Reading Level: Young Adult

Women in Space

Women have been traditionally underrepresented in space exploration, but that has changed in recent years. A career in space exploration is the perfect choice for a variety of people—from those who like conducting research about the universe, to adventurous souls who want to travel to and live in space. In this book, you’ll learn about groundbreaking female astronauts and space research professionals, career paths in space exploration, how to prepare for the field, key skills for success, methods of learning more about careers while in school, and much more.  

Women in Space gives readers an inside look at the little-known career opportunities available in space exploration, including careers that do not involve flying into space. Each of the five chapters follows the same format. The first page lists words and definitions that appear in the chapter; these words include conductivity, cosmology, celestial, and more. These words appear in bold gray font, which makes them easy to identify. 

Women who were pioneers in space exploration are featured, including Sally Ride and Mae Jamison. Each woman faced many obstacles. Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian woman to enter space, was told by a professor that being an engineer was not “ladylike,” and her father dissuaded her from being an engineer. This did not stop Chawla from earning her PhD from the University of Colorado and working for NASA. Each biography highlights how different skills are used in the space field. Five biographies also include a QR code so readers can learn more about the women through educational videos.   

The book is straightforward and easy to understand despite the use of informational space exploration jargon. The short paragraphs are broken up with photographs of women at work that appear every one to two pages. In addition, the book has short blurbs about issues important to women in space, such as the international space stations, finding time for family, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Often, important information is presented in lists, such as skills needed for success. The end of each chapter includes a research project and text-dependent questions that check for understanding.  

Women in Space Exploration explores many women’s roles in the space industry. The book highlights the skills and education needed for anyone interested in working for NASA and other space companies. By featuring women who work in the field, readers will discover the many different degrees that can be used in the field. In addition, the biographies prove that dreams do come true for those who persevere. 

Readers who dream of flying into space will find Women in Space an excellent source of information and encouragement. The book highlights the necessary education needed for anyone who wants to work in the space industry, as well as shows that space exploration is for everyone. Readers who want to learn more about women in the space industry should also read To Fly Among the Stars by Rebecca Siegel, Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier by Jim Ottaviani & Maris Wicks, and Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross by Traci Sorell. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None

Unwind

After America’s Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement. According to their Bill of Life, human life may not be terminated from the moment of conception until the age of thirteen. But between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, the child may be gotten rid of by their parent through a process called “unwinding.”

By repurposing a teen’s organs and other body parts in living recipients, the unwound child’s life doesn’t technically end. According to society’s leaders, unwinding leads to a healthier and safer community, as troublesome and unwanted teens are used for the greater good.

Connor is a rebel whose unwinding was ordered by his parents. Risa, a ward of the state, has been slated for unwinding due to cost cutting. And Lev, his parents’ tenth child, has been destined for unwinding since birth as a religious tithe. As their paths intersect, they start to fight for their own destinies. But do they stand a chance of escaping their fate or proving their lives are worth saving? 

Readers who want a light, entertaining read should avoid the Unwind Dystology. Unwind has plenty of action and suspense that propels the story forward at a fast pace and leaves the reader questioning their beliefs about the value of human life—both before and after birth. Shusterman expertly delves into difficult questions from multiple perspectives by focusing on three completely different characters. After Lev is kidnapped, he chooses to escape his destiny—being unwound. At this time, he begins to question God’s will. Lev’s friend says, “You got it in your heart to run from unwinding, ain’t no one can tell you it’s the wrong thing to do, even if it’s against the law. The good Lord wouldn’t have put it in your heart if it wasn’t right.” In the end, Levi learns that he can still believe in God but not condone human tithing. 

On the other hand, Risa grew up in a state institution where she helped care for babies that no one wanted. Since abortion is illegal, many babies are left on people’s doorstep, but this doesn’t guarantee that the child will be loved or cared for. Risa wonders, “Which was worse. . . to have tens of thousands of babies that no one wanted, or silently make them go away before they were even born?” Risa’s experiences force the reader to ponder both the pro-life and the pro-abortion point of view.  

Unwind is a thought-provoking story that begins with the question: Should unborn children have a right to live, or should women have a right to choose what happens to their bodies? To put a spotlight on these questions, Shusterman creates a dark world full of violence that is not for the faint of heart. However, readers who aren’t afraid of exploring controversial topics will find that each protagonist—Connor, Risa, and Lev—has a different system and wants to do what is right. The next installments of the Unwind Dystology explore human evil in more detail. Although the series makes readers ask important questions, many readers will not be ready to face the books’ disturbingly dark images. Readers who want a tamer dystopian book have many options, including Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie, The Maze Cutter by James Dashner, and Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. 

Sexual Content  

  • When Connor’s friend, Ariana, says she will run away with him. He “kisses her.” 
  • A woman helps Connor, Risa, and a storked newborn hide. Storked are those left on doorsteps. The old woman assumes that Connor and Risa are the baby’s parents. The woman says, “If you really want to stay alive, honey, have him get you pregnant again. They won’t unwind an expectant mother, so that will buy you nine whole months.” 
  • One boy says that he has two dads, but “I’m not like my dads—my compass points to girls, if you know what I mean.” 
  • While hiding out in a warehouse, two kids “make out all day long, drawing a cluster of other kids who sit there and watch.” 
  • Connor kisses Risa. “She did not expect it, and when he breaks off the kiss, she realizes from the look on his face that he hadn’t expected it either. . . she pulls him into another kiss—this one longer than the first.” 
  • Connor and Risa are sent to a harvest camp to be unwound. While they wait, “They meet in the girls’ bathroom . . . They hold each other in the tight space, making no excuses for it. . . they kiss as if they’ve done it forever.”

Violence  

  • When Conner discovers he is supposed to be unwound, he runs away. Connor’s father and the police find him hiding in the back of a semi. To escape, Connor runs across a busy highway. “He hears a gun fire. He feels the impact, but not in his skin. The bullet embeds in his backpack.” Connor realizes that they’re firing tranquilizer bullets. 
  • As Connor is running across the highway, a Cadillac’s “side mirror smacks him painfully in the ribs before the car screeches to a halt, sending the acrid stench of burned rubber up his nostrils.” Connor sees Lev in the Cadillac so he grabs Lev to use as a human shield. 
  • Connor puts a “choke hold” on Lev and drags him across the road. As they run, “bullets now fly past them.” To escape, “Lev grabs the arm that’s locked around his neck and sinks his teeth in with the full force of his jaws until he tastes blood. The kid screams.” Lev is hit with a tranquilizer bullet and falls to the ground. 
  • While Connor is running, a bus swerves, and “Risa’s head is slammed against the window as the bus suddenly pulls to the right. . . Risa is thrown forward, down the aisle, as the bus comes to a sudden, jarring stop.” 
  • After the bus crashes, “the windshield is smashed, and it’s covered in blood. Lots of it. . . It’s the bus driver’s blood. His hands halfway through [the windshield], and he’s not moving.” 
  • Connor and Risa work together to trick a police officer. Risa pretends to be injured. When the officer goes to help her, “the officer is knocked to the ground, and suddenly there are two figures attacking him—The Unwind and the girl.” Connor uses a tranquilizer gun on the police officer. 
  • An unwanted baby is put on Connor’s doorstep. His parents did not want to take the child in, so they put it on a neighbor’s doorstep. Eventually, the child is placed back on Connor’s doorstep, but by then, it’s so sick that it dies.  
  • Roland, a runaway, was sent to be unwound because he “had beaten up his stepfather for beating his mom. The mother took her husband’s side, and the stepfather got off with a warning. Roland, on the other hand, was sent to be unwound.” 
  • A newspaper article talks about a hospital that was harvesting stem cells. “The council described a general culture of trafficking of children snatched at birth. . . The pictures show organs, including brains, have been stripped—and some bodies dismembered.” 
  • Roland corners Risa while she’s in the bathroom. “He grabs her hands, pushes her back against the cold green tile wall, and presses his hip against her so that her knee can’t reach its mark.” Rolands implies that he is going to have sex with her whether she wants to or not. Another teen comes in and interrupts. Roland lets Risa go. 
  • Lev goes to a pawnbroker to sell a stolen bracelet. The pawnbroker opens the safe. “He feels something hard and heavy connecting with his head. His thoughts are instantly scrambled. He loses consciousness before he hits the ground.”  
  • While hidden in a warehouse, the Unwinds are woken so they can be transferred to another hiding place. The “Fatigues,” adults in charge of watching the Unwinds, have rifles. “A cranky kid pushes a Fatigue for tearing away his blanket. The Fatigue with the gun hits him on the shoulder with his rifle—not enough to seriously wound him, but enough to make it clear to the kids, and everyone else, that they mean business.” 
  • Lev turns Connor and Risa into the cops. Afterward, Connor “hauls off and punches Lev in the eye. Not hard enough to knock him down, but hard enough to snap his head halfway around and give him a nasty shiner.” 
  • Someone shows Connor a crate that has five dead kids in it. “There are no signs of blood, no wounds. They could all be asleep except for the fact that [one]’s eyes are open and staring at nothing.” Later, Connor learns that the kids suffocated in the crate. 
  • Connor entices his enemy, Roland, into an airplane. Connor “leaps forward and firmly plants the muzzle of the Admiral’s gun against Roland’s back. . . Roland makes his move. He spins, knocks Connor back, and grabs for the gun.” Connor pushes Roland into a crate and locks him in. “While Roland rages inside, Connor takes aim at the crate and fires the gun, once, twice, three times.” After making sure Roland can breathe, Connor leaves. Later, Roland is let out, uninjured. 
  • To hurt the Admiral, a mob of kids attacks the Admiral’s jet. “The first of the kids reaches the top of the stairs and heaves the hatch open, only to be met by Risa, and a brutal punch to the jaw. It sends him tumbling over the side and to the ground . . . The second kid is met by an aerosol burst of Bactine [a pain-relieving spray] right to the eyes. The pain is excruciating. He stumbles backward. . .” The mob destroys everything they can get their hands on. The scene is described over multiple chapters. 
  • Cleaver, a helicopter pilot, tries to get away from the mob but is unable to. Connor breaks up the kids and finds “the man on the ground is battered and bloody. . . He’s been beaten to a pulp.” Helpless, Connor watches Cleaver die. 
  • Connor thinks about the Mayan game of pokatok. “The game was a lot like basketball, except that the losers were sacrificed to the Mayan gods.”  
  • Roland and Connor fight. Roland “begins swinging, and Connor is quick to defend. . . Connor taps into his own wellspring of fury, and he lets loose a brutal offensive of his own. . . [Roland] slams him against the wall his hand pressed against Connor’s windpipe. . . Connor’s struggles become weaker without oxygen to feed his muscles.” Roland thinks about killing Connor and is surprised that he can’t. The scene is described over two pages. 
  • Roland is unwound and is conscious of the entire procedure. As Roland’s body is taken apart, a nurse says, “You may feel a tugging sensation near your ankles. . . it’s nothing to worry about.” 
  • An hour and fifteen minutes into the procedure, “surgeons leave, new ones arrive. He looks towards his toes but can’t see them [because they have been removed]. . . A clanging of metal. The lower half of the table is unhooked, and pulled away. . . Now Roland feels discomfort in his gut. Discomfort, a tickling sensation, but no pain. The surgeon lifts things away.” 
  • The nurse leaves once Roland’s eyes have been removed. Roland sees “not quite darkness, just an absence of light. He hears everything around him but can no longer communicate. . .” The doctors talk about sports as they continue to remove parts of Roland’s brain. After three hours and nineteen minutes, the procedure is complete, and Roland is still alive, but he is confused about what has happened. The procedure is described over six pages. 
  • In the conclusion, three Unwinds [Lev, Blaine, and Mai] decide to attack the harvest camp where they are being held. Blaine and Mai both go inside the “Chop Shop” where the unwind procedure is performed. A guard sees Blaine and “aims his tranq gun at Blaine’s left thigh, and fires. . . The impact of a tranq bullet is more effective than a detonator. Blaine and the guard are instantly incinerated as the six quarts of liquid explosive coursing through Blaine’s body ignite.” 
  • During the attack, Connor is injured. “His face is a shredded, bloody mess. He’s lost an eye. His right arm is crushed and mangled. But he’s alive!” Connor is in a coma for several weeks. When he awakes, he has been given an Unwind’s eye and arm. The revolt scene is described over eight pages.

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • At a party for Lev, champagne is served to the adults. Lev’s brother, Marcus, pretends to be drunk so he can go on a rant. 
  • A police officer thinks that Unwinds are “often high on illegal substances. . . Nicotine, caffeine, or worse.”  
  • Lev is hit with a tranquilizer gun. When he wakes up, “his head hurts, he feels like he might puke, and his brain is still only at half power.” 
  • An adult who helps hide Unwinds talks to Connor when “the Admiral adds some whiskey from a flask to his own coffee.” After the Admiral’s son was unwound, he “left the military, spent several years more drunk than I am now.” Then he sobered up and began helping the Unwinds. 
  • A boy who has asthma takes Xolair. 
  • Roland steals a bottle of ipecac from the infirmary. “He was planning to use the stuff to spike the drinks and create a puke-fest.” His plan is never carried out. 

Language  

  • Profanity is used seldom. Profanity includes hell, damn, crap, and ass. 
  • My God and for God’s sake are used several times as an exclamation.

Supernatural 

  • When a person is given a body part from an unwound person, the body part remembers what the person learned. For example, one man received a new hand, and the hand still knew how to perform magic. 
  • One boy, Cyrus, was injured and received half of a boy’s brain. Now, the boy is in Cyrus’s head. “This boy in the corner of his head doesn’t talk to him in words. He feels. He emotes. He doesn’t understand that he’s only a part of another kid. . . Now he keeps looking for things in Cyrus’s head that just aren’t there. . . And so the kid hurls out anger. Terror. Grief. Waves pounding the wall, and beneath it all, there’s a current tugging Cy forward.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • Lev is a tithe, “a child of a religious family who is born and raised to be unwound, as an act of charity.” 
  • Lev’s parents are Christians who “have always given 10 percent of everything to the church.” This includes giving Lev as a tithe, who will be unwound. Lev’s parent told him, “Your life will be to serve God and mankind.” Because he is a tithe, Lev has “always felt closer to God than to his friends, or even his family.” 
  • Lev’s family believes “everyone’s equal in God’s eyes.” 
  • Lev is jealous of his siblings, who are not unwound. Lev’s pastor tells him that God asks for the best fruits, not the first fruits. Lev thinks, “Giving of one’s self is the ultimate blessing.” 
  • After Lev is kidnapped, he still wants to be unwound, “as it was ordained to be. . . Being torn from his purpose was the most unnerving thing that had ever happened to Lev, but now he understands why God let it happen. It’s a lesson. It’s to show Lev what happens to children who shrink their destiny: they become lost in every possible way.” 
  • When Lev talks about being tithed, he says, “Tithing’s in the Bible; you’re supposed to give 10 percent of everything. And Storking is in the Bible, too.” Storked is when babies are left on doorsteps. “The homeowner is obligated to keep and raise the child.” 
  • When talking about storked babies, Lev uses Moses as an example. “Moses was put in a basket in the Nile and was found by Pharaoh’s daughter. He was the first storked baby, and looked what happened to him!” 
  • Unwanted babies are raised in a state institution or storked. Connor wonders, “If a baby was going to be so unloved, why would God want it brought into the world?” 
  • After Lev runs, he says his parents “loved God more than they loved me, and I hate them for it. So I guess that means I’m going to hell.” 
  • Connor and some of the other Unwinds discuss when a soul is put into an unborn child. One Unwind says a girl believed that “if someone actually gets unwound, then they never had a soul to begin with. She said God must know who’s going to be unwound, and he doesn’t give them souls.” The conversation lasts for three pages. 
  • Lev is part of the group that plans to destroy the harvest camp. Before he can set off his detonator, he thinks: “God, dear God, what am I doing? What have I done? How did I get here?” Lev is unable to set off the detonator and helps rescue people instead. 
  • While Lev is in a cell, Pastor Dan visits. The pastor “resigned my position. I left the church. . . I still very much believe in God—just not a god who condones human tithing.”  

Mexican WhiteBoy

Danny is tall and skinny. Even though he’s not built, his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce any college scout would sign him on the spot. He’s got a ninety-five mile an hour fastball, but the boy’s not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound, he loses it.

But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him. Danny is brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego that close to the border means everyone else knows exactly who he is before he even opens his mouth. Before they find out he can’t speak Spanish, and before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they’ve got him pegged. But it works the other way too. And Danny’s convinced it’s his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico.

That’s why he’s spending the summer with his dad’s family. But to find himself, he may just have to face the demons he refuses to see—the demons that are right in front of his face. He may also have to open up to a friendship he never saw coming.  

Danny and his rival-turned-friend Uno become almost inseparable, which allows the reader to see how each teen deals with similar situations. Since they are both biracial, Danny and Uno struggle to fit in. Unlike his Mexican relatives, Danny doesn’t speak Spanish, making him feel as if “he’s not really Mexican. His skin is dark like his grandma’s sweet coffee, but his insides are as pale as the cream she mixes in.” Likewise, Uno struggles with his identity because his mom is Mexican and his dad is Black. Uno feels as if he’s “stuck in the middle.” His parents fight, and “one is pulling his left arm, the other pulling his right. Like it’s some kind of tug-of-war between black and Mexican, and he’s the rope.” The struggle to understand their place in the world is one that many teens will be able to relate to, especially those of mixed race. 

Mexican WhiteBoy also shows the difficulties Danny and Uno have because of their absent fathers. Danny hasn’t seen his father in three years and thinks his father is in Mexico. Danny’s emotional trauma is shown when Danny ruminates on his father’s absence. Danny also writes fictitious letters to his father. While the letters aren’t based on reality, they show Danny’s dream life. Unlike Danny, Uno sees his father once a month. Uno’s domineering father, who’s gotten off drugs and out of trouble, often lectures Uno about how finding God has made him a better person. The father-son relationships add to the story’s emotional depth.  

Matt de la Peña integrates Danny’s love of baseball and pitching into the story. Despite this, Mexican WhiteBoy is not a typical sports story since no baseball games are ever played. However, readers will empathize with Danny, who is trying to answer the questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? At the beginning of summer, he lacks confidence, is depressed, and self-harms. Danny’s relationship with Uno helps Danny find his footing in life and take his place on the baseball diamond. Danny and Uno’s friendship transforms both boys, and they help each other find hope for the future. Mexican WhiteBoy shines a light on the realities of life for many inner-city teens. The gritty scenes don’t sugarcoat the teens’ struggles. Instead, Mexican WhiteBoy conveys the importance of believing in yourself and shaping your own future. For those who’d like to explore another book that shines a light on the issue of self-acceptance, check out Bruiser by Neal Shusterman. Readers who want a book that focuses more on the game of baseball should read Heat by Mike Lupica and Fast Pitch by Nic Stone. 

Sexual Content  

  • Danny’s cousin Sophia introduces him to her friends. When the girls flirt with Danny, Sophia says, “I see my homegirls gonna try and corrupt you, cuz. Better watch it, though, these heinas got mad STDs.” 
  • Danny has a crush on Liberty. Danny’s cousin and her friends gossip about Liberty. Someone says the girl is “sixteen and already droppin’ her drawers for billetes.” 
  • A man keeps showing up to watch Danny pitch. Uno says, “I thought homey was a molester or some shit.” 
  • Danny’s aunt and uncle come home after a night on the town. “Uncle Tommy and Cecilia stumble in reeking of cigarettes and tequila. . . [Cecilia] extends her neck, but when Tommy’s lips get close she pulls back, giggling some more . . . He kisses her neck, reaches a hand up for his wife’s chest.” They disappear into the bedroom. 
  • Uno, Danny and a group of other teens play truth or dare. Danny “watches Flaca, on a dare. . . saunter over to Raquel, take her face in her hands and kiss her while all the guys cheer and the girls laugh. He watches Sofia, on a dare . . . pull up Uno’s black Dickies shirt and leave a dark brown hickey on his already dark stomach.” On another dare, Danny’s cousin, Sofia, and Uno disappear into the bedroom and don’t return. 
  • Danny comes out of the bathroom half-dressed. His cousin, Sofia, asks, “What were you doing in there so long, beating off?. . . It’s perfectly normal you know. I heard ninety-five percent of guys beat off and the other five percent are lyin’.” 
  • Uno kisses Sofia “on the lips.” 
  • After spending time with his crush, Danny gets up to leave. “She grabs Danny’s face in her hands and kisses him on the lips real quick. When they separate, she stands there giggling. Then Danny takes her face in his hands and kisses her.” 

Violence  

  • During a stickball game, Uno throws the ball at another player, Raul, who has just finished batting. “The ball smacks him right in the ass. Raul trips and falls to the ground, clutching the back of his jeans.” 
  • Danny accidentally hits Uno’s brother, Manny, with a bat. Uno “rushes Danny, shoves him with both hands. . . Danny backs up a couple of steps, surprised.” Danny’s cousin, Sofia, tries to stop the fight. “Uno shoves Sofia out of the way and gets in Danny’s face again, pokes a finger into his forehead.”  
  • Before Danny can try to defend himself, Uno is “already stepping forward with all his weight, delivering an overhead right that smashes flush into Danny’s face. Snaps his head back. Buckles his knees.” When Danny falls, he “knows there was a loud crashing sound in his brain.” There is “warm liquid running down his neck. . . Running into his mouth. . . Salty. Smell of copper.” 
  • Danny goes to the hospital because he has “a nasty gash under his left eye” and a dislocated jaw. He needs “five stitches under his left eye, ten to the back of his head. . .” 
  • Danny and Uno are scamming people out of money. After one incident, three guys, including one named Carmelo, attack Uno. “One of the other guys slugs him in the back of the head. Uno spins around, narrowly avoids a wild right from another kid and punches the kid who hit him in the jaw. . . Uno breaks free and pounces on Carmelo. He gets him in a tight headlock, tries to choke the life off of him. But the other guys pull Uno off, hold his arms while Carmelo punches him twice in the stomach . . .” 
  • Danny jumps into the fight to help Uno, who watches Carmelo “rear back and throw a punch right at [Danny’s] face, but he ducks it and the punch grazes the face of Carmelo’s own guy. . . [Danny] swings a vicious right and hits him on the side of the face, sending him sprawling onto the ground. Blood starts coming from the guy’s nose.” Danny and Uno have bruises but no serious injuries. The fight scene is described over two pages. 
  • While at the beach, a man whistles at Danny’s mom. Her husband gets mad and attacks the man. Danny hears “the sound of punches landing and shouting and then sirens and cops shouting. . . the cops handcuffed his dad and pushed him into the back of their squad car. By his face.” Afterward, his father leaves for Mexico and doesn’t come back. 
  • Uno’s stepdad, Ernesto, comes home smelling of tequila. He yells at Uno. “When Ernesto’s been drinking tequila he’s liable to swing an open hand. ‘Course it ain’t the open hand he’s scared of, it’s what he might do in response to the open hand. So instead of killing this man and getting locked up for real, he nods and nods and nods and nods.” 
  • When a girl starts talking to Danny, her boyfriend, Marzel, gets mad. Marzel “rears back to throw a punch, but out of nowhere Uno steps in and blasts the guy from the side. Puts him flat on his back and then stands over him, glaring down. . . Marzel looks up at Uno, touches his bloody lip and holds his fingers in front of his eyes. He stands up slow, swings wildly at Uno, but Uno ducks it, lands two quick and powerful body blows, doubles Marzel over.” A couple guys break up the fight. 
  • Danny’s parents separated when his father hit his mother, but there are no other details. 
  • Danny, his uncle Ray, and other men were driving when a “big hippie guy came walking down the middle of the road . . . Ray hit the gas and ran smack into the guy, a nasty thumping sound against the hood. The guy’s head whipped all forward, and when Ray hit the brakes, he flew from the Bronco like a rag doll.” 
  • The guy got up and “threw a right at Uncle Ray through the open window, but Uncle Ray ducked it, grabbed the guy by the arm and pulled him halfway into the cab and his boys started whaling on him. . . Rico smacked him in the same part of the face so many times, the sound of the blow actually changed. They became muted. Tim delivered blow after blow to the guy’s ribs and stomach.” 
  • When the guy became limp, “Blood was all over the place, on Danny’s face. . . Uncle Ray flipped the Bronco into reverse and backed up. He turned the wheel slightly and pulled forward, ran over both the guy’s legs. Danny could actually hear and feel the bones crush and snap under the tires. . .” Uncle Ray races away when the “guy was completely still and covered in red.” The scene is described over three pages. 
  • While in prison, “the scout” meets Danny’s dad. The scout tells Danny, “One day I got jumped by a bunch of black guys. . . They tried to kill me. Your dad was the only one who stepped in. He beat two of them real bad and the others backed away . . . And me and your dad turned into friends.” 
  • Danny self-harms when he is upset. He digs “into the inside of his forearm with his nails to remind him he’s a real person.” He “holds his left arm against the sink and runs the sharp part of the tweezers across the inside. Goes back and forth in a straight line. Back and forth again. A thin trickle of blood starts creeping out. . . He drops the tweezers in the sink and turns on the water full blast. Washes the blood off. . . But the line of blood comes back even thicker. It’s all over the sink now, too.” 
  • While at Danny’s school, Barker, a rich white kid, insults Uno. Danny “punches Barker in the face. Spins the kid around. . . He takes a step toward Danny and throws a wild right, but Danny ducks it, hits the kid again. Harder this time, in the eye.” A senior breaks up the fight, which is described over a page. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Both the adults and the teens drink often; thus, not all of the drinking is described below. 
  • A girl tells Danny they can hang out and drink “a little white Zin and shit.” 
  • During stickball, there are some “young bucks, los ratas, hanging out on stolen bikes, pulling drags off stolen cigarettes.”  
  • As Uno is walking, he sees “a broken forty bottle lying at the mouth of the gutter. . . Wonders how much alcohol must be flowing through National City’s gutters after an average Friday night.”  
  • Uno’s father goes on a rant about drugs such as Ritalin, Vicodin, and Zoloft. His father says, “Who benefits more from all these prescriptions? The patient or the doctor?” 
  • Uno’s father used to “smoke anything I could roll up in a Zig-Zag.” 
  • While planning a trip, Sofia asks her friends who will be “sneakin’ in the thermos of jungle juice?” 
  • The last time Danny saw his dad, they were sitting together, and his dad had a “beer dangling” in his hand. 
  • Danny’s mom invites a man to have dinner with her and Danny. The man brings a bottle of champagne. 
  • When Danny goes to family events, the adults “are drinking homemade horchata and Pacifico and Bud Light and tequila with lime—always tequila.” 
  • Several of the teens smoke cigarettes. 
  • Danny gets drunk for the first time. “He learns that jungle juice makes him feel light as a feather. That it makes him feel ten feet tall. . . Makes him feel like smiling and talking to anybody and everybody, at any time—though he hasn’t.” 
  • When Danny was little, he was sick. His father stayed home to take care of Danny. However, his dad spent most of the time watching TV and smoking pot. Danny “remembers thinking [the smoke] looked like a magic carpet. And because he was a little high, took from the secondhand, he started wondering what it would be like to ride a magic carpet?” 
  • Uno gives Danny a beer. “Danny cringes as the cold beer washes past his tastebuds, down his throat. It’s only his third time drinking beer—all summer—and he doubts he’ll ever like the taste.” 
  • At a party, “Lolo puts a shot of tequila into Raquel’s belly button, [a guy] slurps it out and bites into a wedge of lime.” 
  • A girl’s “real mom” died of a supposed overdose. 
  • One of Danny’s uncles “breaks up a bud, rolls the weed in a Zig-Zag and licks. He pulls a lighter from his pocket and, out of pure habit, cups a hand over the fire.” 

Language  

  • Both English and Spanish profanity are used often. Profanity includes ass, bitch, chingado, damn, goddamn, fuck, motherfucker, piss, puta, and shit. 
  • Uno’s parents yell at each other. Uno’s mom calls his father “a good-for-nothing black bastard.”  In return, his father says, “Bitch, if I didn’t have the Holy Ghost. . . I swear to God.” 
  • When Uno was young, he got hurt during a baseball game. His father began yelling, “Get up, you little punk-ass bitch! Get your ass up! Ain’t no son of mine gonna lay there crying!” 
  • Jesus, Jesus Christ, God, and oh my God are occasionally used as exclamations.  
  • A rich white kid calls Danny a “wetback.”  
  • When Uno and Danny go to Danny’s school, a rich white boy says, “Now get your black ass outta here.” When Uno threatens him, the boy says, “Bring it, dude! I ain’t afraid of no blacky!” 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Sofia’s aunt goes to church. One of Sofia’s friends says, “That old broad is too fat to go to church.” 
  • Uno’s father was a gangster and drug addict before he found Jesus. His father says, “I love you! Just like I love Jesus! He felt powerless, too, you know. Like you and me. When he took the most messed-up suckers and died for them, he died for us!” 
  • Uno’s father said that “studying the Bible taught him to love himself. Taught him to look inward for companionship. Taught him to actually look forward to spending time alone with himself.” 
  • Uno’s father says that suicide is “a deadly sin in two books. God’s and mine.” 
  • Uno tells Danny about his father’s religion. “But sometimes I think maybe God’s down here. In regular everyday stuff. Like the power of a train.” 
  • Uno‘s father says that everyone has “a little piece of God.” 

Charlie Thorne and the Royal Society

Charlie Thorne is a genius. Charlie Thorne is fearless. Charlie Thorne may have finally met her match.

Charlie Thorne is used to being on the run. Ever since she was recruited by the CIA to track down Einstein’s most dangerous equation, Charlie has traveled around the world with former CIA agents Dante Garcia and Milana Moon to prevent history’s greatest discoveries from falling into the wrong hands. But after beating others to the secrets hidden by Einstein, Darwin, and Cleopatra, Charlie and her comrades realize they are not the only ones searching for an immensely powerful discovery of Isaac Newton’s.

From a chase over the rooftops of Cambridge University, to scaling the Sydney Harbour Bridge and skirting a volcanic eruption, Charlie will need to think one step ahead of her opponents in order to follow Newton’s trail of devious clues and keep herself out of the hands of the many enemies who are hot on her tail. 

Filled with high-stakes action scenes, historical facts, and plenty of adventure, Charlie Thorne and the Royal Society is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Along the journey, readers will enjoy deciphering the clues and ciphers leading to Newton’s discovery. In addition, readers will learn about the explorer James Cook, Ferdinand Magellan, and other historical figures. Since Charlie is following in Cook’s footsteps, she also explores the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Newton’s discovery has a surprising twist—Newton discovered an elixir that gave him immortality, but immortality was a blessing and a curse. Newton discusses how immortality affected his life, and when Charlie has an opportunity to use the elixir, she doesn’t take it because “I don’t want to live forever. Someday, I hope I’ll meet someone and have a family with them. I don’t want to outlive them and all my kids and grandkids, too. That sounds a whole lot worse than dying.” Newton makes it clear that the elixir should only be used by someone of great intelligence, like Charlie, so that it is not abused.

The conclusion wraps up the series and leaves readers with this thought: family is the greatest treasure. The Charlie Thorne Series is a must-read for anyone who wants to travel the world. The series will give readers hours of adventure and teach interesting historical facts. Readers can find more adventure by reading the Explorer Academy Series by Trudi Trueit and the TombQuest Series by Michael Northrop. For readers interested in decoding codes and ciphers, take a peek into how ciphers work by reading Spy Files: Codes and Ciphers by Adrian Gilbert and The Usborne Book of Secret Codes by Eileen O’Brien & Diana Riddell.

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • A mob forms outside of Isaac Newton’s house. “An angry laborer threw an empty liquor bottle at the building. It shattered off the wall just below Newton’s window. The other members of the mob cheered, then began to throw things as well: stones, garbage, empty bottles of their own.” Newton flees out the back door.  
  • When Newton flees in a carriage, several men try to stop him. “Two men clung to the outside of the approaching carriage. . . but Newton’s coachman coaxed a burst of speed from his horses at the last minute. . . The vehicle toppled into the street, throwing Newton’s potential attackers into the path of the other two carriages. The horses trampled them. . .” Newton escapes. 
  • Charlie finds one of Newton’s discoveries but a boy, Kenji, tries to steal it. “Charlie threw the book down onto his foot hard enough to make him yelp. . .” Charlie runs away, but two “big” men give chase.  
  • Dante sees the men chasing Charlie and swings a pole. “He swung it like a bat, catching the big man across the chest. . . the blow knocked him back a step but didn’t knock him down.” The man uses the pole like a spear and “charged like a medieval knight, looking to run Dante through.” The man clubs Dante, “knocking him to the ground. . . [the man] prepared to impale him with it.” Someone “clobbers” the man, knocking him out and saving Dante. 
  • In an emergency, Dante tries to take someone’s truck. When the man tries to stop him, Dante “dropped him with a single punch, then stole the keys.”  
  • Charlie is kidnapped by a wealthy man and Kenji’s grandfather, Yoshi. When she wakes up, her “wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape.” Charlie tells the man, “You realize that keeping a teenage girl tied up in your private office makes you look like a pervert, right?” The kidnapper forces Charlie to look for Newton’s discovery.   
  • When Yoshi drinks a potion and passes out, Kenji attacks Charlie. “Kenji clamped a hand on Charlie’s neck, hard enough to make her gasp. He pushed her against the wall. The rough stones jabbed into her back. Charlie struggled for breath, feeling her consciousness start to slip away.” Someone hits Kenji over the head and knocks him out. 
  • When Yoshi awakes, he tries to recapture Charlie. However, Newton helps her flee. Newton attacks Yoshi. “He drove Yoshi backward to a small ledge by a channel through which the lava was flowing. They tottered on the edge, then toppled into the channel. . . A burst of flame flared up as the molten rock consumed them.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • King John keeps wild animals as pets and gives them wine and beer to drink. 
  • Yoshi discovers a vial that he believes is Newton’s discovery. When he drinks it, “his eye bulged. His face turned red. His hands clutched at his throat as he wheezed.” He passes out. 
  • Isaac Newton was in a carriage when “one rioter managed to leap onto the running board . . . He was so drunk that Newton could smell the liquor on his breath.” 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • As Isaac Newton flees, a young scientist says, “God be with you.”  
  • When explorer James Cook went to Hawaii, he was mistaken as a “powerful Hawaiian God named Lono,” and “James and his men were showered with food and gifts.” The natives finally realized Cook was not a god, and a mob killed him. 
  • Newton hid his discovery because “there were many more who might think it was the result of witchcraft—or a pact with the devil—or other dark forces.”

Change the Game

Written by Colin Kaepernick and Eve L. Ewing and illustrated by Orlando Caicedo, Change the Game is a graphic novel that follows Colin Kaepernick’s high school years. This was a difficult and critical time for Kaepernick. With college fast approaching, he felt pulled between two career paths. He was an excellent baseball pitcher, earning him several offers from colleges, which his parents and teachers encouraged him to pursue. However, these deals saw him only for his athletic ability and disregarded his academic success.
Along with this, Kaepernick had no passion for baseball. Instead, he felt a strong calling for football. His high school football team was a place of comfort for him, where his closest friends played alongside him. Meanwhile, his high school baseball team was made up of mostly strangers who regularly made racist comments. When Kaepernick spoke up against his teammates, the coach scolded him. 

In Change the Game, readers will come to understand how Kaepernick’s love for football developed alongside his awareness of the racial prejudices of his environment. Kaepernick grew up in a predominately white small town. He lived in a household with white adoptive parents and siblings. Since most of his friends on his football team were people of color, Kaepernick felt he could truly be himself around them. Not only did his teammates share his love for football, but he could also talk to them about their mutual feelings growing up in their town.  

Caicedo’s dynamic illustrations help the reader understand Kaepernick’s feelings throughout the story. For example, Caicedo illustrates Kaepernick’s daydream of a potential baseball career in wavy, overlapping panels. The climactic playoff game is illustrated across a double-page spread, with a small, claustrophobic layout of panels depicting Kaepernick’s anxious, shifting focus; the pictures include a closeup of the ball being caught, a referee barking out calls, a closeup of a shouting fan. The illustrations help the reader fully understand the intensity and anxiety of the game. Each page’s panels have zero to eight sentences. 

The book ends with a section describing Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp, a free camp that raises awareness on higher education and self-empowerment for young people of color, as well as instructions on how to interact with law enforcement in various situations. The section includes photos from the camp and quotes from its members, who answer how they plan to “change the game” as future leaders of change. 

Overall, Change the Game is an excellently illustrated graphic novel led by Kaepernick’s candid and personal voice as he retells the beginning of his athletic career. In this book, Kaepernick stresses the valuable lesson these experiences taught him: you should always stand up for what is right, even if it feels uncomfortable. The story is sure to resonate with young readers who may share Colin’s experience as well as readers who may not already recognize the more covert examples of racial prejudice in their own environments. 

Sexual Content 

  • Colin describes a “sort of game” in which his father would ask him who on TV he found attractive. 

Violence 

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None 

Language 

  • Colin overhears a white student saying the “n” word. 
  • A member of Colin’s baseball team refers to a “Mexican stealing another job” from a white store owner. 
  • Colin describes how he would overhear white fans of his high school football team refer to the team’s Black members as “animals out there,” or “real beasts,” without acknowledging that these descriptions are dehumanizing. 

Supernatural 

  • None 

  

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Gamer Girls: 25 Women Who Built the Video Game Industry

Women have always made video games: from the 1960s, first-of-its-kind, projector-based Sumerian Game to the blockbuster Uncharted games that defined the early 2000s. Women have been behind the writing, design, scores, and engines that power one of the most influential industries out there. In Gamer Girls, you can explore the stories of 25 of those women. Bursting with bold artwork, easy-to-read profiles, and real-life stories of the women working on games like Centipede, Final Fantasy, Halo, and more, this dynamic illustrated book shows what a huge role women have played—and will continue to play—in the creation of video games.

With additional sidebars about other influential women in the videogame industry, as well as a glossary and additional resources page, Gamer Girls offers a look into the work and lives of influential pixel queens such as:   

  • Roberta Williams (one of the creators of the adventure genre) 
  • Mabel Addis Mergardt (the first person to write a video game) 
  • Muriel Tramis (the French “knight” of video games) 
  • Keiko Erikawa (creator of the otome genre) 
  • Yoko Shimomura (composer for Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts) 
  • Rebecca Heineman (first national video game tournament champion) 
  • Danielle Bunten Berry (creator of M.U.L.E. and early advocate for multiplayer games) 
  • And more! 

Anyone who plays or wants to make video games should read Gamer Girls, which gives readers a peek inside the video game industry. Many of the women made an impact on the video game industry by using their unique perspectives. The gamers discuss how they overcame obstacles; this includes creating new technologies that were necessary to bring their video game ideas to life. In addition, each woman gives advice. For instance, Kazuko Shibuya, the video game artist behind the Final Fantasy Series, explains: “There’s no substitute for experiencing things with your own two eyes, taking the whole atmosphere and context directly. A designer must hone all five of her senses. . . They are all connected to creativity. The more experiences you have to draw from, the more depth you will be able to impart to your creations.” 

Gamer Girls is broken into clear sections that are easy to follow. The first page introduces a new woman, features a full-page illustration of the woman, and lists her role in the video game industry. Each illustration is drawn using orange and purple, which give the pages a lively feel. Short sections titled “Side Quest” introduce other women who impacted the industry. And since some readers may not understand all of the technological terms, there is a glossary.  

Even girls who don’t dream of creating video games can still learn important lessons from the women featured in Gamer Girls. Donna Bailey, writer of the first romance game, advises, “Never stop learning new skills. Whether it’s choosing a new career because of a song, or leaving a career to reconnect with yourself, never lose the sound of your inner voice, and never lose curiosity.” Readers of Gamer Girls will come away feeling inspired to make their dreams come true. 

Sexual Content  

  • Game Developer Robin Hunicks spoke at a video game conference. “Robin quickly listed the types of game art displayed in hallways: ‘Sexy babes who can’t stop touching themselves. Coy babes who are kinda naked. Lesbian baaaaabes. Studded babes!. . . Latex babes.’ Hunicks went on to talk about how to reach women gamers.” After her rant, she “flipped the audience a set of double birds and walked off the stage.” 
  • A Japanese video game called Seduction of Condominium Wives was “a role-playing game in which a door-to-door salesman tries to sell condoms to women and fights Yakuza and ghosts.” 
  • Two video game designers became frustrated with people asking, “What’s the game mechanic for sex?” Later, they released “a game about sex that has nothing graphic in it. It’s a collection of flowers, shapes, colors, circles, and eyes.” 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None

Language  

  • One game developer’s advice is to “know your shit.” 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

And Break the Pretty Kings

Princess Mirae is destined to inherit a dark legacy: Her mother, Queen of the magical city of Seolla, is succumbing to madness, which has stemmed from her connection to the Inconstant Son, a mysterious entity trapped beneath Seolla who threatens to destroy the world. Now, with her mother’s health failing, Mirae must face a trial of the gods, who will decide if she’s worthy to follow in her mother’s footsteps as Queen. 

On the night of her trial, disaster strikes. When Mirae obtains the power of horomancy – controlling time – she unwittingly is trapped in a vision of the future. The Inconstant Son attacks the city during the chaos and kidnaps her brother, Minho, to turn him into a slave to govern his army of brainwashed soldiers. Mirae must save her brother, despite the premonition that she must let Minho die. Nevertheless, Mirae sets out on a journey with an unlikely group of companions while her unpredictable magic gives her terrifying visions of a future she must stop at any cost. 

After multiple meetings with the Inconstant Son, Mirae learns that Seolla – which only allows women to practice magic – has built their monarchy by branding the men who can do magic with a mark that represses their abilities. The man trapped beneath Seolla is not the Inconstant Son but instead his descendant, who has been trapped for centuries. This man – called the Netherking – wants to use Mirae’s brother to start a male-led revolution. In particular, he wants revenge on Mirae’s mother, who abandoned the Netherking’s beloved wife and daughter to an awful fate. As the story progresses, Mirae’s loyalties are tested as she finds it necessary to ally with the Netherking to get her brother back while also wanting to prevent him from destroying her kingdom. However, she tries to treat her enemies with grace. After stopping the Netherking’s plans, she gives his allies a new chance at life in Seolla despite their past wrongs.  

Mirae is a talented and promising young woman who always tries to find the bright side. For example, she professes, “There are two sides to every moon. . . depending on where you’re standing.” Even when she can’t see the path ahead, Mirae boldly forges her own. She is not solely good nor evil but understands both are part of life.   

Mirae, the rest of the supporting characters, and the story’s multiple villains all get their time to shine. The villains feature prominently in the story and have well-developed backstories, making the whole cast of characters seem less like villains and heroes and more like individuals trying to do what they think is right. This allows all of the characters to be compelling. 

From the beginning, many things are fated to be: The queens of Seolla go mad, men can’t practice magic, the kingdom of Josan is evil, and the Inconstant Son will ruin the world. However, the story’s events slowly convince Mirae that the destiny of her kingdom is not set in stone. She makes her own way forward, offering forgiveness to the misguided and defying the long-standing rivalry between Seolla and Josan. Her main concern is protecting those she loves, but she begins to see merit in uncovering the truth behind the Inconstant Son if it means bringing peace to both kingdoms.  

And Break the Pretty Kings is a very difficult read due to the intricate worldbuilding and endless unfamiliar terms. Almost every page references types of magic, types of people, and creatures of legend. Because of its complexities, the book is almost inaccessible to the average reader without a base knowledge of Korean folklore and culture. However, if you already have some knowledge, this book could be an enjoyable challenge as it blends fantasy with history in a unique way. Those who enjoy high fantasy stories with cultural ties and intricate worldbuilding will enjoy reading Mirae’s journey as she tries to change her fate.  

Sexual Content  

  • None

Violence  

  • Mirae’s mother is afflicted with madness, which causes her to attack her children. “Mirae lowered her damp palms, bidding the elements under her control to disperse. But they didn’t obey. Instead, the water roiled into a whirlpool of rage. . . As the droplets churned each other into chaos, Minho became nothing more than a flailing blur, fast running out of air. . . Mirae whirled towards the palanquin and saw a pale, skeletal arm reaching through the beaded curtains, stretching in Minho’s direction. A second later, her mother’s face pushed past the beads. . .The madness. It had taken hold of her mother, filling her mind with delusions once again. Turning her magic against those she loved. . . Mirae fell to her knees, gasping for air as her mother’s magic crushed her head and neck.” Mirae dispels the magic before she goes unconscious. 
  • Mirae hears the oracles that attended her trial being murdered. “The sound of something whipping through the air, trailing a series of clacking noises behind it. Chattering teeth or guttural clicks deep in the throat. More wet slices. Chokes and gurgles. Then the screams of oracles being murdered.” 
  • Mirae’s mother goes insane and attacks her husband. “Mirae shot one last look at her father. Her mother was sending more violet fireballs at him. . .” Mirae watched as “her father grabbed her face and kissed her, just as her clawlike hands raked red lines down his back, bloodying his blue robe like a smear of a sunset against a perfectly calm sky.”  
  • Minho is kidnapped and drowned in a tub of magical water. “A wide stone room [was] lined with deep basins. Each was filled to the brim with black water. . . The guards lifted [Minho], fighting futilely against them, into one of the tubs. They submerged all but his head, which he kept above the water with all his strength. [They] grabbed Minho’s hair and shoved his head under. Mirae watched, horrified, as the dark water bubbled with air her brother could no longer breathe. Once the ripples stopped altogether and the black water fell still, Minho floated to the surface face-down.” Minho is unconscious until his rescue. 
  • Mirae kills the Netherqueen. “Mirae lifted the sword over her head and struck the Netherqueen’s body with everything she had. As soon as the sword hit flesh, it glowed, slicing through the Netherqueen’s shoulder and lodging in her heart. Sparking, searing, smoking everything it touched except for Mirae’s hand.”   

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • Three types of magic exist and are mentioned frequently. They are known as Sacred Bone Magic. Sacred Bone Daughters are women in Seolla who are blessed by a magical lineage. 
  • The first type of magic is the ability to control the elements (earth, air, fire, and water). This magic is called Jade Witchery, which can be used to summon fire or manipulate the earth. For example, Mirae throws a fireball while training. “Mirae raised a hand to the heavens. . . A small, white-hot orb appeared in her palm; before its sharp heat could blister her skin, Mirae lobbed it with all her strength at her opponent.” 
  • Mirae witnesses someone using Jade Witchery to repair destruction in the palace’s courtyard. “Mirae heard the sound of the grass rustling as it righted itself and the ground rumbling as it stitched itself back together. It would be long before the field looked exactly as it had before, heeding the will of a powerful Jade Witch.”  
  • The second type of magic is illusory, called Ma-eum Magic. Mirae describes it as “the ability to trick an opponent into sensing something that wasn’t actually there.” Mirae uses this magic to change her appearance when she’s in the Josan kingdom so she can’t be recognized. It is used many times in the story to alter a character’s physical appearance, such as making them smell like perfume or altering their facial features. 
  • A general enchantment type of magic is also mentioned frequently, such as when Mirae enchanted a turtle to fly and talk, but the incident is not described. 
  • The third type of magic is called Horomancy, the ability to manipulate time. Mirae describes it: “Of the three magic systems, which exemplified the virtues of cunning, craftsmanship, and foresight, horomancy was the most enigmatic power. Mirae had never seen it used, though she knew that was for good reason. The rules of time were rigid, dangerous things to manipulate.”   
  • Hongbin, Mirae’s younger brother, thinks a visitor to the palace is a “gumiho,” a Korean creature of legend similar to a nine-tailed fox. He previously thought the visitor was a dokkaebi, the Korean name for demons. 
  • There are three powerful relics called the Sacred Bone Relics that correspond to the ancestors of the different branches of magic. They are the dagger of the Silver Star (representing Ma-eum magic), the seong-suk – a stone – of the Deep Deceiver (representing Jade Witchery), and the black bell of the Unnamed Dragon (representing Horomancy). Mirae chooses the black bell to guard her reign. 
  • After picking the bell, Mirae switches to another time period where she sees her brother, whose face looks “like he’d battled monsters and knew that the world held many, many things to fear.” She realizes she has used Horomancy to travel into the future. Several times, she switches time periods, which works like visions of the future that guide her on her journey. 
  • Mirae switches time and sees a festival in the spirit world where people dance and sing in animal masks.  
  • Mirae’s mother gifts a magical necklace with 12 beads depicting the 12 horoscope animals. Each bead contains a different power, which Mirae uses. For example, she uses an ox bead to gain strength. “She picked up the ox bead and put it on her tongue. The powers of the bead made her stumble back almost immediately with vertigo, trembles, goosebumps, and a crashing headache all at once. But the symptoms faded in seconds. As the bead warmed on her tongue, Mirae felt its power swell within her, roping around her muscles and making them bulge. Just then, the door to the room she was hiding in flew open, and Mirae reacted on instinct; she punched her opponent right in the chest with all the strength of an ox, throwing him through the door and into the wall behind him.” 
  • Mirae and her companions encounter a gwisin, the evil spirit of a woman who has suffered. This gwisin, the haggard moon gwisin, is described as having “hair dark and long enough to blend in with the spaces between trees. There was a starry paleness to her sleeveless knee-length dress, which wasn’t long enough to hide the fact that she didn’t have any legs – nor did she have a face. . . Gwisin lingered because they, or someone they loved, had been wronged. . . according to legend, the haggard moon gwisin [was] abandoned by a friend, left to die alone and in pain, and subsequently drowned anyone who showed her any kindness, before they had the chance to betray her too.” 
  • Mirae summons a dragon with Sacred Bone Magic. 

Spiritual Content  

  • The book frequently references mudang, the name for Korean shamans. These women are known for performing rituals in which gods possess them. When Mirae and her companions are traveling, she pretends to be one of these shamans, triggering her “switching” power instead of actually becoming possessed. 
  • The book also references “gods” or praying to the gods, but no gods are named in particular.  
  • Mirae’s family are known as the “gods-touched” guardians of Seolla. The gods are beings that are respected, and are often mentioned in the context of fate and destiny, such as “I could only do something like that with permission from the gods” or “I hope the gods are on our side.”  

The Red Pyramid

After his mom’s sudden death, Carter Kane has spent every moment traveling the world with his father, Dr. Julius Kane, an Egyptian scholar. While Carter’s sister, Sadie, has lived with her grandparents in the United Kingdom, where Carter and Julius visit her every year. What starts as a normal visit to the British Museum turns their lives upside down when their father accidentally summons several Egyptian gods and goddesses and is captured in the process.  

One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a “research experiment” at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them—Set–has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe — a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs. 

Along the way, Carter and Sadie meet Zia, a magician who is part of the House of Life, a group of magicians that Carter and Sadie’s parents were a part of. With her knowledge from being trained by the House of Life, Zia helps Carter and Sadie learn to use magic. “The Egyptian word shesh means scribe or writer, but it can also mean magician. This is because magic, at its most basic, turns words into reality.” Zia helps Sadie and Carter learn to develop their abilities as magicians, but she also becomes their friend; helping them fight chaos up until the final battle at the end of the book.  

The Red Pyramid shows the growth of Carter and Sadie’s friendship and relationship as siblings. They have lived apart for so long that they now have to get to know each other as pre-teens while they work together to learn about magic and save their dad. Each sibling is jealous of the other. Sadie says, “Poor [Carter], forced to travel the world, skip school, and spend time with Dad while I get a whole two days a year with him!” Carter responds, “You get a home! You get friends and a normal life and don’t wake up each morning wondering what country you’re in!” Eventually, Sadie and Carter learn to appreciate each other.  

Carter’s and Sadie’s experiences highlight how power in the wrong hands can be corrupt. For example, the god Set wanted the throne and power so badly that he imprisoned another god, Osiris, and harmed his sister, Isis, and her son, Horus. Horus tells this story to Carter and says, “Anger gave me the strength to defeat Set and take the throne for myself, you must do the same.” But unlike Horus and Set, Carter doesn’t want to rule. Carter says, “I don’t want a throne, I want my dad.” Carter and Sadie never give into the advantages that Set or the powers of chaos would give them, which makes them empathetic characters.  

Ultimately, The Red Pyramid leaves readers with an important message: you cannot assume anyone is completely good or completely evil. As their fight with Set ends, Sadie and Carter recognize that while Set is “evil, faithless, ruthless, vile . . . [Set] is also the strongest god” and they need his help to defeat the coming chaos, Apophis. Set is surprised by their ability to team up with him after all he’s done, but Carter and Sadie recognize, “we have to gain strength too—gods and men, united like in old times” to defeat Apophis, as “chaos is rising.”  

Readers who enjoy mythology, action, and magic will absolutely love Carter and Sadie’s journey in this book as they learn how to use their powers and make sacrifices to stop chaos from overtaking the world. Readers will empathize with Sadie and Carter as they strengthen their brother and sister bond while fighting to stop chaos and rescue their dad. This book will keep readers on the edge of their seats, eager to see what happens in the next book in the series. 

Sexual Content  

  • Sadie meets the god Anubis and says, “In person, if possible, Anubis was even more drop-dead gorgeous.”  
  • Carter says, “I was very aware of [Zia’s] shoulder pressed against mine . . . She had a dried chili stuck in her hair, and somehow that made her look even cuter.” 
  • Carter says, “Zia squeezed my hand, which sent a tingle up my arm.”  
  • Sadie sees a vision of the last time her parents saw one another: “They kissed one last time, as if they were saying goodbye.”  

Violence  

  • Carter explains that his mom died when he and Sadie were young. “I knew [mom] died in an accident in London. I knew my grandparents blamed my dad. But no one would ever tell us the details.” 
  • Carter and Sadie watch their dad fight a fiery being. “With another flick of his hand, he conjured a glowing coffin around our dad . . . My dad caught my eyes one last time, and mouthed the word Run! before the coffin sank into the floor, as if the ground had turned to water.”  
  • While entering the Land of the Dead, Sadie and Carter run into Shezmu, a creature defending the entrance. Shezmu explains that his role in the Land of the Dead is destroying the souls of wicked people after they have been judged by the God of the Dead, Osiris. Shezmu says, “Lord Osiris lets me behead the wicked! I crush them in my wine press, and make wine for the dead!”  
  • While the fiery god, Set, is fighting Carter, Sadie, and Zia, he threatens, “I will rend your limbs from their sockets!” For example, during this battle, when another magician arrives to help, Set quickly incapacitates him in a brutal way: “Set rose up behind [the magician] and swung his iron rod like a baseball bat. [The magician] tumbled, broken and unconscious, all the way down the pyramid.” 
  • Carter explains how easily Set is able to throw magicians around when they try to defeat him: “[Set] pointed at me, and I slammed against the wall, pinned as if an entire football team were holding me down.”  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • Carter and Sadie witness their dad using magic at the British Museum. “Dad was writing on the [Rosetta stone]. Wherever the [wand] made contact, glowing blue lines appeared on the granite. Hieroglyphs.” Carter and Sadie’s dad is opening the Rosetta Stone by writing magic hieroglyphs on it: “Dad raised his arms. He chanted: ‘Wo-seer, iei.’” Carter and Sadie’s dad is summoning the god of the dead, Osiris.  
  • Carter and Sadie realize they have magical powers when they reflect on a story from Sadie’s sixth birthday. Carter and Sadie were arguing and fighting with one another. Carter says, “We started yelling. [Sadie] grabbed my shirt. I pushed [Sadie] . . . Sadie’s birthday cake exploded.”  
  • Carter and Sadie accidentally awaken a shabti, a clay doll that can perform magic. Shabti “were supposed to come to life when their master called.” Several times, Carter and Sadie ask the Shabti to bring them information. 
  • When Sadie and Carter are about to be attacked by a scorpion goddess, Sadie’s cat, Muffin, turns into the Egyptian goddess of cats, Bast. Bast was a friend to Carter and Sadie’s parents and has promised to protect them as best she can. Sadie explains, “My cat was no longer there. In her place was a woman—small and lithe like a gymnast.” Bast is able to protect Carter and Sadie and she meets back up with them at a later point in the book after this battle.  
  • Carter and Sadie have unwittingly become hosts to the gods Horus and Isis. The goddess hosted by Sadie’s cat Muffin, Bast, explains, “Part of Isis’s spirit now resides inside [Sadie]. Just as Carter now carries the spirit of Horus.”  
  • Sadie and Carter see their dad in the Land of the Dead. He says, “I am both Osiris and Julius Kane. I am alive and dead . . . Osiris is the god of the dead, and the god of new life.” To bring Osiris back to his rightful place as a god, their dad had to die. 
  • Sadie and Carter also see their mom in the Land of the Dead, and she speaks with them reassuringly, explaining, “We can’t go back . . . But nothing is lost, even in death.”  

Spiritual Content  

  • The gods and goddesses of Egyptian mythology are a large portion of this book. However, instead of being reverently written, they act more like humans, showing traits like jealousy, vulnerability, and anger. For instance, Horus tries to influence Carter to take on more power and focus on anger: “Anger gave me the strength to defeat Set and take the throne for myself. [Carter] must do the same.”  
  • Uncle Amos explains to Carter and Sadie the ancient Egyptians’ understanding of the gods. Amos explains, “Egyptians had learned that their gods were not to be worshipped. They are powerful beings, primeval forces, but they are not divine in the sense one might think of God. [The gods] are created entities, like mortals, only much more powerful.”  
  • Carter’s dad gave him an ancient amulet that “was an eye of Horus, a popular protection symbol in Ancient Egypt.” 
  • The gods “cannot walk the earth in their pure form—at least, not for more than a few moments. They must have hosts [human hosts].” Carter and Sadie both unwittingly become hosts for Egyptian gods in this book. Carter hosts Horus and Sadie hosts Isis. Carter explains what it is like when he and Horus work together during a battle as Horus’ power allows Carter to have protective shields and amplified strength. Carter says, “[Horus] did not control me. I did not use [Horus] for power. We acted as one…My combat avatar formed around me, lifting me off the floor and encasing me with golden energy.”  
  • Sadie can communicate with Isis in her mind because she is hosting the goddess. Carter is able to do the same with Horus. Sadie describes struggling to decide what to do in the final battle: save her dad first or make sure Set is defeated. The discussion with Isis in Sadie’s mind is depicted, “Set must be dealt with first, Isis warned. But if I can free Dad…I stepped towards the throne. No, Isis warned. It is too dangerous.” Ultimately, Sadie works with Isis to defeat the chaos god Set. Sadie hosting Isis gives her the ability to open a magical portal. “‘A mortal can’t,’ [Sadie] agreed. ‘But a goddess can.’” 
  • Uncle Amos tells Carter and Sadie, “In the old days, the priests of Egypt would call upon these gods to channel their power and perform great feats. That is the origin of what we now call magic.”  
  • Uncle Amos explains an ancient Egyptian burial ritual: “In ancient times, the east bank of the Nile was always the side of the living, the side where the sun rises. The dead were buried west of the river. It is considered bad luck, even dangerous, to live there.”  
  • Carter and Sadie learn from the god Thoth that, “Everything in Creation has a secret name . . . Even gods.” And they learn that “To know a being’s name is to have power over that creature.”  
  • Before making an alliance with Set to fight chaos, Sadie and Carter ask Set to “Swear by your own name and the Throne of Ra” to ensure he keeps his word does so. 

Bruiser

Tennyson is not surprised, really, when his family begins to fall apart, or when his twin sister, Brontë, starts dating the misunderstood bully, Brewster (or The Bruiser, as the entire high school calls him). Tennyson is determined to get to the bottom of The Bruiser’s reputation, even if it means gearing up for a fight. Brontë, on the other hand, thinks there’s something special underneath that tough exterior. And she’s right . . . but neither she nor Tennyson is prepared for the truth of what lies below the surface.  

Told through Tennyson, Brontë, and Bruiser’s points of view, this dark, twisting novel explores friendship, family, and the sacrifices we make for the people we love. Shusterman masterfully weaves a haunting story that leaves the reader questioning what they would do in a similar situation to the book’s characters.  

Tennyson, Brontë, and Bruiser are not typical teens readers will relate to. In fact, Tennyson and Brontë aren’t very likable. Tennyson is a bully who ends up putting his own personal needs in front of everyone else—even if that means Bruiser gets hurt in the process. On the other hand, Brontë treats Bruiser like a project instead of a person. Even after Brontë realizes why Bruiser chooses not to have friends, she pushes him into her own social circle. Although Bruiser shares his secret with the siblings, Tennyson and Brontë don’t consider Bruiser’s needs. And in the end, readers will question if Bruiser was better off before Brontë takes an interest in him. 

Since Bruiser is narrated by Tennyson, Brontë, Brewster, and Brewster’s brother Cody, readers get an inside perspective of each character’s thought process. Each voice is distinctive and unique, especially Brewster’s point of view, which is written in poetry. Brewster’s point of view is haunting because it shows his pain, his isolation, and his struggle to balance his gift with the needs of others. The realistic conclusion doesn’t show a happy ever after for any of the characters. Instead, it leaves readers with this message: “Everyone must feel their own pain—and as awful as that is, it’s also wonderful.” 

The book’s point of view switches often, keeping the suspense high; this is one reason readers will not want to put the book down. Readers will also become emotionally attached to Bruiser, who is willing to sacrifice his own happiness to help the people he loves. To further that thought process, in the author’s note, Shusterman explains his inspiration for Bruiser and the questions the book explores. If you’re looking for a fun book with a hint of adventure and romance, Bruiser is not the book for you. However, Bruiser is a thought-provoking book that will linger with readers long after they put it down.  

Sexual Content  

  • While on a date with Brewster, Brontë “found myself leaning forward to kiss him. . . It was just a peck, really, and I moved so quickly that our teeth bumped.” 
  • After the first kiss, Brewster and Brontë kiss several times, but the kiss isn’t described.  
  • When Brewster moves in with Brontë’s family, her dad tells him, “You’ll never need to go upstairs.” This is where Brontë’s room is located. Brontë gets upset and yells, “My God, Dad, why don’t you install motion sensors on the stairs to make sure he doesn’t come up at night?” 
  • Brontë’s father had an affair. Brontë thinks, “Tennyson and I knew what Dad had done. We had been furious about it, because fathers aren’t supposed to have girlfriends—even if only for a short time.  
  • Tennyson sees his mom having lunch with another man. Tennyson thinks, “What’s she even doing sneaking around with this guy?”  
  • After a lacrosse match, Tennyson goes over to his girlfriend, and “I pull her in for a quick kiss. She doesn’t resist, but she does try to pull away after a second.” Afterward, the girlfriend breaks up with Tennyson. 

Violence  

  • Brewster’s younger brother is crying over a dead bull. His uncle tells the boy to “get your ass away from it.” When the boy doesn’t move, his uncle takes off his belt, and “he brings his arm back, threatening to swing the buckle.” Tennyson races toward them. “The moment I’m close enough, I realize my lacrosse stick is a weapon. . . Then I stare the man in his hateful, rheumy eyes and say, ‘If you hit that kid, I’ll take you down.’” 
  • After an awkward dinner at Brontë’s house, Brewster takes off. The next day, Brontë finds Brewster at his locker. “He turned to me and I found my arm swinging even before I was conscious of the motion. . .I slapped him so hard, his head snapped to the side, hitting his locker, which rang out like a bell. . . All of that fury I was feeling needed a way out.”  
  • Brewster and Cody’s uncle, Uncle Hoyt, become drunk and then go after Cody. “He grabs at me –missing mostly, but catching enough of my shirt to get me off balance. I fall, hitting the edge of the TV, and I know that Brew isn’t close because it hurts! . . . Uncle Hoyt tosses me, though, like I really am a rag doll. . . He moves closer. I can see his right hand clenching into a fist, and I know he’s gonna use it, so I reach for something.” Cody throws an ashtray, hitting Uncle Hoyt in the forehead. 
  • Uncle Hoyt takes Cody to the shed. Cody tries “to hide underneath the workbench. . . but he reaches right in and grabs my leg, and drags me out. I feel the concrete floor scraping my elbows; and as he pulls at me, I bite his arm with all the force I can. . .” Uncle Hoyt beats Cody until, “I close my eyes and stay limp, bouncing and flopping around the shed, lettin’ him kick, and hit, and pull, and tug.” The scene is described over five pages. 
  • Uncle Hoyt gets drunk again. Brewster “can smell scotch everywhere/ And wonder how much of that amber poison / Is pickling his brain.” Uncle Hoyt trashes the house, breaking everything. Uncle Hoyt has a stroke and dies.  
  • A cheerleader calls Brewster a psycho, and Brontë “gets into a death match catfight in the street” with the cheerleader.
  • While at a smoothie place, Ozzy, a teen who knows Brewster, starts saying mean things to Brewster. Tennyson jumps in to defend Brewster. When Tennyson makes fun of Ozzy, Ozzy pushes Tennyson and then hits him. Ozzy “lands one right on [Tennyson’s] mouth, then backs away to let it sink in.” Tennyson reacts, “Today I fight not to win, but to destroy. I start in on Ozzy with perfectly controlled methodology. . .” Tennyson hits him in the nose, and “I feel bone breaking against my knuckles. . . blood immediately begins to gush from his face, spilling onto the ground. He collapses. . .” The fight is described over five pages. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • When Tennyson meets Uncle Hoyt, Tennyson “can tell he’s either drunk or hungover.” 
  • Brontë’s dad came home and opened a bottle of wine. “Tonight, he guzzled the first glass with the wine bottle still in his hand and poured a second.” Brontë tells him, “Dad, save the second glass for dinner.”  
  • When Uncle Hoyt is upset, “he goes drinking so as to get himself nice and mean. That’s why he drinks—he wants to get super-mean instead of just regular-mean, and he needs alcohol to get there.” 
  • Cody hears Uncle Hoyt on the phone. “He’s already been drinking, and he’s slurring his words.”  

Language  

  • Profanity is used very rarely. Profanity includes ass, crap, goddamn, and hell. 
  • “For God’s sake” and “Oh my God” are used as exclamations several times. 

Supernatural 

  • If Brewster cares about a person, he takes away their physical and emotional hurts. He has no control over this. For example, Brontë cuts her hand. The next time she is close to Brewster, she notices Brewster bleeding. “I could see the wound clearly now. It was my wound. Same size, same place. Only now it was on his hand.” 
  • Brewster’s brother, Cody, jumps off the roof. “. . . I landed on my feet, they slid out from under me because the ground was muddy. . . I felt the bone snap. . . I was getting ready to feel the hurt that I knew would be coming, but it didn’t come. Instead, when I lifted my arm from the ground, the snap undid itself; and I heard Brewster screaming’ bloodymurder.” Brewster’s arm was broken, but Cody’s arm was uninjured. 
  • Uncle Hoyt gives Brewster “his bursitis, his ulcers, and every one of his aches and pains.”  
  • Uncle Hoyt “took his cigarette out of his mouth. . . then he slowly lowered the lit end toward his arm, just beneath his elbow. He pressed the cigarette to his own skin. . . There was a red spot on his arm, but only for a couple of seconds and then it was gone. And inside Brew screamed bloodymurder.” 
  • While swimming alone, Brontë slips on the ladder rungs and hits her head, “knocking [her] unconscious.” Brewster finds her and pulls her out of the water. He thinks, “I have one last gift for you, Brontë, and it’s one you can’t refuse. /Inches from you now, I stop kicking, let my arms relax. /They drift down to my side. . .She starts to revive, I start to let go, /Giving myself to the waters.” Brewster willingly takes Brontë’s injuries and ends in the hospital in a coma. 

Spiritual Content  

  • Several times, when talking about his mom, Tennyson says, “God rest her soul.” 
  • When thinking about kids who are bullied, Tennyson thinks, “Thank God I’m good at sports, or I might have been pegged early in life and beaten up in the hallways.” 
  • When Uncle Hoyt is having a stroke, he asks Brewster to take his pain. Brewster doesn’t because “Your death is yours alone, Uncle Hoyt; it’s what you created, what you’ve earned. And you’ll know soon enough if God truly has mercy enough to forgive you. Because I can’t.” 
  • After Uncle Hoyt dies, Tennyson and Brontë’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gorton, take Brewster and Cody in. “Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Gorton are very big in their church, which means setting an example as Pillars of Virtue and doing the whole What Would Jesus Do? thing.” 
  • After Tennyson and Brontë’s parents take in Brewster and Cody, the social worker says, “God bless you. God bless you both.” 

Abracadabra: The Story of Magic Through the Ages

A magician never reveals his secrets . . . but HP Newquist does, in this illustrated history of magic and famous magicians!

Magic is a word we use to describe something amazing, awe-inspiring, or spectacular. Truly great magic makes us believe in things we know can’t be real. In the hands of the greatest magicians, even a simple card trick can become truly wondrous.

Now, in this nonfiction narrative of magic through the ages, HP Newquist explains how the world’s most famous tricks were created. From the oracles of ancient Egypt and the wizards of medieval Europe to the exploits of Houdini and modern practitioners like Criss Angel, this book unlocks the secrets behind centuries of magic and illusion. 

This fascinating book will astound readers as they learn about the history of magic. While much of the information will surprise readers, they will recognize some of the famous magicians the book discusses such as Robert-Houdin, P. T. Barnum, David Copperfield, and others. Although the stories are interesting on their own, the book also includes drawings, artwork, and pictures every one to three pages. These graphic elements break up the text and help readers understand some of the more complicated tricks.  

Abracadabra: The Story of Magic Through the Ages includes information on magic tricks such as who created the trick and how the trick works. In addition, the book also explains the social and cultural climate of the time. For instance, in the 1800s France controlled Algeria in North Africa. “A small group of Muslim holy men. . . planned to revolt against the French government.” The French government hired Robert-Houdin to trick the Algerians with magic. The Algerians believed Robert-Houdin had incredible powers and “they decided not to rebel against the French.” In addition to interesting historical facts, the book also covers how the business of magic changed throughout time.  

Abracadabra: The Story of Magic Through the Ages is packed full of interesting facts and will springboard readers’ interest in the most famous magicians throughout time. The interesting facts, fun format, and engaging text make Abracadabra: The Story of Magic Through the Ages a book that everyone can enjoy. And for those who dream of bringing a little magic to life, there are step-by-step instructions for eight classic magic tricks.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • During the Dark Ages, people who performed magic were accused of “practicing black magic. Witch hunts occurred regularly throughout Europe as villagers sought to destroy anyone they thought might be a witch. Many suspected witches were arrested and executed.”  
  • During the 1500s, “people began to look to both science and religion instead of local superstition to help them understand their daily lives.” People started exploring science. “Nonetheless, religion was still a more important part of people’s lives than science. And many religious leaders of the time didn’t like science. . . To stop scientists and others who didn’t follow its teachings, the church began inquisitions. . .” People who did not practice religion were “imprisoned, tortured, or executed.”  
  • In 1584, Reginald Scot wrote The Discovery of Witchcraft which “stated that there were no such things as witches or wizards, and no one on Earth had the power to control nature or change the things God made. . .” Outraged, King James and his soldiers burned all of the copies they could find. 
  • After a show, magician Harry Houdini was “relaxing on a couch. . . talking to some college students about how strong his stomach and chest muscles were.” One of the students “hit him several times without warning. Houdini had no time to prepare for the punches, which came hard and fast.” Houdini didn’t realize how badly he had been injured and died because of “a ruptured appendix and peritonitis.” 
  • Magicians Siegfried & Roy stopped performing after “Roy was mauled onstage in 2003 by one of the tigers in their act.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • During the Dark Ages, people believed “good things came from God and bad things came from the devil. Many churches in Europe even claimed that magicians were friends of the devil. . . Since God didn’t give men and women magical powers, there was only one explanation for magicians: they must have gotten their special powers from the devil.” 

Last Ride

Tom killed his best friend, Logan, in a street-racing accident a year ago. He tries to make amends to Logan’s girlfriend and keep his promise to never race again, but Tom thinks he is haunted by his dead friend. He thinks Logan is trying to tell him something. Not only that but because Tom faces huge medical bills from the accident and may have to give up his car, the pressure to race is almost unbearable. 

Last Ride focuses on Tom, who is living in guilt and fear. When Tom starts seeing Logan’s ghost, Tom thinks he’s being haunted because Logan is angry—angry that Tom caused Logan’s death and angry that Tom has a crush on Hannah, Logan’s girl. In addition to feeling guilty about Logan’s death, Tom also feels terrible that he has left his mom drowning in medical bills. While the details of Logan’s death are never explored, one thing is clear: Tom feels that without racing, he has no value. 

When Logan’s ghost finally gets Tom’s attention, Tom is surprised at Logan’s message: the accident wasn’t his fault. In addition, Logan wants Tom to stop living in fear. Logan says, “You’re scared you don’t measure up. . . You think you’re nothing without five thousand pounds of steel between you and the world.”  

Logan’s words make Tom examine his fears. Tom is afraid that without racing, he will lose his car, his chance to help his mom and his pride. He also worries, “What if I give it all up, and Hannah still doesn’t want me?” In the end, Tom finally finds the strength to give up racing and to make plans for the future. Plans that don’t include illegal activities, but instead focus on going to school to become a licensed mechanic. 

While most readers won’t relate to Tom’s conflicts, his insecurities, and uncertainty about the future will resonate with many teens. As a part of the Orca Soundings Series, which is specifically written for teens, Last Ride is an easy-to-read story that uses large text, short chapters, and a relatable protagonist to keep readers engaged. 

Last Ride gives readers a glimpse into the life of a street racing teen and shows the negative side effects of living a life involved in illegal activities. While Tom’s problems are not explored in detail, he regrets his past actions and is determined to change his life for the better. Even though readers get an inside look at Tom’s emotional conflicts, the story still has enough drama to keep readers interested until the end. Plus, Tom’s experiences show that people’s value doesn’t come from the car they drive or the possessions they own. 

Sexual Content  

  • Tom goes to a party. When he gets there, Aisha wants to dance with Tom. She “plants a wet, sloppy kiss on my cheek.” Another guy notices Aisha. “Cole’s eyes are trained on Aisha’s breasts, which are practically spilling out of her tank top.”  
  • While in class, Tom is talking to Hannah. However, Tom isn’t thinking about what Hannah is saying. Instead, “I’ve been mostly thinking about her breasts in that sweater.” Later, he thinks, “I wish I could throw my arms around her neck and kiss her. I wish I had the hots for someone other than my dead buddy’s girlfriend.”  
  • While at school, Hannah walks up to Cole, a classmate. Cole “pulls her into the crook of his arm and kisses her temple.” 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Tom goes to a party at a teen’s house. When Tom enters the house, “The overpowering smell of smoke and booze hits my nose.” Several of the guys are “doing shooters.” There is plenty of alcohol at the party including tequila, beer, and vodka.  
  • The man Tom works for smokes cigarettes.  
  • While at work, Tom’s boss eats pizza and drinks a beer. 

Language  

  • Profanity is used occasionally. Profanity includes ass, badass, crap, damn, hell, holy shit, and pissed. 
  • A teen calls Tom’s boss a prick. 
  • The ghost of Logan calls Tom a dweeb, a wuss, and a loser.

Supernatural 

  • Tom keeps seeing flashes of his best friend, Logan. Before he sees Logan, Tom smells cherry Twizzlers, Logan’s favorite treat. While racing, Tom feels “that familiar prickle. . . There’s a flash of movement off to my right. It’s Logan. Staring at me from the passenger seat. One side of his face is cut and bleeding, the other is smashed beyond recognition.”  
  • Logan’s ghost wants Tom to stop living in fear. After talking, “Logan dips his head the way he used to. For a second, I [Tom] forget about his blood and ripped skin and exposed flesh. I see Logan, my friend. And I miss him.” Then, Logan disappears.  

Spiritual Content  

  • Tom sees Logan’s sister walking across the street. He slinks down so she doesn’t see him. Tom thinks, “Thank God I’m in the car. Thank God my steel shell is protecting me. I couldn’t stand her seeing me like this.”  

Pemmican Wars

Echo Desjardins, a 13-year-old Métis girl adjusting to a new home and school, is struggling with loneliness while separated from her mother. Then, an ordinary day in Mr. Bee’s history class turns extraordinary, and Echo’s life will never be the same. During Mr. Bee’s lecture, Echo finds herself transported to another time and place—a bison hunt on the Saskatchewan prairie—then she finds herself back in the present. In the following weeks, Echo continues to slip back and forth in time. She visits a Métis camp, travels the old fur-trade routes, and experiences the perilous and bygone era of the Pemmican Wars. 

Echo knows little about the Métis, the First Nations tribe from which she is descended. Even though Echo’s “grandpa was very proud to be Métis,” neither Echo nor her mother know much about their heritage. However, at the end of the book, Echo teaches her mother what she learned at school.  

Readers will have to rely on visual cues to understand Echo’s life because the graphic novel uses few words. In fact, Echo only has 20 lines of dialogue, and many are one-word responses. Despite this, Echo’s isolation is clear. Throughout the school day, Echo doesn’t interact with other students and tunes out the world by listening to music. When she goes home, there is little interaction with her foster mother or the other residents. Instead, Echo hides in her room. When Echo visits her mom, the two are not comfortable with each other, which adds to the feeling of isolation.  

When Echo enters the past, a young Métis takes her into the camp. Here, Echo learns about her people and watches a battle between the Métis and white settlers. In the current time, Echo’s history teacher, Mr. Bee encourages Echo to learn more about Métis history. Mr. Bee says, “The Métis have many things to be proud of. . . You’re not any less Métis because you don’t know your history.”  

Since most of the story is told through illustrations, the story lacks development. For example, Echo lives in a foster home. However, it’s unclear why Echo doesn’t live with her mother. Despite the lack of character development, the book teaches about the Pemmican Wars and explains how the Northwest Company and the Hudson Bay Company fought for dominance in the fur trade. During this time, the Métis’s land was taken over by white settlers, who demanded the Métis not sell pemmican or use horses to hunt buffalo.  

Including more historical information would help readers understand the significance of the Pemmican Wars. However, the book does include a timeline of the Pemmican Wars, a Pemmican recipe, and a poem about the wars. While the book doesn’t go in-depth, it shows the harmful effects of colonization, which are still felt by the Métis today. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • A battle between the Métis and white settlers is depicted over two pages. One illustration shows the Métis shooting at the white settlers. In the image, one man is in mid-fall with blood splatter around him while a Métis warrior, who has been shot in the chest, is being carried to safety. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Notable Native People

This beautifully illustrated collection celebrates the lives, stories, and contributions of Indigenous artists, activists, scientists, athletes, and other changemakers. From luminaries of the past—like nineteenth-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis, the first Black and Native American female artist to achieve international fame—to contemporary figures—like linguist Jessie Little Doe Baird, who revived the Wampanoag language—Notable Native People highlights the vital impact Indigenous dreamers and leaders have made on the world.

This powerful and informative collection also offers accessible primers on important Indigenous issues, from the legacy of colonialism and cultural appropriation to food sovereignty, land and water rights, and more. Notable Native People is an indispensable read for people of all backgrounds who are seeking to learn about Native American heritage, histories, and cultures.  

Notable Native People highlights native people who use their talents to improve the world. The book showcases native people from North America—including Hawaii and Alaska—and introduces artists, activists, authors, engineers, public speakers, etc. Readers will see how each person contributes to their tribe and positively impacts others.  

The book’s format is visually appealing. Each two-page spread features a full-page illustration of a person with a one-page passage. The illustration also includes an item important to the person. For example, Edmonia Lewis (a sculptor) is pictured with one of her sculptures and while Tallchief (a ballerina) appears in a ballet costume. While most people featured are still living, some lived during the 1800s.  

Anyone who wants to learn more about native history will be inspired by reading Notable Native People. Each person explains how their culture shaped them and discusses why keeping their traditions and ancestorial knowledge intact is important. Navigator Nainoa Thompson said, “Our people and those who come here should know the richness of our heritage. And not only know that but respect it.”   

Notable Native People will appeal to a wide range of readers, especially those interested in native history and the effects of colonization. Each person featured is inspiring because they are dedicated to a cause close to their heart, and they use their skills and passion to honor their tribe. Notable Native People will help dispel stereotypes surrounding native people and give readers a better understanding of native cultures. In addition, the stories will motivate people to positively impact their community.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel is a professional runner who participates in prayer runs. “These runs raise awareness for specific Native causes, and the participants use the runs as a ceremonial space to pray. . . You’re giving up that time and space . . . for your loved ones, for your relatives, for your communities, and staying in prayer and praying for them.” 
  • Kanaka Maoli, wife of a Hawaiian ruler and co-regent to the king, converted to Christianity in 1824. 

Rez Ball

These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team—even though he can’t help but be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. 

When Jaxon’s former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his dream of playing in the NBA, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him. 

But stepping into his brother’s shoes as a star player means that Tre can’t mess up. Not on the court, not at school, and not with his new friend, gamer Khiana, who he is definitely not falling in love with. After decades of rez teams almost making it, Tre needs to take his team to state. Because if he can live up to Jaxon’s dreams, their story isn’t over yet.  

Anyone who feels as if their siblings overshadow them will relate to Tre, who often feels like he is walking in his brother’s shadow, even after his brother dies. As a sophomore, Tre is excited when he’s called up to the varsity team, hoping to prove his worth, but he struggles to fit in with Jaxon’s old teammates. In addition, the team likes to party with drugs and alcohol. Tre jumps into the party scene because he wants his teammates to think he is cool. Even though Tre’s parents know he is partying, they ignore the behavior. When Tre’s drinking begins to affect his basketball-playing ability, he finally confronts his teammates and asks them to make a pact to stop drinking until after the playoffs.  

Tre is a well-rounded person who loves basketball, superheroes, and hanging out with his best friend. Readers will relate to Tre’s struggle to fit in with his teammates and his desire to prove his worth on the basketball court. Tre exercises and practices during the summer to prepare for the basketball season. His motivation and determination are admirable qualities. Tre’s struggle to adjust to playing varsity and to fit in with his teammates is realistic and authentic. Through Tre’s experiences, readers will see the importance of friendship and forgiveness.  

Rez Ball shows the unique challenges that come with growing up on an Ojibwe reservation. Tre and his friends experience discrimination and police harassment. In addition, Tre must overcome the belief that, as an Indian, he isn’t capable of making it to the NBA. Rez Ball is first and foremost a book about basketball and there are many play-by-play basketball scenes. Yet, Tre’s family and school life is interspersed throughout the book, allowing the reader to understand how all aspects of Tre’s life affect him. Readers will also appreciate the references to comic books, superheroes, and Star Wars. 

By writing Rez Ball, Graves wanted to encourage other Native athletes to “Keep your heads up; keep your dreams alive. Have fun. Be grateful for what we do have, but don’t be afraid to go after more.” Ultimately, Tre’s team doesn’t win state, but their winning streak helps bring their community together. In addition, the story ends on a hopeful note—Tre gets his first recruitment letter from a university and his future looks bright. Sports enthusiasts should also read the true story Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Sheinkin. To learn more about the conflicts unique to indigenous people, read Powwow Summer by Nahanni Shingoose. 

Sexual Content  

  • Tre and his friend Khiana are standing by Tre’s locker. When Tre’s friends sees them, he asks, “Are you two banging now or what?” They are interrupted before Tre or Khiana has time to answer. 
  • Khiana tells Tre about a past relationship with another girl. Khiana says, “I’m two-spirit, which among other things means I date boys and girls.” 
  • Tre is getting ready to leave to pick up Khiana. His uncle “Ricky reaches for his wallet in his pocket. ‘You need protection. I might have some in my wallet.’” Tre’s dad gets upset and replies, “He’s not a hornball like you were in high school.”  
  • Khiana shows up at Tre’s house wearing pajamas, which “turns on” Tre. Later, when Khiana sees Tre’s expressions, she says, “I know that look. . . The doe-eyed, falling-in-love look.” She tells Tre that she only likes him as a friend.

Violence  

  • Tre tells a new girl about the gangs by the reservation. “They’re here. Once in a while something messed up happens. Someone will get stabbed or shot. But I think they mainly sell drugs.” 
  • At a party, Tre gets drunk and starts yelling at his best friend, Wes. Tre says, “What the fuck ever. Fuck you, Wes. Fake-ass friend. Get the fuck out of here.” The partygoers encourage Tre and Wes to fight. Tre describes, “I finish my beer, crush it in one hand, then throw it at Wes. It smacks his forehead. He punches me. I grab my lower jaw; the pain is instant and sharp. . . I shove him down, jump on top of him, and throw wild punches at his face. People try to pull me off, but I keep slipping free to punch again. . .” Someone finally pulls Tre off of Wes.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Tre’s dad smokes cigarettes and drinks beer often. In addition, when Tre’s uncles come over, they also drink beer.
  • Tre and the other basketball players often party where there is alcohol and weed. For example, Tre and his friend go to a party at a basketball player’s house where there is alcohol and a “cloud of weed.” Tre takes a drink of vodka. “I almost die coughing it up.” Tre doesn’t drink anymore. 
  • At one party, Tre worries about what his teammate, Mason, will do. “I worry that he’s drunk and going to be even more ballsy than normal.” To look cool, Tre drinks beer and tequila shots. “I lose track of how many drinks I’ve had. But my lips feel numb, and I’m no longer steady on my feet.” Most of the people get drunk.  
  • At one party, Tre gets really drunk. “The next morning, I struggle to walk, still feeling dizzy and a little drunk.” Another time, Tre gets so drunk that he goes home and “collapse onto my bed. . . When I close my eyes, the room spins. My tongue feels sandy. I’m dying for water or Gatorade, but if I drink anything, it’s coming right back up.”  
  • One of the basketball player’s dads is known as “the guy who brings the drugs in.” 
  • When Tre goes to his friend’s house, the basement smells like weed. 
  • Tre goes to a school dance and one of his friends takes out a flask. Tre and a few other guys take a swig and then chew gum to cover the smell. Later, two of the guys get suspended from basketball because they got caught drinking.  
  • One of the basketball players tells Tre that after high school, they will “go to work at the casino, or sling weed, or end up alcoholics, hooked on drugs, or dead.” 
  • Tre and his teammates often party and get drunk. Tre’s friend, Dallas, often drives Tre to the parties. Even though Dallas drinks and drives, Tre doesn’t say anything because he’s “trying to be cool.” 
  • When Tre’s dad was in high school, his team spent days “partying nonstop. They were so hungover that they got their asses handed to them in the regional tournament.”  

Language  

  • Profanity is used excessively among teens and adults. Profanity includes ass, bitch, damn, fuck, goddamn, hell, pissed, and shit. 
  • Christ, Jesus Christ, oh my God, holy and holy shit are used as exclamations frequently.  
  • During a game, Tre’s basketball coach yells at him. “You’re running around out there like a goddamn crackhead on the first of the month.”  
  • Infrequently, there is name calling such as bastard, bitch, and dick. 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • At a tournament game, “some of the older white fans have their hands clasped in nervous prayer as they stare up at the scoreboard.” When a player sees the fans, he says, “Jesus was Black.”  
  • At dinner, Tre’s parents often talk about his brother Jaxon. “I swear to the Creator, almost every dinner, he’s all they talk about.”  
  • Tre isn’t sure what to do at a game until Dallas, one of the basketball players, waves Tre over. Tre thinks, “Thank the Creator for Dallas.”  
  • While at a party, Tre gets drunk and still drinks Jose Cuervo. “I throw back my shot and almost put it up. . . I’m holding a balled fist up to my mouth, praying to the Creator I don’t hurl all over the table.”  
  • After getting into a fight and getting a black eye, Tre prays “to the Creator that my mom can do something” to help cover his bruise. 
  • After Tre gets into a fight with his best friend, Tre’s mom says, “We need to smudge you down before you leave.” Then she takes a “shell with sage burning in it [and]. . . waves the smoke around me, I close my eyes, instantly feeling a bit better about everything.” Afterward, his mom says, “There’s a pouch of tobacco on the kitchen table. You need to put some out before you leave. Talk to the Creator. Thank him for today, for everything you have, and ask him to give you the courage to make things right.” 
  • Before a tournament game, the coach smudges the team. “Coach comes out from a back office with sage burning in a shell. We stand as he walks by us, one by one. We wave the smoke closer, carrying it up and over the back of our heads.” Afterward, the coach shows the guys footage of the team they are about to play. 

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 

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.”

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

Nujood Ali’s childhood came to an abrupt end in 2008 when her father arranged for her to be married to a man three times her age. With harrowing directness, Nujood speaks of her husband’s abuse and her daring escape. With the help of local advocates and the press, Nujood obtained her freedom—an extraordinary achievement in Yemen, where almost half of all girls are married under the legal age. Nujood’s courageous defiance of both Yemeni customs and her own family has inspired other young girls in the Middle East to challenge their marriages.  

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced allows readers to step inside of Nujood’s life and experience the horrifying experience of being a child married to an abusive man. Since Nujood tells her own story, readers can easily empathize with her. However, many readers may have a difficult time understanding how child marriages are considered normal due to Yemin’s culture and poverty. Nujood’s experiences will leave a lasting impact, but the details of abuse may cause nightmares.  

Nujood’s experience shines a light on Yemeni culture, especially their view of women, who have no power of choice. After Nujood is married, her mother-in-law is just as cruel as her husband. When Nujood tells her parents of the abuse, they are more concerned with the family’s honor than Nujood’s well-being. But the hopelessness of Nujood’s situation doesn’t stop her from bravely going against her family’s and her culture’s beliefs in order to divorce her husband. 

Nujood’s siblings also suffer because of their family’s poverty. As a child, Nujood’s sister, Mona, was raped and forced to marry her attacker. Then when Mona’s husband is put in jail for adultery, Mona loses custody of her daughter. Meanwhile, Nujood’s brother runs away from home hoping to find a better life. When he disappears, the family wonders if he has become the victim of sex traffickers. While readers will feel empathy for Nujood’s family, the graphic details are disturbing and emotionally upsetting.  

The story has a hopeful ending. On November 10, 2008, Nujood was named “Woman of the Year” by Glamour. The epilogue explains how this changed Nujood’s life. Unfortunately, if readers do more research about Nujood, they will find that Nujood was not able to break free from her family and fulfill her desire to be a lawyer. Many people in Yemen were not sympathetic to Nujood, but supported her father. In addition, women are not allowed to own money so Nujood’s father was able to squander her money. Nujood eventually remarried without realizing her dreams.  

Reading I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced may leave readers feeling helpless. However, readers who want to learn more about child marriages should read Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time by Tanya Lee Stone; this book doesn’t give graphic details of abuse and it provides age-appropriate advice on how teens can help change the lives of girls in poverty-stricken countries. 

Sexual Content  

  • Nujood’s brother, Fares, ran away from home. Her parents speculated that “Fares had been the object of child trafficking.” The notes at the back of the book explain the cultural significance of child trafficking and how most cases of sexual abuse are rarely recorded. 
  • One of the reasons Nujood’s father wanted her to get married is to “protect her. . . This way she won’t be raped by a stranger and become the prey of evil rumors.” Nujood’s husband “promised not to touch Nujood until she is older.” Despite this, Nujood’s husband raped her on their first night together.  
  • On Nujood’s first night with her husband, he came into her room. “I recognized him right away from that overpowering odor of cigarettes and khat. He stank! Like an animal! Without a word, he began to rub himself against me.” 
  • Nujood tries to fight her husband. “When he took off his white tunic, I rolled into a ball to protect myself.” Nujood screamed for help, but no one came. “Suddenly it was as if I’d been snatched up by a hurricane, flung around, struck by lightning . . . it was then that something burning, a burning I had never felt before, invaded the deepest part of me. No matter how I screamed, no one came to help me. It hurt, awfully, and I was all alone to face the pain.” The rape is described over three pages.  
  • After Nujood runs away, she spends the night at a judge’s house with his family. “What happiness, not to fear blows from a stick, or tremble at the thought of going to bed, or flinch at the slightest sound of a door closing.” Nujood has nightmares about her abuse.  
  • After Nujood’s wedding night, both her mother-in-law and sister-in-law barge into Nuood’s room to congratulate her. Nujood is embarrassed to be found naked next to her husband. “There he is, on the mat, sound asleep. . . What a monster! On the rumpled sheets, I see a little streak of blood. . . With a sly smile, she studies the red stain.” Nujood wondered why neither of the women came to help her as she screamed.  
  • Nujood’s nights become “hell.” Her husband would return home and “when night fell, I knew what would begin again. The same savagery, the same pain and distress. . . the sheets getting all twisted up. . . It was on the third day that he began hitting me.” 
  • When Nujood told her mother about her experiences, her mother said, “That’s how life is. Nujood: all women must endure this; we have all gone through the same thing.” 
  • Mona, Nujood’s sister, had a turbulent marriage. Mona explains, “Mohammad, my husband, had been found in our oldest sister Jamila’s bedroom. I’d been having my suspicions for some time. . . I had people come who caught them red-handed.” Both Mona’s husband and sister are put in prison for adultery. 
  • When Mona was younger, a thirty-year-old man appeared at her house. “He began making advances toward me, and no matter how hard I tried to chase him away, he managed to push me into the bedroom. I fought back, I screamed, I yelled.” After the rape, Mona was quickly married to the man, “before rumors could spread . . . In the name of honor!”  
  • One of Nujood’s teachers tells her about a girl who “left school suddenly. . . I learned that the child had gotten married and had a baby. At thirteen!” 
  • The epilogue gives several other examples of girls who were forced to marry at a young age. One nine-year-old was married to a Saudi man and “died three days after her wedding. Instead of demanding an investigation. . . her parents hastened to apologize to the husband. . . and even offered him. . . the dead child’s seven-year-old sister.”  
  • A ten-year-old girl was married and later was “convicted of killing her husband.” She spent 10 years in jail before being released. 

Violence  

  • One of Nujood’s brothers habitually hit her; however, the abuse isn’t described. 
  • When Nujood tried to fight off her husband, “he would start to hit me, first with his hands, then with a stick. Thunder and lightning, over and over. And his mother egged him on.” When Nujood tried to run from her husband, her mother-in-law said, “Hit her even harder. She must listen to you—she is your wife.” This description lasts for two pages.  
  • When the judge asks Nujood why she wants a divorce, she says, “Because my husband beats me.” Nujood wants to be, “Without a husband, without that dread of finding myself alone, at nightfall, in the same bedroom with him. Without that fear of suffering, over and over, that same torment.” 
  • Nujood’s mother-in-law demands that Nujood work all day. “Whenever I stopped for a moment, my mother-in-law pulled my hair with her filthy hands.” 
  • When Nujood tells her parents that she wants a divorce, her father says, “If you divorce your husband, my brothers and cousins will kill me! Sharaf, honor, comes first.” 
  • While Nujood’s parents were away, her sister Mona was sexually assaulted and then quickly married to her attacker. After Mona is married, her father is upset that the neighbors did not help Mona. He said that the “neighbors were responsible, that someone had certainly meant to harm him by attacking his children. . .” Her father confronted the neighbors. “The neighbors came back with revolvers. They threatened us, ordering us to get out of the village right away.” The family had to move away.   

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Someone from family planning gave Nujood’s mother, “a prescription for tablets to keep her from getting pregnant, and she took them from time to time, on days when she remembered them. One month later, though. . . her belly began to swell again.” 
  • In Yemen, many men, including Nujood’s father, would chew khat. “He claimed it helped him forget his troubles.” The notes page explains the cultural significance of khat and how it’s used to “forget hunger and fatigue.” The explanation lasts for more than half a page.

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • The story takes place in Yemen and often refers to Muslim traditions. For example, Nujood’s father tries to get a day laborer job “just after the first azaan, the tradition summons to prayer called out five times a day by the muezzins from the minarets of their mosque.” 
  • When Nujood goes to the court to request a divorce, she thinks, “If God exists, then let Him come save me. I have always recited the five required daily prayers. . . Oh God, have pity on me!” 
  • Several times Nujood refers to Ramadan, “The Islamic holy month of fasting.”  
  • Nujood’s mother had sixteen children, but four of them died before their birth and four died in infancy. When Nujood was born, her mother was “begging God to protect her newborn.” 
  • Before being married, Nujood and Mona would go look at the clothing shops that sold wedding dresses. Mona said, “God willing, you’ll have one like this the day of your wedding.” 
  • When Nujood learns that she is to be married, her sister Mona says that she is too young for marriage. Her father replies, “When the prophet Mohammed wed Aisha, she was only nine years old.” 
  • On her wedding day, Nujood and her mother “bowed down before God, reciting the first prayer of the day.”  
  • After getting married, Nujood travels to her new home with her husband’s family. Because the roads are bad, the driver says, “God made nature tough, but luckily he made men even tougher!” Nujood thinks, “If the driver is right, then God must have forgotten to include me.” 
  • After running away, the judge arranges for Nujood to live with her uncle, Shoyi. “I thanked God for not allowing Shoyi to reproach me for my boldness, or even mention my running away.” 
  • After being raped, Nujood “huddles in a corner, I pray for God the Almighty to come save me. I hurt everywhere. I’m terrified at the idea of spending my whole life with this beast. I’ve fallen into a trap and I can’t get out.” 
  • After getting a divorce, Nujood prayed. “I thanked God for not abandoning me these last few months. . . I also prayed for help for Aba and Omma, for them to earn some money, that my brothers could stop begging in the streets. . .” The prayer lasts for half a page. 
  • Nujood recites a passage from the Koran that praises Allah’s mercy and compassion and asks for strength.  

Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time

Girl Rising started as a film that profiled nine unforgettable girls’ coming-of-age stories. These girls lived in the developing world, and they chose to confront barriers to their education. Powered by these stories of resilience and determination, the film exploded into a global campaign for girls’ education.

Girl Rising—which can be read as a standalone—is an expansion of that film. Author Tanya Lee Stone deftly integrates raw interview footage with her own research to illuminate the facts and stories behind the girls in the film. She also delves into the stories of twenty-five others around the world—girls who are conquering obstacles, becoming empowered, and creating their own possibilities.

This updated edition features a foreword by David Oyelowo, the noted actor, producer, and activist for girls’ education. With stunning full-color photos, recent information about the girls in the film, infographics, and a compelling narrative, Girl Rising is a call to action that will inspire readers to join an exhilarating and growing movement to change the world. 

Girl Rising is a heart-breaking account of poverty-stricken areas where girls are forced into bonded labor or marriage at an early age. The book introduces readers to young girls from different countries. Each girl describes her unique circumstances and how education is the key to unlocking a better life. “Because educating girls literally changes how nations behave. Educating girls changes how governments function. It changes economies and jobs. It changes the shape of health care. It changes how families are raised. It can change entire cultures.” When U.S. President Barack Obama visited India, he said, “When a girl goes to school, it doesn’t just open up her young mind, it benefits all of us . . . maybe someday she’ll start her own business, or invent new technologies, or cure a disease.” 

Despite the importance of education, many girls do not complete primary school because they are forced into marriage. Child marriage is common because of poverty and because it is integrated into many countries’ cultures. For example, when Azmera’s father died, her mother didn’t want to arrange a marriage for Azmera. However, the elders in the community told Azmera’s mother, “That marrying off her daughter would be a loving choice for a mother to make.” Despite this, Azmera’s brother and mother would not allow her to marry or drop out of school. However, Azmera’s situation is far from the norm. “If a girl must leave school to get married, take care of a husband, and start a family, she will probably never find the opportunity to return. . . When girls marry young, education ends and the old cycle of poverty, violence, and early childbirth continues.” 

Many girls are forced into marriage or slavery which leads to rape and physical abuse. Girls Rising director Richard Robbins says, “It’s pretty hard to get your head around what it must be like to be sent away from your family at eight or nine to basically be a slave. They are a staggeringly resilient bunch, full of life and hope in spite of the hardships they have endured.” Even though many girls have horrendous experiences, they still have hope for a better future. These girls understand that “education is better than silver and gold.” For example, Pricilla lived on the streets of Sierra Leone. “When Girl Rising’s Beth Osisek asked Pricilla what she would wish for if she had one wish, Pricilla said, ‘I wish that when I am educated, I could do nursing. . . I like nursing. They cure people, they save lives.’”  

Girl Rising encourages readers to get involved and create change in the world. The book includes ideas for how girls can make an impact and help “these issues become a regular part of our conversation.” Readers can visit the websites “Girl Up,” “Girls Not Brides,” and “Girl Rising” for more ways to help. Reading Girl Rising is an emotional event that will cause tears. However, the book’s message is too important to ignore: It is up to all of us to end child marriage and human trafficking. Learn more about child brides by reading Nujood Ali’s autobiography, I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, and the nonfiction book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. 

Sexual Content  

  • Many of the girls in the book were raped; however, most of the sexual abuse is not described.  
  • When Rani was eight, she was sold. “When she was ten, Rani was sold again—this time she was forced to work as a prostitute for five long years.” When she tried to escape, she “was punished cruelly for her attempts.” 
  • Amina was sold into marriage when she was fourteen. “With this money, Amina’s brother could buy a car and travel to a better job so he could send money back to the family. . . No one cared that Amina was married against her will. That she had a baby against her will. . . [the baby’s father] forced himself on her repeatedly, abused her, beat her.” 
  • An Egyptian American writer and activist, Mona, “was in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, reporting on a protest. . . Mona was arrested by the riot police. She was detained for twelve hours, during which time the police sexually and physically assaulted her, breaking her left arm and her wrist.” 
  • A ten-year-old girl, Nujood, was married to a man “in his thirties.” Nujood said, “I didn’t want to sleep with him, but he forced me.” The man also “began to beat her. Nujood’s nights were filled with terror, her days were unending chores.” 
  • In Ethiopia, the legal marriage age is eighteen, but “tens of thousands of girls are still married off at fifteen, and some people consider thirteen to be a safe age. Ethiopian girls have also been married as early as seven. Seven. That age has been even lower in other countries.” 

Violence  

  • Malala Yousafzai spoke up against the Taliban. “On October 2012, when she was fifteen, a young Taliban man boarded her school bus and shot her point-blank in the head. Somehow Malala survived.”  
  • Some of the girls interviewed had to keep their identities secret because speaking up would have resulted in violence. 
  • Many of the girls were sold as “restaveks,” which describes impoverished children who work as unpaid domestic servants for food and shelter. A United Nations worker said, “Many of them are treated like animals. They are second-class citizens, little slaves. You feed them a little and they clean your house for nothing.” 
  • When Marilaine was thirteen, she “was forced to work in a stranger’s home. When she tried to run away, she was beaten.” Another girl, who was twelve years old “worked from four in the morning until late at night and was physically abused by everyone in her new ‘family.’” 
  • Manjita was sold to a police officer. “Manjita worked from four a.m. until midnight, cleaning, washing dishes, and cooking for the policeman to whom she was sold, and for his relatives. When she couldn’t keep up with the work, the policeman’s wife beat her with pots and pans.”  
  • Suma wouldn’t talk about all of the abuse she received. She said that when a girl is sold, “What tends to happen is the masters feel they can do anything with the girls, and they often rape them and say, ‘I want to make you my wife,’ and treat them badly.” 
  • Sometimes girls are not told that they are about to be married until the time of the wedding ceremony. One teenager wasn’t told about her pending marriage until the last minute. “When the men from the tribe come to get her, she kicks and screams, trying to fight them off. But her struggle is in vain: her father has promised her in marriage. The price the family is paid for their daughter? Twenty goats, ten cows, and a couple of camels.” The girl has no choice because her parents refuse to take her back. 
  • In 1996, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, everything changed for women. Girls “weren’t even free to walk the streets. Girls were forbidden to go to school. . . Girls are poisoned, bombed, shot, stoned, disfigured, and burned for speaking out, for seeking equality, for wanting to be educated.”  
  • One fourteen-year-old girl, Melka, came home to find a large group of people at her house. When she was told she was getting married, “I tried to run, but they beat me. Next to me was a man I had never seen before. I just wanted to get out of there.” She didn’t want to get married, but, “His friends beat me. It’s hard to remember, they just kept beating me until I went in [to the house]. I woke up in the hospital. My whole body was aching. I could barely open my eyes. I couldn’t even move. I was there for about thirty days.”  
  • Sometimes, a girls’ school is invaded, and the girls are taken captive. For example, in Pakistan in December of 2014, the Pakistani Taliban killed more than one hundred children at an army school. In 2014, “a militant Islamic group. . . kidnapped three hundred Nigerian schoolgirls.” In many countries, girls have “been abducted, sexually abused, poisoned, shot and had acid thrown on them; their schools have been bombed, burned down and shut down.” 
  • When Banchiayehu’s father tried to force her into marriage, her brother “Yetsedaw got the police who stopped the marriage papers from being signed. . . after the police left, her family still tried to force Banchiayehu to marry against her will. Yetsedaw was prepared to fight for her. . . He took off to get the police again, this time with his father and brother-in-law running after him, trying to hit him with rocks and tie him up. . . Yetsedaw spent the next few months standing guard over his sister.”  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • In Yemen, the average age of marriage in rural areas is twelve or thirteen. In 2011, a member of the Yemeni parliament said, “If there were any danger in early marriage, Allah would have forbidden it.”  

Here’s To Us

Two years after his first New York summer and his breakup with Ben, Arthur’s life is everything he could have wished for. His college classes are going really well, and his new boyfriend, Mikey, is amazing. He has finally moved on from that New York summer and couldn’t be happier with where he is right now. 

Ben, too, has moved on, although his life isn’t quite as dreamy as Arthur’s. He spent his first year of college finishing his novel manuscript he’s hoping to get published while working part-time at his dad’s store. He is casually dating a boy from his creative writing class, Mario, who is cute and a great Spanish tutor but not quite ready for the “boyfriend” commitment. Ben is content to be where he is, and yet he has this nagging feeling that there is more out there. 

When Arthur scores a dream internship at a Broadway theater, he is back in New York for the summer. Although he lost contact with Ben over those few years, they begin writing to each other, and soon both of them are excited to reunite as friends. They begin hanging out again in their New York friend group and even go on double dates when Mikey visits Arthur for a few days. But as they become closer, each of them realizes that they’re not quite over each other; it’s harder for them to see each other with other people, even though they’ve both moved on. Will they find their way back to each other again? Or has something broken forever between them, leaving each wishing for the other’s familiarity but unable to reconcile their feelings? 

This sequel to What If It’s Us is a delight from start to finish. It features all of the characters that readers know and love from the original book, plus a few new characters that readers will love meeting. This story moves at a consistent pace, keeping readers engaged while also allowing for slower moments that develop the characters and their relationships. The point of view alternates between Ben’s and Arthur’s, letting both voices and stories shine.  

A central theme in Here’s To Us is the importance of compromise in a relationship – both parties must put in an equal amount of effort for the relationship to be happy and healthy. Arthur and Ben learn this through trial and error, the way that all humans do. They don’t always make the best decisions and they hurt people they care about along the way, but they learn from their mistakes and do their best to make amends. Ben’s and Arthur’s growth makes them easy to sympathize with and subsequently learn from, even while being frustrated with decisions that we, as readers, can tell are not the best. 

Unlike, young adult stories, Here’s To Us is considered new adult fiction because the characters are in the 18–29 age bracket and deal with more mature topics. Here’s To Us tackles many questions that many teens and young adults have to navigate, especially when it comes to relationships. How do you know that you’re truly in love with someone? What is the best way to navigate complicated feelings in a relationship? How do your decisions affect your partner, and how do you act in a way that takes both parties’ feelings and best interests into account?   

Overall, Here’s to Us is a cute, funny, and satisfying sequel to What If It’s Us. At its core, it is a story about second chances and learning how to recover the people you may have lost touch with. Despite its drama, it has a happy ending, reminding readers that the universe always has a plan. 

Sexual Content  

  • Ben remembers a time when his father “was doing laundry and found a condom sleeve in my jeans pocket. It led to this big conversation where he asked if I was sexually active or not. He was shocked when I told him that I’d had sex with Hudson, Arthur, and Mario.” 
  • Arthur texts Jessie that he’s having trouble getting a fitted sheet on his mattress. Jessie texts back: “It’s probably turned the wrong way, check and see if it has one of those top or bottom labels.” Arthur replies: “My bedsheet has its own grindr profile now??” 
  • When Ben wonders what Arthur was doing all day before finally texting him, Ben thinks, “Maybe [Arthur and Mikey] were chilling. Let’s call it what it is– maybe they were having sex.” 
  • Arthur describes Ben as someone who “once turned down a blow job in favor of beating Dylan’s high score on Candy Crush. A blow job from Hudson, for the record. Ben’s never turned down a blow job from me.” 
  • When coming across a very overpriced shirt at a designer store, Ben asks, “Why is this better than, like, Marshalls? Is it threaded with diamonds? Does wearing it give you an orgasm?” 
  • Ben and Arthur have sex. Ben describes, “I fall back into bed first, kicking off my sneakers and unbuttoning Arthur’s shirt while he’s kissing me. We’re finding our way back to each other with every touch, both of us more experienced than last time, and without meaning to, we’re bringing those histories on top of the sheets. Even though I’m so damn ready to be naked with him again, I take my time undressing him.” 
  • Ben and Arthur kiss in a public place but away from a crowd. “[Ben] kisses me, his hands running down the sleeves of my jacket, leaving fields of goosebumps in their wake, even through layers of fabric. My arms hook beneath his, hugging him closer, holding his lips against mine, because air is good, but Ben’s breath is better. His hands change course, trailing back up to my shoulders, to the back of my neck, and I can’t stop thinking about how many stories these hands have told on tiny square keys. His fingertips find the skin just above my collar and just beneath it, tracing around the tag of my shirt – didn’t even know that was a move, but it definitely is. The way his touch lights me up, leans me forward. I think he’s italicizing me.” 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Arthur drinks a spoonful of chocolate liqueur. This is the first time he’s tried alcohol. “I swirl it around in my mouth for a moment, and at first I think it tastes like chocolate, but worse. But the more I sit with it, the more I like it, and by the time I finish the spoonful, I’m sold.” 

Language  

  • “Fuck” and “shit” are used often as exclamations. 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

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. 

Kneel

Football is everything to Russell Boudreaux. It’s his talent, his community, and his ticket to a Division I scholarship, where he’ll earn enough money to be set for life. Entering his senior year and final football season, Rus knows his future depends on a successful season. As the captain of the Jackson Jackals, his primary goal is to defeat his school’s rival, Westmond, and lead his team to a championship. However, everything quickly goes wrong. 

When the Jackals’ quarterback, Marion LaSalle, gets arrested for a crime he didn’t do, Rus suddenly becomes entangled in a battle against racism and discrimination. With the help of his teammates and childhood friend, Gabby Dupre, Rus embarks on a mission to give voice to the Black community and promote justice for the town of Monroe. Yet, with every newsworthy action, Rus risks placing himself—and his football future—in jeopardy. Will Rus achieve justice for the Jackson Jackals and Monroe? Or will his political activism cost him his season and his future? 

Rus is the story’s exciting main protagonist, and he strives to stand up for what is right. As a young black man, he sees the tension between the white and black communities of his town, and he desires justice for the racist attacks on the past and present black population. Despite being told to focus solely on football and ignore the blatant acts of inequality, Rus chooses to risk his life to shed light on his town’s issues. His courage and dedication to raising his voice are admirable, and his fearlessness in exposing the town’s discrimination through the newspaper should set an example and encourage readers to stand up and fight for what’s right in their own lives. 

The story’s enjoyable nature stems from Rus and his supporting characters. From the start, these characters help readers become invested in the plot by portraying actions and emotions that feel authentic and genuine. Whether it’s Gabby’s ambition to promote justice, Ms. Jabbar’s passion to discover truth, or Marion’s fortitude to succeed on the football field, readers can connect with these characters through shared human experience. Although some readers may not experience this type of overt discrimination, they can relate to the presence of difficult and frustrating circumstances in life. 

The story’s main conflict arises from Rus’s inability to balance football and political activism. Through these struggles, Rus’s resolution to “stand up for his people . . . despite people wanting to see [him] fail” highlights the book’s message about assertiveness: the ability to express one’s opinions and stand firm in one’s values. While this lesson can inspire readers to stand up against inequality in their own lives, the conclusion to the story’s problems can come across as idealistically hopeful or something achieved only in a perfect world. In addition, because the story centers around the theme of justice and equality, there are fewer action-packed football scenes in it compared to other sports stories. 

In conclusion, Kneel explores the themes of inequality, injustice, and self-expression through the journey of a promising black football star in Louisiana. Of course, the story does feature some heavy topics, like the impacts of modern-day racism, and its prolific use of offensive language and references to alcohol can be unwelcoming. However, the story’s strength comes from its applicable message that will stay with readers long after they put the book down. While football doesn’t play a major role in the story, Kneel will inspire readers to stand up for their beliefs despite their challenges. 

Sexual Content 

  • Rus’s friend, Marion, refers to sex by saying “smashed” and “the birds and the bees.” 
  • During lunch, Gabby and Rus’s “arms occasionally [brush] against each other.” Rus believes the “closeness felt natural, even though Gabby shied away every time it happened.” 
  • When Rus and Gabby sit next to each other, Rus notices that Gabby “scooted her hand next to mine. Her pinky finger grazed my skin.” 
  • Marion believes that Rus “blowing off steam” means he’s “off banging Gabby.” 
  • At one point, Gabby grabs Rus’s hand, and Rus says, “I like the hand-holding. I’d like to do other things too, but I was willing to move at Gabby’s pace.” 
  • On the porch of his house, Rus kisses Gabby. “His lips pressed into hers. A blend of emotions collided as we kissed—the months of longing, the layers of protest, and anger and frustration. The recent nights of separation, when I didn’t know if she was okay. All of it went into that rush of release.” 
  • In the car, Gabby leans “across the center console for another kiss,” and Rus “gladly [meets] her halfway.” 

Violence 

  • During a football game against Deerlake, Rus gets “pinned to the ground” by a big Deerlake linebacker. 
  • Before a major football game, Marion and Bradley Simmons, the quarterback for Westmond High, “[tousle] on the ground.” Soon afterward, Marion’s face is bruised and bloody, the officials suspend the game, and the two boys are taken to the police station. 
  • Terrance, one of Rus’s teammates, believes that Shreveport’s crowd wants “to lynch us for real.” 
  • Rus and Darrell, one of Rus’s teammates, “lunge across the aisle” and fight after a disappointing football game loss. No one is injured during this scene. 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Rus mentions that his teammates drink beer at a Friday night party. 
  • Rus’s father, Pops, takes a “measured sip from his beer” during a conversation between Rus, his mom, and Marion. 
  • Beer makes multiple appearances at Terrence’s party, such as in the “liquor cabinet” and a “cooler of beers.” 
  • Gary Tounior, Darrell’s cousin, has a “Swisher blunt hanging from the lips” during a party. 
  • Rus’s teammates smoke and “conceal their blunts” during a party. 
  • Darrell pops “the top off a can of beer” and hands it to Rus during a Friday night party. 
  • Marion drinks and runs off with a “bottle of Olde English” after a rough conversation with Rus. 
  • When Marion is kicked off the football team, Rus fears that he is “still looking for answers in bottles of malt liquor.” 
  • During homecoming preparation, Coach Fontenot, Rus’s football coach, spits “a wad of chewing tobacco into [a crumpled water bottle] before tucking it out of sight.” 
  • During a political rally, activist Charlotte Martin talks about a man who was arrested for selling “loose cigarettes outside of a convenience store.” 
  • Dave, Gabby’s close friend, asks Rus if he wants some “beer” during a college party. 
  • At Terrance’s house, Rus remembers “sneaking booze out of his mama’s liquor cabinet and staying up too late.” 

Language 

  • Marion gives Rus “the finger” after Rus jokes about his lack of a car. 
  • Profanity is used excessively. Profanity includes shit, damn, ass, hell, horseshit, piss, and fuck. 
  • “God,” “Jesus,” “Lord, help us,” “Lord knows he deserves worse,” and other similar phrases are used rarely as an exclamation. 
  • Marion threatens to call Bradley a piece of “trash.” 
  • The term “negro” is used several times. 
  • Gary insults Rus by calling him a “Mr. Big Man Baller.” 
  • One of Westmond’s football players, Lawrence, calls Rus a “nigga.” 
  • During a fight, Gabby calls the people on the football field a “dick.” 
  • Rus describes the town’s reaction to his decision to kneel during the national anthem as “bullshit.” He and Gabby use it again later on in the book during a similar conversation. 
  • Coach Fontenot calls his football team “a bunch of gosh darn amateurs” after a bad play. 
  • Rus describes football practice without Marion as a “shitstorm.” 
  • Rus feels like an “asshole” when he prematurely brings up his scholarship opportunity with Clemson to Marion. 
  • Bradley calls Lawrence a “fucking asshole” when he apologizes to Marion. 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • Rus’s teammate, Karim, has a tattoo of his mother posed “as Mother Mary—complete with a bowed head and hands folded in prayer.” 
  • Rus’s mother believes that “prayer and perseverance” will fix her family’s problems. 
  • Rus repeats a “prayer” that the rungs of his tree house ladder won’t break under his weight. 
  • After throwing a good football pass to Rus, Marion kisses “his fist then point[s] to the sky, as if sending God a little prayer.” 
  • When Rus runs to his car after a football game, he prays “to God” that “[the car] would start tonight.” 
  • When Rus and his friends are being chased by the police, Rus “hope[s] to God” that Terrance grabbed his house keys. 

by Caleb Kleinmann

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.  
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