothing got broken; no one got hit. It was just, like, normal talking at the kitchen table.” Sal realizes the dark implication of what Yasmany said.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Sal is upset with his Papi because he found him smoking a cigar. Sal’s dad says, “My team and I might very well be nominated for a Nobel Prize before I die . . . I guess I wanted to celebrate a little.” Sal angrily says, “Even though you swore to Mami when she was dying in the hospital that you’d never smoke a cigar again?” Papi tells Sal that his experience trying a cigar again after all those years was “terrible.” 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • When talking with their school janitor, Mr. Milagros, Sal and Gabi discover that Mr. Milagros’ wife, Lourdes, passed away. Mr. Milagros exclaims, “She’s not with the devils, Gabi. She’s with the angels. Lourdes is in heaven.” 
  • Gabi thinks, “I don’t even believe in heaven . . . but I’m sure Lourdes is there.” 

At the Bottom of the World

Jack and his foster siblings, Ava and Matt, are not your typical kids—they’re geniuses. Well, Ava and Matt are. Ava speaks multiple languages and builds robots for fun, and Matt is an expert astronomer and math whiz. As for Jack, it’s hard to stand out when surrounded by geniuses all the time.

Things get more complicated when the trio start working for Dr. Hank Witherspoon, one of the world’s leading scientists. They travel to Antarctica with Hank for a prestigious award ceremony—but they quickly find that not all is as it seems. A scientist has gone missing and it’s up to Jack, Ava, and Matt to find her . . . and discover who’s behind it all.  

In the Jack and the Geniuses Series, readers join Jack, Ava, and Matt on adventures around the world to tackle some of science’s biggest challenges, including new ways to create clean drinking water, generate clean and renewable energy, and provide information access to the entire planet. Each book in the series includes cool facts about the real-life science that’s found in the story, plus a fun DIY project. 

At the Bottom of the World is told from Jack’s point of view. He uses a self-deprecating tone that adds humor to the action. Jack’s impulsive nature and curiosity make him a relatable and likable protagonist. Even though he is not as intelligent as Ava and Matt, he often becomes the leader. Jack, Ava, and Matt all work together and use their different skills to solve the mystery.

While in Antarctica, the kids learn about living in the harsh environment. The science is presented in a kid-friendly manner that is easy to understand. For example, Antarctica is “as large as the United States, not counting Alaska, and 98 percent of it is ice. If the whole thing were a pizza, and you cut the pie into a hundred slices, all but two would be frozen.” The fun facts are accompanied by references to real people and places, such as McMurdo Station in Antarctica, Ernest Shackleton, and Jules Vern.  

The action-packed story incorporates science into a fun mystery with plenty of twists and turns. Readers will find the three siblings—Jack, Ava, and Matt—to be interesting characters who each contribute to solving the mystery. Even though Ava and Matt are geniuses, they are likable and relatable. Plus, the three kids complement each other, and each adds a unique aspect to the story. 

Anyone interested in gadgets, science, and visiting new places will find At the Bottom of the World an enjoyable read. In the next book, In the Deep Blue Sea, readers will be eager to join Jack and the geniuses on their adventure to the Hawaiian islands. Readers who enjoy At the Bottom of the World can find more adventure by reading The Max Tilt Series by Peter Lerangis, the Masterminds Series by Gordon Korman and Survival Tails: Endurance in Antarctica by Katrina Charman. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Jack, Ava, and Matt break into a building when a “humanoid opened a compartment in his chest. . . The robot pulled something out and flung it at us. I ducked the shot, and a yellowish clump splattered on the dark wood paneling behind me. . . The machine threw something, striking Matt in the chest. My brother shouted and fell to the floor.” The robot is throwing pizza dough; no one is injured.  
  • The villain leaves a woman far from the base and other humans. He reveals, “I didn’t really leave her out here to die. I left her out here to freeze.” 
  • The villain points a gun at Jack, Ava, Matt, and Hank. The villain plans to strand the group so they cannot walk to shelter. 
  • As the villain leads the group further from civilization, Jack pretends to be too tired to walk. The villain “pressed his foot against my back and pushed me forward. I threw out my arms to stop myself from face-planting.”  
  • As the group walks, Matt breaks a hole through a trapdoor that a seal made. The villain’s “foot struck the newly opened trapdoor, he lost his balance and toppled forward. His eyes flashed with a mix of terror and confusion as he plunged down through the slush, falling up to his waist in the ice water.”  
  • Before the villain completely sinks, one of his “huge gloved hands wrapped around [Jack’s] ankles with the force of a boa constrictor death-gripping a helpless rat. My heels lost their grip as he yanked me down.” Jack and the villain are saved; they are cold but otherwise uninjured.  The scene with the villain takes place over a chapter. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

A Tale of Witchcraft

Brystal Evergreen knew that becoming the icon of the fairytale world was going to be a large responsibility, but the immense pressure as the newly-appointed “Fairy Godmother” is more than she can handle. In addition to public appearances, fixing local issues, and campaigning for fairy rights, she’s also the new headmaster of The Celeste Weatherberry Memorial Academy of Magic, which has gone from ten students to a thousand overnight. Additionally, a sect of revolutionaries called the Righteous Brotherhood are rising, ready to return magic to the crime it once was.  

If that wasn’t enough, Brystal’s resolve falters when Lucy and Pip, two of her trusted friends, decide to leave the Academy to join a strange woman named Mistress Mara at her school for witches, Ravencrest. As Brystal fails to juggle these tasks, thoughts of inadequacy and giving up start to plague Brystal’s mind. The one break in Brystal’s constant onslaught of responsibilities is her budding romance with “Seven,” otherwise known as Prince Gallivant, seventh in line for the throne of the Southern Kingdom.  

Meanwhile, Lucy begins to practice witchcraft at Ravencrest, trying her best to put her life as a fairy behind her. However, Mistress Mara’s teachings start to rub Lucy the wrong way. Witchcraft requires Lucy to hurt others, and it’s not without a price – Lucy starts to change physically too, growing feathers instead of hair. Skeptical, Lucy decides to investigate Mistress Mara’s affairs, and uncovers a secret plot to curse Brystal and destroy the reputation of the fairies. She flees from the academy to warn Brystal but it’s too late: Brystal has already fallen into the Righteous Brotherhood’s trap.  

Mistress Mara and Seven, who reveals himself as the Righteous Brotherhood’s leader, have cursed Brystal to think negative thoughts. After Seven frames Brystal for the King Champion’s murder, her weakened resolve from the curse and Seven’s betrayal compels her to surrender. Seven, having also killed his other six siblings, kills Brystal and aims to turn public opinion against the fairies. However, Brystal postpones her death by making a mysterious deal with Death himself facilitated by Mistress Mara, and comes back to life just in time to be rescued by Lucy and her allies, The Fairy Council. Reconnected with her friends, Brystal remembers why she works so hard: to give others hope. With renewed willpower, Brystal is ready to fight her curse and stop the Righteous Brotherhood from destroying everything she’s built.  

In the sequel to A Tale of Magic, the drastic changes made at the end of the last book – such as the rapid growth of the academy and the legalization of magic, have brought new challenges to Brystal’s door. It’s natural that she starts having some reservations. Brystal is now facing tougher challenges than ever, and the curse that afflicts her brings these questions to the forefront of her mind: “Am I good enough? Can I save everyone? What happens if I fail?” Brystal says, “I got so busy changing the world I forgot to change myself with it.”  

We all might not have experience changing the world, but anyone can relate to the feeling of the world moving on without you; where you wish you could stop time and get ahold of your own feelings before tackling another issue. Brystal has to learn the hard way that time doesn’t stop for anyone, magical or not. The way she struggles through these issues and moments of weakness make her a well-rounded and relatable narrator.  

While the conflict with the Righteous Brotherhood is the main event of the story, Brystal’s mental state, as well as her relationship with Lucy, is at the forefront. Early on in the story, Lucy discovers that Brystal has been keeping Madame Weatherberry’s identity as the Snow Queen a secret. She lashes out at Brystal and Brystal has her removed from the Fairy Council, which prompts Lucy to leave and join Mistress Mara’s school of witchcraft. This test in their relationship weighs on both their minds, as they had come to trust and support one another, but they are both left without their best friend in such a trying time. Brystal leans on Madame Weatherberry’s advice: “The only thing in life that lasts forever is the fact that nothing lasts forever. . . Just like the weather, people have seasons, too – we all go through periods of rain and sunshine – but we can’t let a particularly rough winter destroy our faith in the spring, otherwise, we’ll always be stuck in the snow.”  

As she spends time away from Lucy, Brystal decides to let go of her anger. Brystal and Lucy don’t let one bad “season” spoil their friendship. Because the emotional development between the characters takes the stage over battles and new plotlines, this book is a bit more mature, yet even more purposeful than Colfer’s Land of Stories Series. Beyond a compelling world of magic is an inspiring girl on a journey to discover herself, who demonstrates fierce loyalty to her friends, and can find hope even in the darkest of times.  

 Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Prince Gallivant, aka Seven, describes how he lost his family in an attack. “When I was three, we [the royal family] were travelling to the countryside when our carriage was attacked by an angry mob. . . I don’t remember much besides all the screaming. My parents shielded me, otherwise I wouldn’t have survived.” 
  • The Righteous Brotherhood attacks Brystal while she’s at her brother’s wedding. “In a matter of seconds, the wedding became a war zone. . . Brystal spotted a row of smoking cannons on the top of a nearby hill. . . BOOM! A cannonball whirled right past Brystal’s head. . .” They use cannons and crossbows to fire at her. “The [soldier] fired his first shot. Seven jumped in front of Brystal, and the arrow hit the front of his leg. He fell to the ground screaming in agony.” After Seven is shot, the attackers retreat. He is the only person mentioned who is injured. Brystal later finds out this attack was a ploy to help build her relationship with Seven. 
  • Seven kills Mistress Mara. “FWITT! Suddenly, Mistress Mara felt something hit her chest. She looked down and saw an arrow was sticking directly into her heart. . . The witch dropped to her knees and black blood poured down her body. . . Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, she collapsed, and then became deathly still. Like a dying fire, her body started to smoke, then she slowly disappeared from sight.” 
  • When the Fairy Council rescues Brystal from the clutches of the Righteous Brotherhood, Mrs. Vee, the cook at the academy, comes too, fighting more ruthlessly than anyone. “The bubbly housekeeper twirled her arms like a maestro conducting an orchestra as she assaulted the Brotherhood with her kitchen supplies. She smacked their faces with wooden spoons, she beat them over the head with baking sheets, and she poked their eyes with whisks and forks. Mrs. Vee unleashed such a powerful and ruthless attack the fairies almost felt sorry for the Brotherhood.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Lucy compares flying on a broomstick to Fabubblous Fizz, a bubbly drink, but it’s unclear if this is alcoholic or not. She says, “I feel like I just drank a barrel of Fabubblous Fizz!” 

Language    

  • While repairing a dam with the Fairy Council, Lucy says, “Dam!” Brystal says, “Watch your mouth, there are children—” Then, Lucy says, “No! Look at the dam!”  
  • Lucy says Tangerina “sounds dumb” when she speaks.  
  • Seven calls his soldiers “idiots.”  

Supernatural  

  • In the Fairy Tale world, magic exists. Magic is mentioned frequently in the story and used for everything from household chores to fighting. Every member of the Fairy Council uses magic that has to do with a ‘specialty,’ such as Tangerina, who controls bees and has hair made of honey. 
  • Brystal uses magic to repair a cracked dam. “Brystal waved her wand at the damage below her. The giant crack was magically filled with a golden seal. . . [and] the spewing water finally stopped. . . To help matters more, Brystal flicked her wand again and this time sent a powerful breeze through the city that dried up all the streets, shops, and homes.” 
  • Many magical creatures are mentioned in the book, such as unicorns and trolls. Unicorns are sometimes mentioned as means of travel or messengers, such as when a unicorn delivers a letter from the Fairy Council to a king. 
  • Mistress Mara, a witch, travels in a large carriage with wooden, spider-like legs that operates by magic. “[The] large carriage was shaped like a human skull. . . [it] crawled on eight wooden legs like a massive spider.”  
  • Brystal’s usual means of travel is by bubble. She creates a bubble with her wand and floats from place to place, able to steer it with her wand. “She quietly opened the windows of her office and floated outside in a large bubble. . . She landed on a snowy mountainside and popped the bubble with her wand.” She does this a few times in the story. 
  • Brystal visits Madame Weatherberry, the Snow Queen, who is living far from civilization in a cave in the mountains. Madame Weatherberry has used a spell to separate herself from the Snow Queen. She appears as a ghost-like figure to Brystal. “Brystal ran across the cavern to embrace her former mentor, but she passed through Madame Weatherberry like she was made of air. . . ”  
  • Madame Weatherberry explains how she became a ghost. “Living in seclusion made the Snow Queen stronger. . . I searched the mountains for a place to imprison her and discovered this cavern. I froze myself in a wall of ice to trap her, and just in case it melted, I blinded myself so she would never find a way out. With my last bit of strength, I performed a detachment spell to separate us. As long as the Snow Queen exists, I’ll exist like a phantom outside of her.”  
  • Ravencrest, Mistress Mara’s school of witchcraft, has an invisible butler, moving paintings, and staircases that move in all directions.  
  • Mistress Mara distinguishes witchcraft from fairy magic by four things – jinxes, hexes, potions, and curses. There is a lesson for each in the story. Jinxes alter one’s appearance, behavior, or function in a negative way, such as when Pip, a student, jinxes a mirror to show an ugly reflection. A hex is a jinx applied to a living creature. Pip hexes someone to have two left feet. Potions are non-magical. Lastly, a curse is a long-lasting or irreversible spell that can take over an environment, inanimate object, or a living thing, and is fueled by anger.  
  • Lucy curses girls who used to make fun of her by turning them into swans. Curses leave something called a “curse counter” behind, a token of the cursed person that shows how long the curse will last. Whenever Mistress Mara curses someone, a jack-o-lantern appears. If its candle is burning, then the curse is still active. 
  • Witchcraft also causes a “recoil” effect to those who use it. The spellcaster’s body is altered with non-human traits. When Lucy uses witchcraft, she grows feathers like a goose. When Pip uses witchcraft, she starts to grow whiskers. Mistress Mara has cast so many spells that she looks like a skeleton. The witches use magical golden necklaces to conceal their true appearances. 
  • Lucy and the witches travel by broomstick once in the story.  
  • Mistress Mara curses Lucy to contain a Shadow Beast, a creature that is used as a sacrifice for an incredibly powerful spell. Lucy has the Fairy Council expel the Shadow Beast from her. “Lucy’s body surpassed her original height and weight and kept growing as she blew up like an enormous balloon. The fairies were shocked as Lucy swelled before their eyes. They could hear something growling inside of her. . . The fairies grabbed hands and recited the chant. . .  Lucy’s body stopped expanding. The Shadow Beast started to howl from inside her. . . Lucy’s body started to twitch and shake. . . Suddenly a dark vapor erupted out of Lucy’s mouth. Her body deflated and she shrank to her original size. The Shadow Beast whirled around the office like a black cloud.” It escapes out the window and finds Mistress Mara.  
  • Mistress Mara sacrifices the Shadow Beast to raise an undead army of former members of the Righteous Brotherhood. “The witch twirled her arms through the air and the Shadow Beast grew into a massive cyclone. The storm whirled around the courtyard. . . The Shadow Beat split into ferocious animals. The creatures scattered to different parts of the fortress and disappeared into the walls and sank into the ground. . . Suddenly, hundreds of decaying hands emerged from the dirt and shot out of the stone walls. . . corpses clawed their way out from their resting places. The corpses faced their leader and saluted him, like a platoon of skeletal soldiers.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • After Seven kills Brystal, she goes to a place in between life and death. She describes it as a “gray field with a perfectly smooth surface.” There, she meets Death, a ten-foot-tall hooded figure with a cloak made of “darkness itself.”  

Beanball

It’s the bottom of the last inning of a game between rival high school teams Oak Grove and Compton. Oak Grove is at bat, and the stage is set for star center fielder Luke “Wizard” Wallace to drive in the winning run, save the game, and be the hero. But instead, he’s hit by a beanball—a wild pitch that shatters his skull and destroys the vision in his left eye. 

The events surrounding Luke’s life-changing moment are presented through free-verse monologues by 28 different voices. Each monologue helps move the story’s plot forward and gives insight into how others are affected by Luke’s injuries. For example, Compton’s coach doesn’t have any remorse for telling his pitcher to throw close on the inside so Luke had to move back. The coach’s callous attitude highlights how some coaches only care about winning at any cost. Likewise, the girl that Luke had been dating comes across as self-centered and uncaring—she quickly abandons Luke because she’s more concerned with who to go to prom with. 

As Luke recovers, many people surround him with love. Adding Luke’s friends’ and family’s monologues gives the story more depth but also creates suspense. It is through their eyes that readers come to understand how close to death Luke came and how far he will have to go to recover. Luke’s coach and a long-time fan of Oak Grove’s team are also included, which allows readers to understand how sports have played a part in shaping Luke.  

After being hit in the head by the beanball, Luke is visually impaired and he mostly likely won’t be able to play sports again. This causes Luke great anguish, and he gets tired of people telling him he’s lucky to be alive. He thinks that without sports, he won’t have a full and happy life. Luke thinks, “Doesn’t anybody know there’s a big difference /between alive and living?” However, the conclusion ends on a hopeful note because Luke decides not to give up sports without a fight.    

Beanball is a fast-paced story that will leave readers empathizing with both Luke and the boy who accidentally threw the beanball. While much of the book deals with Luke’s injury, these intense scenes give readers a wide view of how Luke’s injury affects everyone around him, including the other players, his classmates, the umpire, and Luke’s friends and family. By including 28 different voices, Luke’s story shows you how one high school boy’s injuries impacted his entire community. By using verse, Fehler creates an engaging story that speeds along at a steady pace and is hard to put down. 

Sexual Content  

  • Luke’s best friend, Andy, had a dream that he was “Making out with Lisalette Dobbs.” Luke replies, “The chances of you starting at third and of us winning State are better than the chances of you making out with Lisalette.”  
  • After the game between Oak Grove, a Compton player goes to his girlfriend’s house, but complains, “We didn’t even have a chance to make out.”

Violence  

  • During a game, Luke is hit in the face with a beanball. The umpire thinks, “It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard in all my years of umping. /Oh, I’ve heard plenty of pitches hit a helmet. /But this . . . this fastball, up and in. /This one hit bone, right in the face. /Not even a scream or grunt from the kid. /He went down like he was shot.”  
  • After Luke is hit with a beanball, the umpire sees “Blood. Lots of it. It looks like Luke’s dead.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • While in the hospital, Luke is given pills to help him sleep.  

Language  

  • By God and oh my God are used as exclamations occasionally.  
  • The umpire says “Jesus” after Luke is hit with a ball.  
  • Profanity is used sparingly. Profanity includes crap, damn, hell, pissed. 
  • Luke believes he’s partly to blame for his injury. He thinks he made a “bonehead decision” when he “was leaning in, expecting an outside pitch.”  

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • When Luke is rushed to the hospital, his coach thinks, “All we can do is wait. And pray.” When he finds out that Luke is alive, the coach thanks the Lord. 
  • Luke’s father prays that Luke doesn’t die. He says, “Please, God. /Please.”  
  • When Luke’s nurse describes his “disfigured” face, she’s upset because she knows Luke’s family from church. 
  • When Luke is finally able to talk, his mom thinks, “Thank the Lord.” She had been praying that Luke would live, but after “three days of prayer, /[she was] never certain if God was even listening.” 
  • While Luke is recovering in the hospital, his mom thinks, “I feel like a hypocrite, Lord /Forgive these thoughts I’ve been having. /It’s just that suddenly I have a hard time believing /the lessons I’ve preached /to my Sunday school classes all these years. . . I know I don’t deserve to ask You to heal Luke. /But Luke’s deserving. He is. /I’m begging You: Please help him.” The prayer takes one page.  
  • When the doctor tells Luke’s mom that Luke will be visually impaired but can have a normal life, she thinks, “Maybe God really was listening.” 
  • When Luke comes home, his mom praises the Lord. 

Into the Shadow Mist

Plum and her friends are traveling to the misty Bokati Island. There they will study with the mysterious Guardian Master Em, who is the keeper of the ancient forest there. The field trip comes just in time for Plum, who still can’t figure out why she’s so different from the other Novices on Lotus Island. 

At first, Plum doesn’t know what to make of this quiet and sometimes gloomy place. But it doesn’t take long to discover that Bokati is brimming with an incredible array of fascinating animals and plants. When an unseen force begins to destroy the trees, putting the entire ecosystem at risk, Plum and her classmates must spring into action. Plum is determined to help, even though she’s hiding secrets about her own Guardian powers from even her closest friends. 

Since the story is told from Plum’s point of view, readers will learn more about Plum’s struggles with feeling different. Because Plum’s Guardian powers are unique, Plum worries that something is wrong with her. This is why, when Plum learns that she can enhance other Guardians’ powers, she tries to keep it secret. But Plum’s secret has become “like a thorn in the bottom of my foot.” Even though she might get into trouble, Plum realizes she can’t “keep the secret inside anymore.” When Plum finally reveals her secret, she finds peace with her powers.  

Into the Shadow Mist follows Plum and her friends as they travel to a new island, where they learn that everything is connected. If you hurt one plant, you hurt the entire habitat. While Plum and her friends—Cherry, Sam, and Salan—explore the forest, they discover several Bokati trees have been cut down. To save the trees, the group must stop the person responsible. The story’s action focuses on the trees and readers will find themselves deeply invested in the trees’ plight.  

At the end of the story, Plum discovers that the villain is Rella—a student expelled from the Guardian Academy. Even though Rella used her Guardian powers to harm the Bokati trees, Plum wonders if she and Rella are similar. Both girls are trying to find their destiny. In the end, Plum lets Rella escape. However, Plum confesses, “I don’t know why I did it. I let my grip on her arm loosen.” This sets up the conflict that will appear in the next book, City of Wishes, and leaves readers questioning if Rella acted on her own or if the powerful Lady Ubon is the mastermind behind the destruction of the Bokati trees.  

Into the Shadow Mist takes readers onto the island where the Bokati trees live. Although the island is not a typical island paradise, Plum and her friends come to love the forest. And while the mystery revolves around trees, the book’s setting and characters will enchant readers and keep them invested in the story.  Plum is the only character who is developed in detail. However, adding a new teacher, Master Em, adds interest to the story. Black and white illustrations are scattered throughout the book to give  readers a visual of the diverse characters and some animals unique to Bokati Island. Since the characters and Guardian powers are introduced in the first book, The Guardian Test, the series should be read in order because the plots are connected. Readers who want to jump into an imaginative world full of magic will find Legends of the Lotus Island an enjoyable series.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Someone is sneaking onto the island and cutting down Bokati trees. Master Em and a group of Guardians follow a buzzing sound through the forest and find hoverbots. “Cherry rushed towards the hoverbots, claws out. She swatted the bot away from the Bokati tree. The bot spun out of control and slammed into the ground.” 
  • Another student, Mikko, “rushed to Cherry’s side and grabbed a hoverbot. He slung it away from the tree so hard that it slammed into another bot with a loud crash. Metal parts flew through the air in all directions.”  
  • After disabling several of the hoverbots, Plum follows a mysterious mist. The mist “swirled away from me like smoke through the trees, faster and faster. . . A figure stepped out of the disappearing mist. It was a large gray leopard. With a shake of its smoke-gray coat, the leopard shifted to human form.” The person escapes the island. 
  • When the bots come back to cut down another tree, Master Em and the Guardians are ready to attack. “When our homemade pomelo bombs hit the hoverbots, they burst open, sending clouds of spores into the air. . . [the spores] stuck to the hoverbots” which made them easier to see. After smashing several hoverbots, “a large net of woven Bokati fibers dropped own onto the hoverbots, trapping them.”  
  • Plum and another Guardian follow the shadow form of Rella through the woods. “Finally, the shadow vanished and the form of the gray leopard appeared. Sam pinned the big cat down, growling above her.” When Sam goes to get help, Plum lets Rella escape the island.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • Heck is used once.

Supernatural 

  • According to stories, when “the Great Beast carried the people and animals across the sea from the Old Home, he allowed them to bring only one thing with them . . . during the long journey.” One of their great-great-great grandmothers brought a “rootlet of a Bokati tree. . . Every Bokati tree you see is descended from that root.”  
  • The Great Beast is mentioned several times. The Great Beast “bestowed his powers upon the Guardians, he gave them their ability to turn into extraordinary creatures so we could protect all the ‘normal’ animals.” 
  • There are different types of Guardians. “Breath Guardians learned to control their power of the mind and senses. Hand Guardians sharpened their powers of strength and agility. And Heart Guardians. . . worked to strengthen their healing powers.”  
  • When the lotus plants become unhealthy, the Guardians must heal them. One of the teachers, Brother Chalad, demonstrates. He “scooped up some water in his furry kinkajou hand. He sprinkled water onto a specked lotus pad. Then he placed his palm on the leaf and breathed out slowly. After a moment, vibrant green life began to flow out from the center of the leaf, erasing the brown spots one by one.”   
  • The students can turn into Guardian animals that have unique powers. For instance, Cherry turns into a gillybear. Cherry “began her transformation. Fluffy cream-colored fur burst out all over her legs, and her hands widened into paws. Her face elongated into a bear snout with a wet black nose. And she grew big, big, and bigger still.”  
  • While in her Guardian form, Plum discovers that she can enhance the other Guardian’s powers. In addition, her antlers can “glow like a torch.” When Plum uses her power, her “antlers thrummed like a pure note played on a piano. I could feel the electric tingle run through me, through Cherry, through Hetty, through each of us.” 
  • Master Em has the power of intuition and can see into the future. 

Spiritual Content  

  • None

The Terror of the Southlands

Hilary Westfield is a pirate. In fact, she’s the Terror of the Southlands. She’s daring, brave, fearless, and . . . in a rut. Okay, maybe Hilary hasn’t found any treasure lately. And maybe she isn’t fighting off as many scallywags as she’d like. But does that mean she and her loyal crew deserve to be kicked out of the ranks of the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates (VNHLP)? 

There is only one thing to do—find a daring mission worthy of her fearless reputation. With the help of her first mate Charlie, finishing school friend Claire, and a self-proclaimed intrepid gargoyle, Hilary sets sail on a swashbuckling expedition that may or may not involve a kidnapped Enchantress, bumbling inspectors, a mysterious group called the Mutineers, and—the most terrifying of all—a high Society ball. 

To prove herself worthy of being a pirate, Hilary sets off on another fast-paced adventure with her friends Charlie and Claire. The three must follow the clues to find the missing Enchantress, Miss Pimm. This is complicated because while Charlie may not be afraid of walking the plank, he is afraid of Claire. Miss Pimm’s disappearance adds mystery to the story while Charlie’s fear of girls adds humor. The two plots converge to show the importance of supporting your friends through thick and thin. 

The Terror of the Southlands brings back most of the characters from the first book, Magic Marks the Spot. However, several new and interesting characters are added to the cast. While Hilary’s focus is on being bold and daring, she also must navigate the complications of friendships, especially when there are disagreements. While the pirate elements of the story add excitement, the friendship element makes the story relatable. Through Hilary and her crew’s experiences, readers will see that pirates may not always follow the rules, but that doesn’t make them villains. While the true villains in the story are predictable, readers will still cheer when Hilary and her friends thwart their evil plans.  

The book includes the Gargoyle’s memoir, which recaps the backstory of the series. Despite this, The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates Series is a continuous story that should be read in order. To help readers keep apprised of the inspector’s investigation, additional information is given in the form of reports written by the queen’s inspectors. While the reports do contain important information, the queen’s inspectors are portrayed as bumbling fools, which adds to the story’s humor.  

Adventure-seeking readers will enjoy following Hilary and her crew as they take to the high seas in search of the Enchantress. The story’s humor and suspense will keep readers engaged until the very end. The story concludes with an enjoyable epic battle between the pirates and the villains. One fun aspect of the conclusion is that each character has a unique quality that makes them special. For instance, Hilary’s mother uses her skill as a hostess to get guests out of harm’s way, while Claire discovers her extraordinary ability to use magic, allowing her to vanquish the mutineers. In the end, Hilary proves that she is indeed bold and brave enough to be a pirate, even when she is wearing a dress that makes her look like a cabbage.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Someone shoots cannonballs at Hilary’s boat, Squeaker. “Then a tremendous splash drenched [Hilary] from her hat feather to her boot buckles, and the Squeaker rocked perilously from side to side. . . Another cannonball splashed in front of the ship, nearly grazing the Gargoyle’s Nest on the way down. The gargoyle yelped and buried himself as well as he could under his hat.” The other ship pulls close to the Squeaker and the ship’s occupants invite Hilary and her crew to their house.  
  • The president of the VNHLP, Captain Blacktooth, orders Hilary to abandon her quest. When Hilary refuses, Captain Blacktooth’s crew “advance toward Hilary. . . She raised her cutlass as a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder stepped in front of her. . . But the pirate didn’t back away. Instead, he swung his sword toward Hilary, clipping the end of her braid and knocking her cutlass to the floor. . .” Hilary’s governess, Miss Greyson appears and stops the pirates from hurting Hilary.  
  • When Claire tries to use magical coins, they explode. No one is injured. 
  • At the beginning of the story, Hilary’s friend Jasper disappears. Later, Jasper reveals that he was kidnapped. The villains “confiscated my sword, bound my wrists and ankles, and tied me to a rather uncomfortable palm tree. . . The pirates kept me well fed, at least.” When the pirates decided to leave the island, Jasper got out of the ropes and followed. 
  • When Miss Pimm is kidnapped, Hilary tracks her down. Miss Pimm’s “wrists and ankles were bound with thick ropes, her eyes were closed, and she was snoring softly.” She is weak, but uninjured. 
  • Miss Pimm explains, “I tried to stick [the kidnappers] to the ground with my crochet hook, and I did stop a few of them, but the others pulled the hook out of my hand. They picked me up, which must have been quite a challenge for them, since I confess I was kicking and scratching in a terribly unladylike way.” Someone hit Miss Pimm on the head and she woke to find herself tied up. 
  • While trying to sneak into a house, Hilary and her friends meet a coachman named Lewis. Before he can yell, “Hilary pulled her cutlass from her waistband and pressed the tip into Lewis’s shoulder, not hard enough to slice through his livery, but hard enough to show she meant business.” 
  • While trying to get Lewis to leave his guard post, the gargoyle “leaned toward Lewis, baring his teeth, crossing his eyes, wiggling his ears, and flapping his wings so violently. . . His snout touched Lewis’s nose, and he let out a great breath. . .” Lewis faints. 
  • While at a party, Hilary and her friends discover that the Mutineers, Mrs. Tilbury, Philomena, and Nicholas conspired to kidnap Miss Pimm so Philomena could be the next Enchantress. “Mrs. Tilbury, Philomena, and Nicholas raised their magic piece in the air. Hilary raised her cutlass. . .” Suddenly, a group of pirates crash through the windows and a fight ensues.  
  • During the fight, “Miss Greyson was using her crochet hook to blast several of them off their feet, while Claire jabbed all the guards within reach with two of her very sharp hairpins. . .” Captain Blacktooth corners Hilary. “He held his sword frighteningly close to her chin, and his expression was so fearsome that she froze. . .” Another pirate jumps in and saves Hilary. 
  • Philomena uses magic to put Claire in the air. Then Philomena begins taunting Claire. “Hilary grabbed Philomena from one side just as Charlie grabbed her from the other. They both held up their swords. . .” Philomena drops Claire, who “crashed to the floor” and “yelped in pain.” 
  • Claire stops the pirate fight when she grabs a magic item and says, “I wish all you dratted Mutineers would disappear to some horrid little deserted island and leave me alone!” Then, “with a very loud pop, Philomena (and the other villains) vanished.” The battle is described over 13 pages. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Some of the adult pirates drink Grog. 
  • At a party, some of the guests have champagne. 
  • Hilary gives Miss Greyson a cup of ginger beer. 

Language  

  • There is some name calling including sea cucumber, rogues, and slime. 
  • Drat and blast are used as exclamations frequently. 
  • “Oh, Crumbs” and “oh curses” are both used as an exclamation once. 
  • Pirates are often referred to as scallywags, scoundrels, and rapscallions.  
  • Hilary’s father, Admiral Westfield calls the Enchantress, “That Meddling Old Biddy.”

Supernatural 

  • Magical items exist. Claire tries to use a magic crochet hook to order “a tray of egg sandwiches.” Unexpectedly, a ball of light appeared and “flared up around Claire’s crochet hook so furiously that Hilary could hardly look at it. Then a tremendous bang shook the trees to their very roots, and the hook exploded.” Afterward, Claire’s fingers were red.  
  • While investigating Miss Pimm’s disappearance, Hilary uses magic to stop the queen’s inspectors. Hilary’s “cutlass floated out of its sheath and hovered in front of the inspectors, directing its point at their chest when they attempted to move. . . Hilary’s arms felt weak from the magic, and her breath was strained, but she had more than enough strength left to grin.” Hilary eventually lets the inspectors go.  
  • Hilary uses magic to pick a lock. 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Wrath of the Exiles

Coop Cooperson thought he was settling into life as the only human at Dungeoneer Academy, but no one will even remember his Mushroom Maze victory if he keeps failing Riddles and Runes class. Adding insult to injury is the new kid, Kody, who everyone—including Coop’s best friends on the Green Team—thinks is so great…but Coop is convinced there’s more to Kody than meets the eye.

But it’s not just the arrival of Kody; other things seem off at the Academy. After a serious incident at the school dance, Coop, Oggie, Daz, and Mindy, plus a few other students new and old, realize they must step up to try and stop whoever’s wreaking havoc. But the villains are even more dangerous than anyone realizes . . . and they have a serious vendetta against Dungeoneer Academy.

Coop and his friends put their best junior dungeoneer skills to the test, but their foes are always one step ahead. Can they figure out how to stop them and save Dungeoneer Academy before it’s too late? 

The second installment of the Dungeoneer Adventures will quickly capture readers’ attention with a new twist—Coop wants to ask Daz to the homecoming dance, but the task seems more difficult than facing monsters. Mixed into the story is a little jealousy when the new kid, Kody, dominates Daz’s and Oggie’s attention. Middle school readers will relate to Coop’s insecurities and conflicts, which are presented humorously. 

Despite the drama of the homecoming dance, the action never takes a break. Soon, Coop and his friends—the Green Team—are off on a wild adventure trying to stop the villain, Rake, from acquiring a piece of the wishing stone. As the friends travel into an icy abyss, they meet a robot named Victor Seven. The robot wants to be a hero; this thread allows the book to explore the theme of heroism. In the end, Victor learns that “Being a hero isn’t about never failing. It is about always trying.”  

Wrath of the Exiles’ rich language adds to the story’s fun tone. The book is wonderful to read aloud because it’s filled with alliteration, onomatopoeias, silly names, and made-up words. However, some readers will struggle with the liberal use of idioms such as knock you down a peg, a walk in the park, etc. In addition, the story uses difficult vocabulary such as cacophonous, surmises, perpetual, precipitous, extrapolate, and gobsmacked. Despite this, there are context clues that will assist readers in understanding the story. The story’s black-and-white illustrations also help readers understand the text and visualize the imaginative world. The Dungeoneers Adventures Series must be read in order because each book builds on the same story thread.  

While Wrath of the Exiles has many of the stereotypical characters—a bully, an evil villain, a bookworm, an awkward boy, etc.—each character has unique qualities that make them loveable and, at times, surprising. The magical world, fast-paced battle scenes, and fight against evil make Wrath of the Exiles hard to put down. The story’s message about friendship, trust, and listening gives the story heart. The Dungeoneer Adventures books will have readers laughing out loud one moment, and biting their nails the next. Additionally, the conclusion reinforces important lessons about friendship that will leave readers with a smile as they reach for the next book in the series.  

Sexual Content  

  • After Coop shows Daz his support, she “gives me a peck on the cheek. My brain short-circuits for a second, and I suddenly feel like doing somersaults.”  

Violence  

  • Zeek, the school bully, purposely trips Coop in the cafeteria. Afterward, Coop describes, “I stand up amidst the crowd, dripping with slime, and as I stumble out of the cafeteria, their scolding turns into laughing. Needless to say, it doesn’t feel so good.” 
  • At the homecoming dance, someone puts a potion into the punch and it turns everyone into stone.  
  • While trying to figure out who turned everyone into stone, Coop and his friends go into the school’s vaults and discover a “mechanical behemoth” which is “a sputter-guardian. . . the newest sputter-spark technology that the realm of Shyrm has to offer.” The sputter-guardian attacks Coop. “A barrage of arrows peppers the ground behind my feet as I hop, skip, and jump out of the way. The machine lurches after me.” 
  • Oggie jumps into the fight and “the sputter-guardian spins like a top, striking out with limbs, like each has a mind of its own. One swats Oggie, and he goes crashing into the stone slab that Ingrid’s hiding behind. With a swift tug, she pulls him clear of another blow.” Ingrid is another member of the Green Team. 
  • The sputter-guardian tries to zap the kids with a laser blast. Coop attacks with his sword. “With a clamorous BOOM the sputter-guardian falls to the ground, missing a leg. . . Angerly its red eye heats up and starts rapid-firing in all directions.” Daz pushes Coop out of the way and “with both of her daggers drawn, she dives spectacularly for the glowing eye and shatters it.” The battle is described over six pages. No one is injured.  
  • As Coop and his friends enter further into the vault, they find Zeek and his friend Axel trying to steal an answer key. Then, Coop explains, “I dive as a wrecking ball swooshes past me, tousling my hair. Then a bunch of buzz saws spring at me from the floor and walls.” Daz pushes Coop out of the way. 
  • Axel “tries to avoid a whizzing buzz saw, a wrecking ball clips him from behind and he tumbles to the ground. Zeek scrambles like a cockroach to save himself.” Oggie saves Axel. No one is injured. 
  • A group of students jump into “a black vortex,” which is a portal to the underworld. When they come out of the other side, an exile, Dorian Rider, puts them in chains. 
  • Coop goes after Dorian Rider and another exile. Before he can attack, “everything turns dark as I crumble to the floor. What just happened? The last thing I see is Zeek standing over me with a wooden club in his hand.” 
  • Coop and the Green Team run from a “mutant troggle” that is a “sentient ape” that has been “lobotomized. Turned into a machine.” Coop explains, “With alarming speed, the monster’s giant axe-hand swipes towards me . . . . All I can do is duck and wince. But when I look up, I see the force field from Mindy’s ring repel the attack.” 
  • The ape grabs Oggie and starts to squeeze him. Oggie yells, “You’ll have to do better than that, banana breath!” The angry ape “flings Oggie at the wall, where he clatters into a rack of weapons. . . Oggie looks up in fright as the mutant troggle raises its cruel axe. . .”  
  • In an attempt to stop the ape, the Green Team lets a nether bharg loose, but unfortunately it goes after them. “The nether bharg’s jaws are mere inches away from gnashing at us when Daz steps forward, raising her arms, revealing the strange eye patterns on her cloak. . . the nether bharg freezes in its track, recoiling in fear.” The Green Team escapes. The scene is described over five pages. 
  • The Green Team enters a tomb and faces a group of ghosts who “are her loyal servants. . . even in death.” A ghost asks the group what they wish for and Oggie thinks about food. An avalanche of food begins to fall. Daz is “pelted with a carton of Nork’s Noodles. . . Mindy shouts as she uses her magic ring to conjure a force field above us like an umbrella. A giant tube steak falls like a wiggly tree trunk and bounces off the shield.” 
  • When the kids are about to be smothered in food, their robot friend Victor “leaps clear of a titanic cupcake, carrying Daz, Mindy, and Ingrid over his shoulders.” Victor forces the door open and everyone gets out except for him. 
  • In a multi-chapter battle, Coop and his friends battle for their lives. As the Green Team enters the next level of the maze, the exiles surround them. “In seconds, their weapons are pointed at us from all sides. . . The exiles waste no time and charge us, weapons drawn and magic items humming to maximum power. [Coop] fall[s] back, barely avoiding a swipe from Kodar’s [an exile] axe.” 
  • During the fight, “Mindy shouts, firing bolts into the hanging icicles. A few razor-sharp shards of ice crash down to the floor, keeping Kodar and the others at bay.”  
  • Coop is caught when Dorian’s “grappling gun entangles me. The squeeze is so strong that I can’t move my arms. . .”  
  • The leader of the exiles, Rake, goes after Oggie. Rake “strikes Oggie so hard with his augmented arm that the blow sends my friend sprawling. Oggie slams against a gagged stone, magic armor crumpling.” Someone gives Oggie a Courage Potion and he wakes up.  
  • A trap is set off unleashing “Audrastica’s ice golems” that attack the exiles. Then a huge “behemoth” ice golem appears, but Victor runs to the rescue.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Coop and his class are learning how to make a courage potion that includes “doohagenberry plant,” which has extraordinary healing properties. 

Language  

  • There is often name calling such as jerk, goon, turncoat, loser, and scumbag. 
  • Kodar mocks Coop by calling him little guy. 
  • Heck and dang are both used several times. 
  • Zeek overhears Oggie (who has fur) talking about asking a girl to the homecoming dance. Zeek scoffs and says, “She’d never go to the dance with an overgrown hairball like you!” Oggie’s friend jumps in and says, “Oh yeah, and who would ever want to go to a dance with a couple of puke-breath bullies like you two.” 
  • Zeek calls Coop “Pooperson.” 
  • While learning about a famous dungeoneer, Shane Shandar, Coop thinks, “I, Coop Cooperson, Junior Dungeoneer, am going to the same school as Shane flippin’ Shadar.” 
  • Zeek accuses the new girl of being an evil witch. 
  • “Holy cats” is used as an exclamation twice.

Supernatural 

  • The dungeoneers must take a Riddles and Runes class. Their teacher explains that, “Runes are magic. Specifically, magic words, or strings of words. And they have many complete meanings pertaining to spells, enchantments, or curses.”  
  • Someone steals the Arkimunda Coagudex, a book of spells, from the library. “Supposedly the Arkimunda Coagudex was written by a powerful sorcerer hundreds of years ago. . . It is full of recipes to create things like curse potions, corrosive acids, and dangerous poisons.” The book also has “hexes, boons, enchantments, and curses.” 
  • Ingrid, uses the Arkimunda Coagudex to make a Campfire Potion. She says, “We can grind up frostfoil and mix it with melding powder and water to create a potion that wards off the cold.” 
  • Kodar, who is an exile, uses an amulet of focused “trasnsmogrification” to disguise his identity. 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

The Brink of War

Even an accidental invasion has dire consequences . . .

After their daring escape from Atlantis, Lewis, Hanna, and their resourceful Atlantean friend, Kaya, find themselves pulled between two worlds. Trapped on the surface under the watchful eyes of government officials, the three adventurers receive an urgent call to return their stolen warship to Atlantis—or risk starting an all-out war. Will they find Lewis’s injured father and return the warship in time?

Aided by a billionaire with unclear intentions, the trio embark on an all-new journey through Atlantis, from the sunken underwater world of Evenor to the tunnels below Ridge City. As shadowy agents known as Erasers work to stop them, Lewis and Kaya begin to question whether they’re really on the same side of the potentially devastating fight. 

The second installment of the Atlantis Series mostly focuses on Lewis’s point of view, while Kaya’s voice is heard far less. Using Lewis as the main narrator shifts the story’s tone to one that is rambling and less serious. At the beginning of the book, Kaya thinks Lewis is annoying. This is a sentiment that many readers will agree with.  

Despite being chased by the Erasers, who want to imprison Lewis and his friends, Lewis doesn’t act with a sense of urgency. For example, while being chased by the Erasers, Lewis sneaks into a large meeting room where a woman is giving a presentation. When the Atlanteans notice Lewis, he gets up and dances for the crowd, drawing all eyes toward him. Luckily, the people in the meeting room stop the Erasers long enough for Lewis to escape. Another flaw is that many of Lewis’s inner thoughts are childish and ridiculous. Plus, his inner monologue slows down the action and suspense that made the first book in the series so enjoyable.  

One positive aspect of the story is the interesting futuristic technology that both the humans and Atlanteans use. This technology can be used for good or for evil—depending on the person using it. The story also gives readers insight into how technology can be used to invade a person’s privacy. Both the Atlantean’s and Sun People’s cool tech will leave readers dreaming about creative ways to use technology. 

The Brink of War highlights the danger of misunderstandings; both the Atlanteans and the Sun People mistake each other’s intentions which almost leads to war. Unfortunately, instead of the three kids working together, they have a more antagonistic relationship in this book. So while they end up stopping the war between their two worlds, the conclusion is far less celebratory. In the end, readers will wonder if the two worlds can come together and have lasting peace.  

Readers who want to read another interesting story based on Atlantis should also read Atlantia by Ally Condie. 

  Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Lewis meets three siblings who help him fly a warship. At one point, the siblings argue and one of the brothers “reached into one of the crates, pulled out a codfish the size of Lewis’s thigh, and began slapping Rass in the head with the silvery swimmer.” 
  • While trying to get away from the Erasers, Lewis is shot with a sonic blaster, a non-lethal weapon. Lewis’s “left foot tingled and turned numb.” 
  • In a long chase scene, the Atlanteans use sonic blasters. After being captured, Lewis begins to talk and “one of the Erasers pressed a sonic pistol against his ribs.”  
  • Kaya and her friend, Rian, are trying to get to an important meeting, while the Erasers are trying to arrest them. Rian “was busy escaping from a pair of Erasers . . . He dropped to the ground and grabbed one of the men by the back of his knees. He pulled both the man’s legs forward, toppling him.” 
  • An Atlantean, Demos, wants to take over the Atlantean government. To keep Atlantis’s council members from talking, Demos puts collars on them. “The collars lock their jaws and mute their voices.” 
  • A scientist named Reinhold tries to grab Lewis, who is wearing a gravity suit. “Lewis powered up the thrusters, planted his bare foot on the bald spot at the back of Reinhold’s head, and pushed off . . . Reinhold crashed into the opposite wall. . .”  
  • One of the Erasers shows up after a fight. “Her face red and newly swollen below one eye.”  
  • The book’s conclusion ends with a confrontation where Demos and his Erasers use their sonic blasters to control others. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • Lewis thinks a group of adults are jerks. 
  • An adult calls Lewis a little rat. 
  • Demos appoints himself emperor over Atlantis. When someone questions his ability to pull off his scheme, Demos says the people of Atlantis are “brainless fish. They’re mindless urchins, all of them!” 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • Before Kaya jumped off a cliff into a river, she “prayed that she’d read it right, that the water was safe and clear.” 
  • Rian’s parents had “joined some weird new religion” that believes crystals are important. Rian wonders, “Couldn’t they just worship whale spirits like normal Atlanteans?” 
  • Before Rian’s parents leave for a vacation, Rian’s mom gives him a crystal. “Both his parents held their hands out and whispered another one of their prayers: ‘May the Earth spirit and rockglow lead you safely through the waters.’”

Lucy Maud Montgomery: A Writer’s Life

Lucy Maud Montgomery believed that one day she would be taken seriously as a writer. Despite facing many obstacles, Montgomery not only earned a good living as a writer but also became famous after creating Anne of Green Gables—one of the most popular books ever written that has been translated into over 20 languages and earned Montgomery worldwide recognition and appeal.  

As a girl growing up in the 1800s, Montgomery’s dream of becoming a writer was unthinkable—at this time, only men were authors. However, when Montgomery was 16, she published her first poem. When she was in her 30s, Montgomery was writing “silly stories. Potboilers she called them, because they earned money to keep the pots boiling on the stove with enough food for her and her grandmother.” However, many people believed “she was odd because she earned her living as a writer, so they snubbed her.” 

Getting rejections from publishers was disheartening for Montgomery. However, she was determined to write a book. The first book that Montgomery published was Anne of Green Gables, which launched Montgomery into the limelight. Despite Montgomery’s success as a writer, she still lived with her grandmother, who “wouldn’t let her make any changes to their house to make it more uncomfortable.” In addition, her grandmother still gave her a bedtime and only allowed Montgomery to take a bath once a week.  

Lucy Maud Montgomery is only 32 pages, but it’s packed full of information about Montgomery’s life. Each two-page spread weaves the real events of her life into the fabric of her fiction using photographs, excerpts from newspapers, and actual journal pages. This biography explores Montgomery’s struggle and determination to realize her dreams. Despite difficulties in her private life, Montgomery continued to find success as a writer and became famous in Canada and Europe. 

Lucy Maud Montgomery: A Writer’s Life is part of the Snapshots: Images of People and Places in History Series and includes a concise timeline and a listing of pertinent websites. Anyone who has ever dreamed of being a writer or who has read Anne of Green Gables will be fascinated by Montgomery’s life. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Strike Zone

Twelve-year-old star Little League pitcher Nick Garcia has a dream. Several in fact. He dreams he’ll win this season’s MVP and earn the chance to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. He dreams he’ll meet his hero, Yankee pitcher Michael Arroyo. He dreams they’ll find a cure for Lupus so his sister won’t have to suffer. But mostly, he dreams that one day his family can stop living in fear of the government.  

For one kid, it’s almost too much to bear. Luckily, Nick has his two best friends, Ben and Diego, to keep him balanced. But when Nick notices a mysterious man lurking on his street corner, his worst fears are realized. But just when it seems there’s no one they can trust, an unexpected hero emerges and changes everything. 

Baseball-loving fans will instantly connect with Nick Garcia and his baseball ambitions. Nick is a kind protagonist who has a caring support system that includes friends, families, and neighbors. Despite his support system, Nick constantly worries that others will discover his family’s secret—both of his parents are illegal immigrants. This conflict weaves its way into almost every aspect of Nick’s life. At times, the story’s explanations of complex immigration problems including immigration raids, detention centers, and the legal system overshadow the baseball story thread. However through Nick’s experiences, readers will empathize with Nick and his family and learn about the harmful aspects of the immigration system. 

Nick and his two best friends, Ben and Diego, support each other and show readers the positive aspects of being part of a team. During their team’s games, most of the action focuses on Nick’s pitching ability. While this gives the reader an inside view of Nick’s emotions, the book lacks a broader sense of the team working together. There is play-by-play baseball action, but these scenes focus mainly on Nick and the other players are seldom mentioned. The narrow focus on Nick removes some of the joy from the game scenes.  

Strike Zone weaves the different aspects of Nick’s life together, showing how community surrounds Nick and his family in times of trouble. Nick has many trustworthy people in his life; however, he is surprised when his favorite Yankee, Michael Arroyo, steps in to help as well. Readers who have read the book Heat will understand how Michael’s and Nick’s stories connect, but the books don’t need to be read in order to enjoy Strike Zone. Both Michael’s and Nick’s stories show that achieving one’s dream is possible. However, it takes dedication, perseverance, and community.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Nick and his father take his sister Amelia to a free clinic. As they are leaving, a drunk man pushes her. “Amelia lost her balance and almost went down, but Nick caught her by the hip.” 
  • Afterward, the drunk man “swung at Nick’s father. It was a wild swing, one the man had telegraphed, and Nick’s dad easily avoided it. But missing the punch just seemed to make the big man angrier. He clumsily lowered his shoulder and drove into Victor, bringing them both violently to the ground. With Victor Garcia pinned beneath him, the man grunted, throwing punch after punch. . .” Both men are arrested. 
  • When Nick is sliding into home plate, “Eric slapped a hard tag on Nick. Right across the face. Nick’s head snapped to the side, and he immediately cupped his jaw in pain.” Nick has a bruise but is otherwise fine.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • Heck is used once.  

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Nick’s coach tells him, “I honestly believe the good Lord has blessed you with a right arm like Michael Arroyo’s left.”  
  • Nick’s dad tells him, “God gives the heaviest burdens to the strongest backs.” 
  • Nick tells his neighbor about his hardships. She says, “When I was a little girl in Mexico, my mother used to read me a poem. It was about doing the right things to get into heaven so that one day God could answer all our questions about why things in our life happened the way they did.”  
  • Nick’s father talks about being an illegal immigrant. He says, “We have to put our trust in God until my beautiful daughter turns twenty-one.”  

Joseph Stalin

In 1917, Russian workers shocked the world by overthrowing their emperor and ending centuries of tyranny. The leaders of the Russian Revolution proclaimed a new nation—the Soviet Union—and promised to build a just society run by and for the common people.  

Instead, they gave the world Joseph Stalin. 

Stalin turned the Soviet Union into a world power—at an almost unimaginable cost. He uprooted millions of peasants and starved millions more to death. He executed his enemies, real or imagined, and filled a notorious system of prison camps with Soviet citizens. He was more ruthless than any of the previous Russian emperors.  

Joseph Stalin takes readers through Stalin’s life, from his troubled childhood until his death. The book adeptly includes enough detail to provide context and color to each chapter without overwhelming the reader with facts. From Stalin’s childhood to his time as a revolutionary and finally to his span as leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin’s life is fraught with violence. 

Reading about Stalin is not for the faint of heart. From bombs to gulags, mass executions to deliberate starvation, the information in this book—while not described in graphic detail—is disturbing in the extreme. Each chapter contains one to two black-and-white historical photographs. In addition, there is a seven-page photo collection in the middle of the book. While the illustrations are often grainy enough to obscure any gory details, the images of corpses, skeletons, and violence may be disturbing.  

Joseph Stalin is written at a high reading level, with some challenging vocabulary. Each chapter is only four to six pages long, making this a short read for those interested in learning about this dark chapter in history. The story is engaging and quick-paced, perfect for readers who do not want to get bogged down in endless details. Readers don’t need to know much about Stalin in order to understand this non-fiction book, but enough facts are included that those familiar with Stalin’s life will still learn something new. The book ends with a timeline of Stalin’s life and a glossary that includes definitions of both Russian terminology and some of the more difficult vocabulary.  

While the short chapters and illustrations will help readers engage with this disturbing tale, the difficult vocabulary and extremely violent content make this book a good fit for more mature readers. Teaching our youth about dark chapters in history is essential in educating and empowering the next generation; however, this book may give sensitive readers nightmares. Readers who would like to learn more about Stalin’s time period without disturbing details should instead read Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin. 

Sexual Content  

  • None

Violence  

  • A flood near Kolpashevo unearths a mass grave. “As the current eroded the riverbanks . . . human skeletons began to tumble from the ground. Half-frozen, mummified bodies surfaced in the layer below the skeletons. Many of the remains slid into the river.” 
  • The secret police “forced local residents to tie weights to the bodies and sink them in the river.” The KGB said the bodies were “military deserters executed after World War II . . . but the people of Kolpashevo knew the truth . . . In the late 1930s, friends, relatives, and neighbors . . . were shot in the back of the head and shoveled into a mass grave” by the local secret police. A black-and-white photograph of a mass grave accompanies this chapter.  
  • When Stalin was a young boy, he “once threw a knife at his father in order to protect his mother from a beating.”  
  • When Stalin was twenty years old, he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, where “he organized protests, strikes, and riots. At one point, he was suspected of setting a fire in an oil refinery.”  
  • In 1905, during protests across Russia, “peasants lashed out at their landlords, burning their estates to the ground and torching police stations . . . [Stalin] and other revolutionaries created battle squads to harass and kill tsarist troops.” Afterwards, the “tsar allowed vigilante death squads called the Black Hundreds to roam the countryside and crush all signs of public protest.”  
  • When Stalin started working for Lenin and the Bolsheviks, he “took up life as a gangster . . . [he] robbed banks, trains, and mail ships. In one murderous assault, [his] gang blew up two horse-drawn carriages.” Forty people were killed. 
  • The Bolsheviks “sent squads of assassins armed with rifles, pistols, and homemade bombs into Russian cities. Between 1906 and 1909, the Bolsheviks and other revolutionary groups killed more than 2,600 police and government officials.”  
  • There are many references to people being “shot” and “executed,” often “with a bullet to the back of the head.” For example, the NKVD in Stalinabad “ended up shooting more than 13,000 [people].” Not all instances of executions are listed here.  
  • A Red Army newspaper said, “Without mercy, without sparing, [The Red Army] will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them drown themselves in their own blood.”  
  • Lenin (the leader of the Communist Revolution in Russia) said, “How can you make a revolution without firing squads? If we can’t shoot [enemy] saboteurs, what kind of revolution is this?” 
  • Stalin had many slave-labor camps called gulags. “Prisoners . . . lived on starvation rations and received little medical care. They were purposely worked to exhaustion. They died by the thousands. . . At least one million would die in the gulags,” the book says, though many think the number is much higher.  
  • Gulag survivor Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about how prisoners were “singled out for bad behavior” and thrown into a “bedbug infested box.” When the bedbugs swarmed the victim, “he waged war with them strenuously, crushing them on his body and on the walls, suffocated by their stink. But after several hours, he weakened and let them drink his blood without a murmur.”  
  • Stalin created a massive famine where “peasants were dropping dead of starvation.” Millions starve, and “once-lively villages [became] ghost towns with skeleton-thin corpses lining the street.” 
  • The famine gets so bad that “reports of cannibalism leaked out from the worst affected regions. In the city of Poltava, children started mysteriously disappearing from the streets. Before long, fresh supplies of meat appeared in the normally barren city markets. Upon inspection, the meat was found to be human flesh.”  
  • Sergei Kirov, a rival of Stalin, is “shot dead in Leningrad by an assassin.” Many suspect “that Stalin had ordered Kirov’s murder to get rid of a dangerous rival.” Trotsky, another rival, was later assassinated by “a blow to the head with an ice pick.”  
  • Two rivals of Stalin are “dragged from their cells and shot. Afterward, the bullets were removed from their brains and kept by NKVD chief Genrich Yagoda as souvenirs.”  
  • Many times during Stalin’s reign, “mass graves were dug.” Several photos of dead bodies and skeletons are included in the book.  
  • During World War II, Red Army officers received orders to “execute deserters and troops who fled from battle. More than 150,000 soldiers were shot in 1941 and 1942 alone.”  
  • The chapter on World War II includes a photograph of two Soviets being hung by Nazis. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Stalin’s father “was an angry man who drank heavily and beat his wife and son.”  
  • It is said that “Georgians had a reputation for drinking hard, singing loud, and settling feuds with punches if not daggers,” and Stalin “fit right in.”  

Language   

  • A politician praises Stalin’s Five-Year Plan, saying, “Damn it all . . . you just want to live and live—really, just look what’s going on.”

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Stalin’s mother was “determined to see [Stalin] wear the long black robes of a Russian Orthodox priest.” Stalin enrolls in Tiflis Spiritual Seminary but is kicked out.  

The Godhead Complex

Sadina and the islanders are up against both man and nature as they navigate their way to Alaska. There, they hope to meet the mysterious Godhead, unsure of what separates myth from truth. But the Godhead, now led by Alexandra, is fractured. Within the cracks of their sacred trinity, secrets are revealed that blur the lines of good and evil forever. 

After a devastating discovery, Isaac and Sadina are forced to split up. Minho holds the rest of the group together, but it’s his beliefs that are slowly falling apart. What once drove Minho to join his sworn enemies is causing him to question everything. When Sadina finds a clue in The Book of Newt, her mission to meet the Godhead becomes even stronger. Isaac and Old Man Frypan come across an enigmatic traveler and learn that the cure isn’t what it once was. They are shaken to the core when they realize that the immunes aren’t as immune as they should be, and the world as a whole is evolving in a dangerous new direction. 

In Alaska, The Godhead and the sacred site of the Maze face something that no generation of Pilgrims before them has ever witnessed. Beliefs will change, futures will be rewritten, and not even the Godhead knows what will happen next. 

Isaac’s best friend, Sadina, has been told that there is a chance her blood may be the Cure to the Flare virus. The Remnant Nation and The Godhead each offers their own plan for a cure for the Flare. Isaac and Sadina feel that “they needed to help end the Flare for good” by “taking Sadina’s blood” and creating a Cure, but Isaac and Sadina don’t know who to trust—The Remnant Nation or the Godhead.  

An important theme in The Godhead Complex is how people in positions of power can manipulate those who are desperate for answers. The Godhead claims to offer a “cure” for the Flare virus that will reshape humankind as we know it: “For the non-infected, the Cure sequenced DNA structures that had been left abandoned in humankind, opening new pathways and abilities whose potential had been lost or never discovered.” These abilities include perfect memory, strength beyond normal human capacity, and even telepathy. Alexandra, a powerful leader in the Godhead, calls herself a goddess and is even willing to kill her counterparts in the Godhead to gain more power for herself. Alexandra tells the public that she has found a cure for the Flare virus and that, “You all will become Gods and Goddesses, if you accept the Cure.” 

One important character is Old Man Frypan, a man who was a test subject in the original Maze experiments decades ago. Frypan is a character from the original Maze Runner Series, set seventy years before this novel, and he constantly offers Isaac and his friends sage advice. For instance, Frypan says, “You trust yourself first, and after that you trust those who trust you.” Frypan explains a main theme in the novel: sometimes people who begin with good intentions can become dangerous. For example, Sadina, Isaac’s best friend, asks, “If [the Godhead] really wants to cure the Flare, that can only be good, right?” Old Man Frypan tells Sadina, “People are manipulative, motivated by power, greed, and things you and I aren’t capable of.” 

The theme of people turning on each other for power is pertinent. The major war that happens centers around two leaders of the Godhead, Alexandra and Mikhail, and their attempts to secretly gain power over each other. For example, Mikhail says, “It was Alexandra’s war within her own mind that made it possible for Mikhail to sneak away so often to the Remnant Nation. To build an army of Orphans solely to defeat her and wipe the Flare from the earth for good.” Both characters are set on destroying each other, even though in the previous novel it appeared that they were both on the same side, with the Godhead. 

Readers who enjoy switching between the points of view of several characters will enjoy the way this book builds suspense by focusing on multiple characters’ perspectives. Readers who enjoy science fiction and action will find this book thrilling, as long as they are not put off by occasional instances of violence. The ending will have readers on the edge of their seats. Isaac and his friends discover that “something about the sequencing that blocks the Flare also blocks reproduction . . . The Evolution [from taking the Cure] will cause our extinction.” The end of book two leaves Isaac struggling to reckon with the truth: “How can [the Cure] save the population while ensuring it ceases to exist. How could both realities be true?” Isaac and his friends decide they only have one option, to go to Alaska and confront the Godhead.  

Sexual Content  

  • Sadina and her long-time girlfriend, Trish, kiss. “They kissed, and Sadina squeezed Trish even tighter, and the cheese-fest might have lasted forever if Dominic didn’t race up to the deck.” 

Violence  

  • In a prologue, the widespread effects of the Flare virus are described: “screams of death” like “souls being cooked from the inside out.”  
  • Isaac’s friend, Sadina, recalls an event from the first book in the series, The Maze Cutter, where Kletter was murdered by two strangers. “Kletter got her throat slit open.” 
  • Mikhail discovers that a fellow member of the Godhead has been murdered: “It took [Mikhail] a handful of seconds to realize what he was looking at—not because his brain was confused, but because he had never before this moment seen a body without a head.” 
  • While sneaking into the Remnant Nation, Mikhail is stabbed. “Before [Mikhail] could even wonder who was behind him, he felt the screaming stab of a knife in his lower back.” However, Mikhail does not die from this wound.  
  • Alexandra witnesses an arrow kill her assistant. “Alexandra stopped at the sight of her faithful servant’s expression, crooked with pain . . . His knees hit the ground, a single red arrow jutting from his neck.” 
  • Mikhail witnesses a group of cranks, people infected with the Flare that turn into zombie-like creatures, “chewing at their own limbs” to escape chains. 
  • When a crank escapes the chains, Mikhail kills it. “[Mikhail] then stabbed the crank in the neck. Right in the artery.”  
  • To protect her friends, Sadina kills a crank. “[Sadina] steadied the gun in both hands then blew a bullet through the crank’s head.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None

Language  

  • Occasionally characters will use profanity such as ass, damn, and shit.  

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Nicholas, a member of the Godhead, says the Cure will make humans into gods. He says, “God is nothing but a complex, we are all gods.” 
  • Alexandra, a leader of the Godhead, refers to herself as “Goddess.”   
  • Alexandra tells the public, “You all will become Gods and Goddesses, if you accept the Cure.” 
  • Roxy, a wise woman who joins Isaac and his friends on their mission tells stories of “the God with the Angels and the Devil.” Roxy says, “Hell is a place you go to after you die, where the Devil rules his little scary kingdom. I don’t believe in it, not literally anyway, but some people do.” 

Nowheresville

Nat is proud of her mom for getting her dream job. But did she have to move them out of Philadelphia and into a small town in rural Pennsylvania? Who would choose to leave behind their friends, favorite falafel spot, and fun block parties for green fields and grazing cows? Nat is convinced there isn’t anything to love about her new hometown. . . but then she meets her cute next-door neighbor and his even cuter horse, Ghost. Can they help Nat embrace her new life as a small-town girl? 

Anyone who has dealt with moving will relate to Nat’s difficulty adjusting to a small town. Like all preteens, Nat worries about meeting new friends and fitting into her new community. It doesn’t take long for Nat to meet Logan, her cute neighbor, or for two mean girls to target her. The two mean girls trick Nat into flirting with Logan. While Nat’s attempt at flirting is embarrassing, Logan kindly tells Nat that he just wants to be friends. Nat’s relationship with Logan is sweet, and Nat realizes “I wasn’t ready for all that boy-girl stuff yet . . . That didn’t mean I wanted to stop hanging out with Logan.” In the end, the two end up developing a friendship through their love of horses.   

Nat is a very likable protagonist. One reason Nat is so likable is because she is an unselfish friend who empathizes with others. When a mean girl tells Nat, “If anyone saw you with Horrid Harper, your reputation would be totally nerfed,” Nat doesn’t allow the girls to influence her decisions. Instead, she quickly returns to her conversation with Harper. In addition to being a good friend, Nat is also a hard worker. When Nat discovers that Ghost is going to be sold, she brainstorms ideas to make enough money to buy Ghost herself. With the help of her new friends and her old friends from Philadelphia, Nat earns enough money to become a horse owner. 

Nowheresville will have wide appeal because of the likable characters, the relatable conflicts, and the cute horses. The easy-to-read story has a straightforward plot that teaches the value of hard work. While none of the supporting characters are well-developed, they’re unique enough to add interest to the story, and they highlight the importance of having strong friendships. Readers will enjoy seeing Nat learn about life in rural America and will fall in love with Ghost alongside her. If you’re looking for more horse stories, try jumping into these books: Hollywood by Samantha M. Clark, Horse Girl by Carrie Seim, and Ride On by Faith Erin Hicks.  

Sexual Content  

  • One of the girls has two moms.  
  • When Nat meets the boy next door, she wonders if he was flirting with her. Nat thinks, “What did flirting look like anyways? I’d heard Johari’s sister talk about it, but I still wasn’t sure.”  
  • In an attempt to embarrass Nat, two mean girls show up at Logan’s barn and ask if Nat and Logan have been kissing.  

Violence  

  • While Nat is caring for the horses, two mean girls show up. After a brief conversation, the girls “were trying to scare the horses through the broken fence! When one of the girls tossed a handful of dirt into the paddock, Belle bolted wildly, bucking and snorting. She kicked out at Ghost as she passed, sending him jumping to one side.” Ghost gets out of the paddock, but Nat is able to calm him down and return him safely.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • A mean girl tells Nat, “If anyone saw you with Horrid Harper, your reputation would be totally nerfed.” 
  • Nat thinks, “What the heck?” 
  • The mean girls give Nat bad advice on purpose. When Nat figures it out, she thinks, “Those rats!” 
  • Nat calls the mean girls jerks.  

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • One of Nat’s friends goes to church on Sundays. 

Scene of the Crime: Tracking Down Criminals with Forensic Science

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of Chocolate, The Human Body, and From Here to There, comes an all new nonfiction deep dive into forensic science. What is evidence and how do investigators gather it? How do you determine how long a body has been dead? Do fingerprints differ from person to person? How did some of the world’s great fictional detectives, like Sherlock Holmes, further the study of forensics? Packed with lively photos, classroom activities, and engaging prose, budding private eyes and scientists will be eager to find the answers to these and other questions in HP Newquist’s latest, and to learn about everything from the world’s first autopsy in Ancient Rome to the role that DNA plays in solving crimes along the way. 

Scene of the Crime is a fascinating book that takes a deep dive into the science of forensics. From the beginning of time, crime has been a part of the world. This is where Scene of the Crime begins. However, the information is presented in short chapters, making it easy to understand. In addition, the use of illustrations, photography, and other graphic elements break up the oversized text. In order to make the book easier to understand, whole pages are devoted to crime scene vocabulary, and other information such as different eras of society. To engage readers, the book encourages readers to act like a detective by completing activities such as identifying a footprint. The visual elements include illustrations, vocabulary, and activities that will appeal to a large number of readers. 

While much of the book discusses murder investigations, it also includes interesting information about the first detective story written by Edgar Allen Poe as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional character Sherlock Holmes. Readers will be fascinated by how Sherlock Holmes helped shape forensic science. For example, because of Sherlock Holmes, police “attempted to reconstruct the crime based on all evidence.”  

Using real crime, Scene of the Crime explains that some crime investigators found ways to process evidence by accident, and other’s used ways to determine guilt and innocence in unconventional ways. For example, Cesare Lombroso was a doctor who believed that “physical features—such as an unusual forehead or large hands—could tell if people were going to be criminals or not.” Readers will recognize many of the scientist mentioned in the book and be surprised at how the scientist helped shape today’s investigations.   

When it comes to forensic science, new methods are still being discovered which causes ethical debates. For example, DNA from genealogy websites was used to catch the Golden State Killer. Even though DNA can be used to identify murders, there is debate about the ethical use of DNA. “If we leave our DNA everywhere—including on door handles and tissues—does that mean the police are free to collect it no matter what? Even if we’re not suspected of committing a crime?” Scene of the Crime also leaves the reader with this question: How will artificial intelligence affect how crimes scenes are investigated?  

Although Scene of the Crime is fascinating, it is not for the faint of heart. While the deaths are not described in gory detail, victims’ wounds are discussed. This includes a segment on how the body decomposes, which is gruesome and disturbing even though it’s described scientifically. There are also several pictures that show decomposing bodies that are being researched at a body farm—facilities that use corpses to study decomposition of the body. Despite this, anyone who is interested in the law enforcement field should read Scene of the Crime. 

Sexual Content  

  • None

Violence  

  • Because the book is about solving murders and gives examples of real crime scenes, including the condition of the bodies, not all examples from the book are included below.  
  • In the 1500s, torture was used to “get suspects to admit to crimes. . . Speaking out against God, not going to church, or practicing witchcraft were considered among the worst crimes one could commit.” This caused the Spanish Inquisition which used “trial by ordeal” to determine guilt or innocence. “For example, one version of the trial by ordeal was known as the ‘drowning of witches.’ The way to find out if a woman was a witch was to tie her up and throw her in the river. . . If she floated, she was guilty.” Several other examples are given. 
  • When Ceasar died, people wanted to know the cause of death. “Ceasar’s physician examined the ruler’s corpse. . . He made a report. It stated, very succinctly, that ‘Ceasar had been brutally stabbed twenty-three times, but only one of these proved fatal, and that was to his heart.”  
  • In 1784, a man named Edward Culshaw was murdered. “Someone shot him in the head. . . The doctor who examined Culshaw’s corpse removed the bullet from his head. Along with the bullet, the doctor found something strange. Pressed against the bullet—inside Culshaw’s skull—was a small piece of wadded-up newspaper.” The newspaper helped convict the killer and the killer was “taken away to be hanged.”  
  • In 1892, two children “had been stabbed in their beds. [Their mother] accused her neighbor Ramon Velasquez. . . The police—using a technique many police departments did at the time—beat Velasquez in the hopes he would confess. He would not.” They locked him in a jail cell with the bloody corpses of the two children overnight.” He still didn’t confess. 
  • Later, police discovered that the children’s mother, Francisca, killed them. “Francisca had done it because she wanted to be free of the boys in order to marry her new boyfriend, who did not like children.” 
  • A chapter is dedicated to Jack the Ripper, who killed five women. “The five women had their necks cut by a large knife. The killer then opened one of his victims up, as if preparing them for surgery, and removed their internal organs. These were placed around the victim’s body.”  
  • One chapter discusses how Al Capone’s gang violence advanced ballistics testing. Capone’s gang and George “Bugs” Moran’s gang were causing havoc in the streets. Then on Valentine’s Day 1929, “seven of Moran’s men were rounded up and taken to a garage. They were lined up against a wall and shot to death by four gunmen who sprayed them with machine-gun bullets.”  
  • In 1983, “the body of fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann was found raped and strangled in the woods in the rural country. . . There were bodily fluids on her corpse, but no fingerprints.” Three years later another fifteen-year-old was discovered “murdered in a similar fashion.”  
  • The book explains the crimes of the Golden State Killer who “killed at least thirteen people, sexually assaulted more than fifty women, and committed over a hundred burglaries. He killed men and women, broke into their homes, stole their jewelry, and sometimes paused to eat the food in their kitchen.” DNA was used to find the Golden State Killer and he was sentenced to prison.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Mathieu Orfila “was fascinated by chemistry, especially the chemical mysteries that lurked in poison.” Mathieu wrote several books on poison and how to tell if a dead person was killed by poison. In 1840, Marie Lafarge’s husband died after he became sick. “The Lafarges’ maid told police that she had seen Marie mixing arsenic in Charles’ food. . . It came to light that Marie had bought so much arsenic that the local pharmacist stopped selling it to her.” During the trial, Mathieu Orfila used a test and discovered arsenic was “in the body. Charles had been poisoned to death.” 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • In the 1500s, spectral evidence was used. “Witnesses claimed they saw visions of dead people—ghosts. The ghosts helped witnesses identify the criminal.”  

Spiritual Content  

  • None

Mission Manhattan

Thirteen-year-old Rio—known by his cover name, Rafael Rocha—is a skilled street magician who loves all things food and has the ability to charm almost everyone who crosses his path. Such is the case when the City Spies travel to Venice to protect a young environmental activist named Beatriz. Thrilled to meet a fellow Brazilian, Beatriz invites Rafael to her appearance at a nearby United Nations conference. When Rafael spots a bomb on their boat, his quick thinking helps get everyone evacuated safely. Rafael is hailed as a hero and thrust into the spotlight—which is the last thing any spy would ever want. 

With the activist still in danger, the City Spies follow her first to Washington, DC, and then to New York City as she continues to speak out for her cause. Thanks to Rio’s heroic efforts, they have to work extra hard to maintain their cover. And when unforeseen circumstances take both adults, Mother and Monty, out of commission, the spies’ skills are put to the ultimate test. Can they succeed in one of their most complex missions to date, without the adults’ help?   

The fifth installment of the City Spies Series is another fast-paced mystery that will keep readers entertained until the very end. Mission Manhattan and the other books in the series must be read to understand the City Spies’ background and dynamics. In Mission Manhattan, the kids break into two groups. One group must keep Beatriz safe until she speaks to the delegates of the United Nations. The second group must find Mother, who was kidnapped. During the City Spies’ complex mission, they rely on a host of people to assist them. The large cast of characters and the complicated plot add interest, but may be difficult for some readers to follow.  

The City Spies’ job is to keep Beatriz, a young environmental activist, safe. Despite this, Beatriz and her cause are not the main focus. Instead, the City Spies spend much of their time trying to discover who wants to stop Beatriz from speaking to the United Nations. Nevertheless, Beatriz’s message is clear: to protect the environment, young people must speak up. Beatriz says, “The temperature is rising. The oceans are rising. But the young people of the world are rising too. We are rising to our feet to demand action from our leaders.” While the story doesn’t give examples of how readers can help the environment, readers will be inspired by Beatriz, who is determined to make an impact on the world.  

Mission Manhattan highlights the importance of teamwork and the importance of trusting yourself. The book’s conclusion shows the City Spies becoming an even closer family who now fully trust their newest member, Cairo. But be warned! The book ends on a cliffhanger that will leave readers wondering if Cairo’s mother will be the next big threat to the City Spies.  

Sexual Content  

  • None

Violence  

  • Rio and other climate change activists are on a boat, heading to speak to world leaders. Rio finds a bomb and everyone jumps out. “BOOM! Rio was frantically swimming away from the boat, so he didn’t see the explosion. . . a plume of smoke coming from the stern indicated that there was now a fire where they’d been standing moments before.” No one is injured. 
  • After being poisoned, Mother wakes up with “something pinching his wrists and ankles and realized that he was tied to a chair.” His captors had used zip ties, duct tape, and rope. Later, “Mother couldn’t feel his fingertips, and that was troubling. Not only had he been poisoned by Ferreira, but the others had also injected him on two separate occasions with some sort of drugs that knocked him unconscious for a couple of hours.”  
  • Cairo finds Mother and starts to cut him loose. A bad guy, nicknamed Jelly, “raced into the room and tackled Cairo. Cairo and Jelly wrestled on the floor for a moment, yelling and screaming while they did. And then, suddenly Jelly went limp.” Mother had injected Jelly with the poison. 
  • After Jelly is drugged, the City Spies bind and gag him. Then, they take Jelly to the Italian embassy, where he is arrested. 
  • To warn Beatriz of danger, the City Spies must talk to Beatriz alone. To do so, the City Spies purchase tickets to a gala that Beatriz is speaking at. Then, Brooklyn “accidentally” spills tea on Beatriz and they go to the restroom to clean up the mess. When Rio steps out of a bathroom stall, Beatriz “looked like she was about to shriek, but Sydney put a hand over her mouth. . . She went to yell anyway, so Sydney clamped harder, and Beatriz tried to break free.” After a few minutes of struggling, Beatriz decides to trust the City Spies and leaves the gala. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • One of the bad guys, Ferreira, poisons Mother’s tea. Mother’s “speech began to slur, and his vision turned blurry. One of the last things he saw was the empty vial in Ferreira’s hand as the poison took effect.” When Mother wakes up, “there was a throbbing pain in his head and a bitter taste on his tongue. He felt like he was in a fog.” Later, Mother is taken to the hospital to make sure the poison doesn’t have long-lasting effects. 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Sports Illustrated Kids Pro Files: Baseball

Sports Illustrated Kids Pro Files: Baseball is a must-have book for every young baseball fan and player. The book profiles seven of the big leagues’ hottest stars and features SI Kids’ signature content: great writing, fun trivia, amazing statistics, and dynamic photography. But Pro Files: Baseball also delves deeper, providing insider tips from major league coaches on how to hit, pitch, and field just like the stars in the book. Experts help break down each baseball skill so that young players can learn to play like the pros.   

Each player—Albert Pujols, Evan Longoria, Roy Halladay, Joe Mauer, Josh Hamilton, Justin Verlander, and Joey Votto—has six pages dedicated to them. The first two-page spread includes an illustration of the player in action and basic facts such as height, weight, hometown, etc. The second two-page spread includes information about their early careers. There are also career stats and random insider information such as the player’s favorite cereal and the athlete they admired as a kid. In addition, readers will learn more about the players’ skills and why they love the game.  

Pro Files: Baseball uses a reader-friendly format similar to a picture book, which will appeal to even the most reluctant readers. Each page uses bright colors, infographics, and photographs of the players in action. While the book includes a lot of information about the players, each section is broken into small parts with a headline. In addition, most of the sports statistics are put in infographics which make them easy to understand. Best of all, Pro Files: Baseball shows the unique skills that players use for their specific positions, such as what skills make Joey Votto an amazing first baseman.  

Readers who love baseball will want to read Pro Files: Baseball because it’s packed full of interesting facts. Another positive aspect of the book is that it shows the hard work and dedication involved in making it to the major leagues. Plus, Pro Files: Baseball shows obstacles that the players had to overcome on their way to the pros.  

Any reader who wants to learn more about the game of baseball should put Pro Files: Baseball at the top of their reading list. Baseball fans can also learn about one of the most legendary baseball players of all time by reading Babe Ruth and the Baseball Curse by David A. Kelly. However, if you’d like to add some more historical fiction to your baseball reading list, The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz is a must-read. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 
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