Topic: Discrimination

Brown Boy Nowhere

Sixteen-year-old Angelo Rivera is from the bustling city of San Diego where his parents owned a Filipino restaurant. Now, Angelo has moved across the country to Ocean Pointe where Angelo and his family are the only Asian people in the entire town. He’s left behind all of his friends, and his girlfriend Amanda, so his mom and dad can run a new restaurant called Sloppy’s Pit Stop. To make everything worse, Angelo wants to participate in a skateboarding competition in California, but the only way he can go is if he pays for his own plane ticket by working at Sloppy’s. But Angelo has a plan: Convince his aunt to let him stay in California so he can be with his friends and Amanda. He’s determined to leave Ocean Pointe behind for good.

Angelo’s plans go awry when he meets fellow outsiders Kirsten and Larry. All three of them are seen as outcasts by the students at Ocean Pointe High School where football players and cheerleaders are at the top of the social hierarchy. Kirsten abandoned cheerleading for art and Larry is the grandson of a known drug dealer. Both ask Angelo to teach them how to skate, boosting their self-confidence and creating a small group of friends for Angelo. After Amanda breaks up with Angelo over the phone, he begins to grow closer to Kirsten. As a result of bonding with Kirsten, a fight breaks out at OPHS that results in Angelo being more seen than ever.

Brown Boy Nowhere is a prose-style novel that is told from Angelo’s first-person perspective. As a result of being told in Angelo’s perspective, the reader will experience the same prejudice and violence Angelo does. This allows readers who aren’t Asian to understand the unique situations Asian people face in a racialized society. The story hits close to home for many Asian readers who understand what it’s like to be the only Asian person in a majority white town, school, or area.

Readers who aren’t Asian will also learn that some “jokes,” such as Asian people eating dogs and cats, are microaggressions that create lasting scars for their Asian peers. Even simple questions can be microaggressions depending on the person to whom they’re directed. For example, when Angelo first meets Larry, Larry asks Angelo where he’s from. When Angelo says he’s from California, Larry responds with, “No. I mean, where are you really from?” Such a question insinuates that Asian people do not, and will never belong in America and isolates Asian peers from their white peers.

Angelo also does his best to educate his new friends Kirsten and Larry on anti-Asian racism and microaggressions, calling them out on their blanket statements about Asian people. Angelo even tells Kirsten that saying, “I do not see race” is a microaggression and explains to her why. Angelo says, “I get that some people who say it mean well. But saying you don’t see race disregards my identity. I’m Asian. I’m proud of it. If you don’t see race, then you’re ignoring that part of me.”

Brown Boy Nowhere is a fascinating novel that tells a story about an Asian teenager finding himself in a town where he feels like he does not belong. The book has many early 2000s references, such as Angelo comparing Kirsten to actress Kirsten Dunst, and even has the feel of a 2000s teen movie. The book is not set in the early 2000s, but it provides Angelo with another interest and supplements his thoughts. It also tackles the incredibly complex issue of anti-Asian racism and the unique experience of a member of the Asian diaspora. Some events in the novel, such as the star football player named Grayson, vandalizing Sloppy’s, feel unrealistic and have unrealistic consequences. However, the novel is a perfect read for people who like coming-of-age dramas and want to learn more about the challenges Asian teenagers face in a world that expects them to be invisible.

Sexual Content

  • Angelo recalls that on his last night in San Diego, he had sex with his girlfriend Amanda. “Heat creeps into my cheeks. I don’t know what I expected losing my virginity would be like, but my fantasies certainly didn’t include me blubbering like an idiot, telling her how much I’d miss her.”
  • After Angelo saves Kirsten from being hit by a car, she gives him a kiss on his cheek. “I frown curiously as she takes a giant step toward me, letting out a soft gasp when she presses her soft lips against my cheek.”
  • While in the warehouse together, Angelo expresses a desire to kiss Kirsten. “My gaze flits down to her bottom lip. I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her more than anything in the world. More than skate competitions, burger patties, and even plane tickets to California.”
  • When Kirsten takes him to the beach, Angelo finally kisses her. “Pushing all second-guessing aside, I finally lean forward. I press my lips against hers. She takes a sharp breath against my mouth, stiffening for a second. Quickly, she relaxes and kisses me back, raking her fingers through my wet hair, tugging at the ends lightly.” They continue to make out for a page.
  • Angelo’s ex-girlfriend, Amanda, accidentally sends him a sext which includes “a photo of her chest with nothing but a tiny bikini top covering her, um, assets.”
  • After clearing up the misunderstanding because of the sext, Angelo and Kirsten kiss again. “Kirsten opens her mouth to speak, but before she can say anything I reach over and cup my hand over the back of her neck, pulling her into me. I press a kiss into her lips, quieting any lingering doubt she might have about me. My feelings for her. Us.”

Violence

  • Angelo decides to skate away from a group of boys who are harassing him. One of the boys throws a rock at Angelo which results in him falling off his skateboard. “The next thing I know, something jams against my front wheels. Before I can react, I’m flying off my board. On instinct, I stick my hands out to stop my fall, but I’m at a weird angle and land cheek first into the parking lot.”
  • When Grayson learns that Angelo and Grayson’s ex-girlfriend are friends, Grayson punches Angelo in the school hallway. Angelo tells Grayson he’s being racist. The scene lasts for 8 pages. Angelo doesn’t “even get to finish my thought. A blinding pain hits me square in the jaw. Sharp and intense. I stagger back, gasping for anything to hold on to, only to smack my open palms against the cold locker . . . Grayson keeps his fist up to my nose. His knuckles are bright red.”
  • To prevent Kirsten from being seen by the Sheriff, Angelo tackles her onto the grass. “Without thinking twice, I push off my board and tackle Kirsten onto the grass lining the street. We crash and find ourselves rolling into a ditch.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When exploring Ocean Pointe, Angelo ends up at the high school where he sees a group of guys holding cigarettes. “Cigarettes glow from between their fingers as they stare me down, scanning me from head to toe.”

 Language

  • The word “shit” and other variations of the word are used frequently.
  • The words “ass” and “asshole,” along with their variations, are used often.
  • “Bitch” and “bitchy” are used often in the novel, typically in relation to female characters.
  • “Fuck” is thrown around a lot by the characters in the story.
  • Angelo faces multiple microaggressions from his white peers, many of them relying on the racist stereotype of Asian people eating cats and dogs. A football player even says, “Guess that makes this here brown boy the dog, huh? You are what you eat.”
  • The football players who bully Angelo often call him “brown boy” as an insult due to Angelo being Filipino and having brown skin.
  • Angelo calls his friend from San Diego, Mackabi, a “dipshit” affectionately.
  • Angelo says he “feel[s] a bit dickish” for objecting to teaching other students how to skate.
  • When Kirsten implies that Angelo’s bullies confront change by being aggressive, Angelo says, “That’s bullshit. Being scared isn’t an excuse to be racist. That’s just damn ignorant. You don’t call someone ‘brown boy’ or say he eats dogs just because he’s new to town.”
  • When Grayson says he isn’t racist, Angelo calls Grayson a “delusional dick”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual

  • None

by Emma Hua

Long Road to Freedom  

Ranger is a time-traveling golden retriever with search-and-rescue training. In this adventure, he goes to a Maryland plantation during the days of American slavery, where he meets a young girl named Sarah. When Sarah learns that the owner has plans to sell her little brother, Jesse, to a plantation in the Deep South, it means they could be separated forever. Sarah takes their future into her own hands and decides there’s only one way to escape – to run north.

Told in third-person, Long Road to Freedom includes the inner thoughts of both Ranger and Sarah. Sarah’s thoughts add suspense by focusing on her fear of being caught and sent back to her master’s plantation. Ranger perceives other characters’ emotions through smell, which conveys people’s feelings to the reader in a non-scary way. For example, when Jesse runs into the forest alone, Ranger goes to look for him. “Jesse’s scent was still there, with a mix of new smells that make the hair on Ranger’s neck stand up. Deer. Blood. And wolves.” Unfortunately, Jesse is snotty and stubborn. His behavior almost attracts the attention of slave hunters. Jesse’s attitude is annoying, and readers may wonder why he isn’t willing to save himself.

Long Road to Freedom explores the Underground Railroad in kid-friendly terms. As they run north, Sarah and Jesse find safe passage with people who are willing to hide them. When a group of men tries to bully their way into a barn where the two children are hiding, Ranger alerts the neighbors. When the bad men are surrounded, they back down. Ranger thinks, “They didn’t have tails to lower, but Ranger understood that they were submitting. The challenge was over.”

The Ranger in Time Series format will appeal to young readers. The book has large text and full-page, black-and-white illustrations that appear approximately every six pages. The author’s note includes information about the historical people and places in the book, as well as a list of resources for readers who want to learn more about the Underground Railroad.

Even though readers will learn many facts about the time period, the facts are integrated into the plot, so the book never feels like a history lesson. Readers will fall in love with Ranger, who loves squirrels, his family, and helping people in need. Long Road to Freedom uses a lovable dog and a unique premise to teach readers about history.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Sarah and Jesse are hiding in a barn when a group of men appears, demanding to see what’s behind the stacked hay. The farmer tries to stop the men but is unable to. Ranger knows the kids are in trouble so he “leaped out at him. The man started and fell. Ranger stood over him, barking his toughest bark. He turned and saw another big man holding Mr. Smith with his arms pinned behind him.” Ranger jumps on the man holding Mr. Smith, who manages to free himself from the man’s grasp.
  • Ranger wakes up the neighbors, who come to Mr. Smith’s aid. “Men and women streamed into the barn, carrying farm tools—axes and hoes and pitchforks.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Ranger travels through time with the help of a first aid kit. When the first aid kit hums, Ranger puts the strap over his head. “The box grew warm at his throat. It grew brighter and brighter… He felt as if he were being squeezed through a hole in the sky. . .” When Ranger opens his eyes, he is in the past.

Spiritual Content

  • Sarah heard stories about the Quakers helping runaway slaves. “But when Master Bradley brought Reverend Hayworth to give a sermon on the plantation, he preached how slaves ought to obey their masters. He said those who didn’t would see the wrath of God along with the overseer’s whip.”

A Thousand White Butterflies

As if being new to the United States wasn’t hard enough, Isabella’s first day of school is canceled due to snow!

Isabella has recently arrived from Colombia with her mother and Abuela. She misses Papa, who is still in South America. It’s her first day of school, her “make-new-friends” day, but when classes are canceled because of too much snow, Isabella misses her warm, green, Colombia more than ever. Then Isabella meets Katie and finds out that making friends in the cold is easier than she thought!

 A Thousand White Butterflies is a beautiful story that shows that friendship can flourish despite differences. Like many children who have immigrated to America, Isabella misses her home and her father and she worries about making friends. Readers will enjoy seeing Isabella making a new friend and show her friend part of her culture. When the two girls build a snowman, “Katie helps me put Papa’s ruana on the snowman. We add a sombrero vueltiao.” While the story starts with Isabella being upset about moving to America, it ends on a high note with Isabella looking forward to going to school with Katie.

The large cartoon-like illustrations show the magic of snow and friendship. Each illustration shows Isabella’s emotions including frowning, crying, and smiling. Readers will enjoy finding a cat that appears in almost every picture. Each page has 2 to 4 simple sentences and many of the sentences include Spanish. Even though A Thousand White Butterflies is a picture book it is intended to be read aloud to a child, rather than for the child to read it for the first time independently. The end of the book includes the author’s notes on how the immigrant story pertains to their lives as well as a glossary of Spanish words.

Isabella’s story will help readers become more compassionate as they learn about immigration. A Thousand White Butterflies would make an excellent book for parents to read with their children. Parents could use the story as a conversation starter about moving, making new friends, or being kind to others. While the story introduces the idea of immigration, it stays away from the political debate and shows how one specific child has been impacted by immigrating to America. Readers who would like to explore how immigration affects families should also read Mango Moon by Diane De Anda & Sue Cornelison.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

 

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

Ophie’s Ghosts

Ophelia Harrison used to live in a small house in the Georgia countryside. But that was before the night in November of 1922, and the cruel act that took her home and her father from her– which was the same night that Ophie learned she can see ghosts.

Now, Ophie and her mother are living in Pittsburgh with relatives they barely know. In the hopes of earning enough money to get their own place, Mama has gotten Ophie a job as a maid in the same old manor house where she works.

Daffodil Manor, like the wealthy Caruthers family who owns it, is haunted by memories and prejudices of the past and, as Ophie discovers, ghosts as well. It is filled with ghosts who have their own loves and hatreds and desires, ghosts who have wronged others, and ghosts who have themselves been wronged. And as Ophie forms a friendship with one spirit whose life ended suddenly and unjustly, she wonders if she might be able to help—even as she comes to realize that Daffodil Manor may hold more secrets than she bargained for.

Ophie’s Ghosts pulls the reader into the story from the very first page and will keep readers engaged until the very end. While Ophie’s tale shows the harsh realities of living in the 1920s, the story is spun using kid-friendly descriptions. However, younger readers could be disturbed by Ophie’s encounters with ghosts, many of whom died tragically. The ghosts are from every walk of life and include people of all ages and races. While Ophie interacts with many ghosts, none of the ghosts try to harm her. For Ophie, the danger comes from the living.

Readers will empathize with Ophie, who is thrown into servitude at a young age. Through Ophie’s experiences, readers will come to understand the difficulties African Americans faced during the 1920s. The story gives many examples of discrimination and explores the topic of passing as caucasian. In the end, Ophie cries because “girls who believed in happily ever afters could be murdered in attics, and because men who just wanted to have their voices heard could have their words choked off forever.”

Throughout the story, Ireland references people and events of the time. However, the text doesn’t explain the references and most readers will not understand their significance. For example, Ophie’s mother makes several comments about bootleggers, but the term is never explained. In addition, the story uses some difficult vocabulary such as irksome tomes, incandescent, tincture, fluffing, and blotto. Despite this, most readers can use context clues to understand the term.

Through Ophie’s point of view, Ophie’s Ghosts paints a vivid picture of life in the 1920s. Ophie points out the unfair circumstances that rob her of her childhood. However, despite the hardships Ophie faces, she is never bitter. Instead, she thinks about her Daddy. “Daddy had often said that when presented with two choices, a hard thing and an easy thing, the right thing was usually the more difficult one.” Because of her Daddy’s words, Ophie has the courage to listen to the ghosts and help them move on.

Readers who enjoy historical fiction, should also read Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxie and The Player King by Avi. For readers who want to learn about history, but aren’t ready for more mature books, Survival Tails by Katrina Charman and American Horse Tales by Michelle Jabés Corpora would be good choices.

Sexual Content

  • Ophie asks Cook about a woman she saw. Cook replies, “Sometimes Mr. Richard likes to bring home . . . a bit of company, but those girls are not business of yours.”
  • Ophie likes to read romance books. “Mama would have had a fit if she knew her daughter was reading such things, stories of girls who were compromised, whatever that meant, and kissed boys who left them heartbroken.”
  • Sophie asks Clara, a ghost, about her beau. Clara said, “A lady never kisses and tells.”
  • A woman in a dressing room goes into the kitchen. Ophie wonders, “Did Clara know that Richard was having friends over, friends who walked around the house half-dressed after sleeping in most of the day?”

Violence

  • Ophie’s father is murdered because he voted. His death is not described.
  • After killing Ophie’s father, a group of men burn down Ophie’s family home. Ophie and her mother hide from the men. “The snap and crackle of fire slowly grew louder than the voices of the men, a roar of consumption, followed by thick smoke that twined sinuously through the treetops. . .”
  • When a group of men are standing around talking, Ophie thinks, “The men who were in her yard, yelling and laughing, were the kind of white men who had beat up Tommy Williams just because he accidentally looked the wrong way at a white lady from Atlanta. After they’d pummeled Tommy, they’d dropped him off in the woods near Ophie’s house, most likely because they’d figured no one would find him.”
  • Even though Ophie is young, she still understands that “Colored folks who’d broken some unspoken rule, gotten uppity and acted above their station, paid the price for such an error with their lives.”
  • Sophie meets a ghost who is just a boy. He has “bloody welts crisscrossing his back.”
  • When Ophie tries to help her cousin with her homework, “the result had been a vicious slap without any kind of warning.”
  • Caruther tells about a boy who was whipped “until the white meat showed.”
  • A man is hit by a trolley. “He boarded the trolley right through the closed door, his suit torn and bloody, his hat missing entirely. . . his gray suit and pale skin made the blood dripping from his head all the more vivid.”
  • The ghost of Clara possesses Penelope’s body. Clara goes after Penelope’s murderer with a pair of scissors. To prevent another death, Ophie throws salt. “The container burst into a shower of salt as it hit the girl in the chest. There was a sound like the room was inhaling, the air grew thick . . . Clara crumbled to the floor.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ophie sees a ghost who was “still wearing his service uniform and drinking to numb the pain of a heart broken by a war fought in trenches.” Later, Ophie finds out that the ghost died because of his drinking.
  • After Mrs. Caruther has a “fit,” “the doctor gives her laudanum.”
  • A ghost asks Ophie, “Do you think you could get your hands on a bottle of gin. Spirits for the spirit!”
  • One of Mrs. Caruther’s servants “snuck drinks from a flask tucked into her garter when she thought no one was looking.”
  • Caruther’s son has friends over to the house and they “spent most of their time all blotto.”
  • When Mrs. Caruther’s son announces his engagement, he serves champagne. One of the guests has red wine.

Language

  • Ophie’s cousins call her stupid and “a dope.”
  • Caruther calls a servant a “jigaboo.”
  • Ophie’s mother says she misses her husband “every damn day.”

Supernatural

  • Ophie and her aunt can both see and communicate with ghosts.
  • Ophie’s Aunt Rose tells her not to trust the dead. “You keep iron and salt in your pockets at all times. That way they can’t take hold of your body, which some of the more powerful ones will try to do.”
  • Aunt Rose educates Ophie about ghosts. Aunt Rose says, “Ghosts are attracted to feelings—sadness and happiness, and all the other betwixt and between.”
  • Ophie wonders if ghosts are “too terrible for Heaven.”
  • Aunt Rose tells Ophie about a ghost who was “stealing her husband’s breath, using it to make her stronger.”
  • The ghost of Clara possesses a young woman.
  • To keep a ghost out of a room, “someone had placed a thick band of salt across the threshold just inside the bedroom door.”

Spiritual Content

  • While at church, Ophie likes to watch the pastor and his wife. “It made Ophie feel that maybe some of those Bible words were actually true, even if she didn’t entirely believe they were meant for her.”
  • After Ophie’s father dies, the pastor tells her, “Your daddy has gone to heaven to be with Jesus.”
  • Ophie says a quick prayer several times. For example, when Ophie and her mother take a trolley car, Ophie “prayed for the trolley to hurry.”
  • Ophie wonders why Mrs. Caruther is so mean. Ophie thinks about the pastor’s wife who “once talked about sin as a heavy burden that folks carried around: ‘When you carry that sin around, when you let it weigh you down, you want to make sure that everyone around you is suffering as well . . .let Jesus take it and hold that burden so that you can carry on as a light in the world.’”
  • Ophie’s father told her, “The good Lord is always testing us, Ophie, in big ways and small. You do the thing you know to be right, always, no matter what.”
  • Ophie’s teacher told her that it was “the Christian thing to do to turn the other cheek.”
  • When someone steals, Ophie’s mother tells the lady, Jesus will give you yours.”

Tune It Out

Lou has the voice of an angel, or so her mother tells her and anyone else who will listen. But the two of them have been performing the country fair and street circuit for so long that Lou can hear only the fear in her own voice. She’s never liked crowds or loud noises or even high fives; in fact, she’s terrified of them, which makes her pretty sure there’s something wrong with her.

But when Child Protective Services separates the mother-daughter duo after a snowy accident, Lou is forced to start all over again at a fancy private school far away from anything she’s ever known. Lou had never had a friend before, apart from her mother. After being sent to live with her aunt and uncle, Lou realizes most people don’t live like her—moving from place to place, unsure of their next meal, and not going to school. But Lou worries she will “freak out” at her new school because of her sensory disorder, neuroatypicality.

Luckily for her, she meets Well, an outgoing sixth-grade actor extraordinaire. With the help of Well, her aunt and uncle, and the school counselor, Lou begins to see things differently. A sensory processing disorder isn’t something to be ashamed of, and music just might be the thing to save Lou—and maybe her mom too.

Lou’s compelling story has a cast of complex characters who help Lou along her journey. As Lou navigates through life, she is reluctant to allow the school counselor to “label” her. However, Lou finally realizes that she must learn coping mechanisms so she doesn’t continue to “freak out” due to loud noises and light touches.

Many students will relate to Lou who doesn’t feel like she is “normal.” Tune It Out highlights the fact that most people have difficulties to overcome, no one is perfect, and people must learn from their mistakes in order to live their best life.

Tune It Out will entertain readers of all ages because it draws readers into Lou’s world from the very first page. The diverse cast of characters that surround Lou adds interest and depth to the story. In addition, the engaging story shows the importance of speaking up for yourself. Tune It Out will help readers understand Lou’s sensory disorder as well as teach them the importance of empathy. Readers who are interested in reading more books about overcoming obstacles should add Almost Home by Joan Bauer and Wish by Barbara O’Connor to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • Lou’s mother “wasn’t sure who [Lou’s] daddy was, and she didn’t want to be sure either.”
  • During play practice, one of the girls makes out with someone in the costume closet.

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Lou misses living in Biloxi and “the casinos with their jangling noises and bright lights and carpet that smelled like beer and cigarette ash.”
  • Once when Lou “freaked out,” some people wondered if she was on drugs.
  • After a car accident, a doctor tells Lou to take Tylenol or ibuprofen for the pain.

Language

  • Lord and oh God are both used as an exclamation once.
  • Hell is used once.

Supernatural

  • Lou knew a woman who “used to read tea leaves.” The woman would “tell you whether you’d meet the love of your life, or if a big change was coming, or if you should buy that alligator purse on sale.”

Spiritual Content

  • One of Lou’s friends is large, and his mother is upset when he starts drinking SlimFast. She says, “Son, you don’t mess with the body the good Lord gave you. God made you to be a man of stature. You better figure out how to use it, not lose it.”

Seedfolks

In a neglected and unkempt empty lot in a Cleveland neighborhood, a young Vietnamese girl named Kim plants a seed to honor her dead father. Although her gardening was meant to be a secret, her actions are detected by a curious neighbor, and Kim’s small seed ignites a change throughout the neighborhood; soon the community strives to revitalize the lot and transform it into a beautiful garden. Neighbors from all sorts of backgrounds come together to grow things, sharing gardening tips and growing closer as a community.

Seedfolks is a heartwarming story that demonstrates the power of simple actions, and how change is possible. Each chapter follows the perspective of a different neighbor with a unique background and a new story to tell. For example, Gonzalo watches his Tío plant seeds and feels closer to the earth as he remembers life in Guatemala. Virgil’s father from Haiti wants to grow lettuce for money. And Sam, although too old to garden himself, talks to his neighbors as they grow their fruits, vegetables, and flowers and unites the community through conversation.

Ultimately, Seedfolks is a story that celebrates diversity. Although the neighbors originally use the garden separately without communicating, they eventually begin to help one another grow things and learn from each other’s similarities and differences. Even when the winter comes, they have the promise of the garden to bring them back together again.

Although the garden is at the center of the book, the real story comes from the lives of the people using this revitalized space. Each chapter introduces a brand-new character and includes a black and white sketch to give a sense of who they are. While some characters speak broken English, their perspectives are understandable and personal. There is no coherent plot in the novel as every chapter follows a new perspective, but some of the same characters reappear in the background of other’s stories. With this format, the central theme showcases how even small actions, like planting a seed in a vacant lot, can produce big changes that bring people together. In the end, the neighbors that once coexisted separately from one another are united with a common space and goal to grow.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In the past, Wendell’s boy was “shot dead like a dog in the street.”
  • Gonzalo explains it isn’t safe to sit outside or “some gang driving by might use you for target practice.”
  • Sae Young was robbed and assaulted at her dry-cleaning store. The thief had a gun and “he take out money, then push me [Sae Young] down. He yelling at me. Very bad words. Then he kick me. Break cheekbone. Then he kick me again, head hit hard against wall and I go to sleep.”
  • Amir hears a woman scream because “a man with a knife had taken her purse.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Before the garden, there were “men with no work drinking from nine to five instead, down there in the lot.”
  • Sam hires a young boy to plant his garden. The boy “wanted to grow marijuana, to sell.” Instead, they agree to plant pumpkins.

 Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Sam calls the garden “a small Garden of Eden.”
  • After visiting the garden, Wendell is reminded of the Bible verse, “And a little child shall lead them.”

by Elena Brown

Burn

Sarah Dewhurst’s life in 1957 changes the moment her father’s hired help arrives at their small farm in Frome, Washington. Instead of a local farmhand looking for extra cash, her father hires a blue dragon with a thick Russian accent who believes Sarah is destined to cause the end of the world.

The first half of the book follows the two main characters—Sarah Dewhurst, a farmer’s daughter, and Malcolm, a trained cult assassin—as they try to prepare for the day of reckoning. Through the dragon’s cryptic messages, Sarah learns she is destined to start a war between dragons and humans.

Malcolm travels from a Believer compound in Canada to Frome. He is sent by the cult’s goddess, Mitera Thea, to kill Sarah. As tensions rise and the two storylines converge, Malcolm activates an old dragon relic, plunging him and Sarah into a world where dragons do not exist. The second half of the novel follows the characters in the new world, where they must race against the clock to prepare a final battle before the entire world is destroyed.

The two characters who have the most growth are Sarah and Mitera Thea, the cult goddess. Sarah, who has spent her whole life fighting racism, doesn’t believe in herself, but she still stands up and fights when her world is threatened. Mitera Thea takes her human-hating tendencies to a whole new level once she turns into a dragon, and sets her sights on destroying the world. But in her final moments, Mitera Thea sees how interesting humans can be when pushed to the limit.

Burn covers several difficult topics such as racism (Sarah is a mixed raced female and her best friend Jason is the son of Japanese immigrants), homophobia (Malcolm falls in love with a young man, Nelson, during his travel to Frome), and abuse (Sarah, Jason, and Nelson all receive abuse from community members). Another tough topic that is touched on is cult worship—Malcolm was raised from his elementary years with the sole mission to kill Sarah Dewhurst. These topics are not described in graphic detail but Burn highlights why racism, homophobia, and cult worship are bad.

Patrick Ness fits seemingly random ideas into his novels and makes them work. However, dimension-hopping alongside Cold War era dragons becomes hard to follow. The build-up for doomsday is rushed and once the mini climax is revealed and the characters are transported to another world, the book begins to lose its luster and becomes confusing. While Ness tackles sensitive topics in ways that fit the setting, the week-long plot and dimension-hopping fall flat.

Sexual Content

  • Deputy Sheriff Kelby calls Sarah a slut.
  • Kelby tries to assault Sarah. Kelby “moved the baton down to the hem of her skirt and started to raise it. ‘No,’ she said.” Someone intervenes before Kelby can do anything else.
  • Malcolm and Nelson huddle for warmth in the truck and are intimate with each other. “Nelson’s fingers didn’t stop at Malcolm’s waistline, where the tattoos did.”
  • “[Love] was not in the preparations Malcom had been given. He’d been warned of predatory men and women who might seek this in exchange for favors, favors like rides to the border.”
  • Because of lies that Nelson was told, he believed LGBTQ sex “would have to be rough. And violent. And full of shame.”
  • Agent Woolf, as a dragon, finds herself pregnant. “Agent Woolf had been very much a virgin. She hated humans far too much to touch any one of them in that way.”
  • Malcolm tries to convince his double in the other world that he is Malcolm. The other Malcom says, “’you’re the first man I’ve ever kissed.’ He frowned, “that’s kinky.’”

 Violence

  • Sarah describes the racist deputy sheriff in town. “Kelby had thoughts on these issues [of Sarah driving illegally]. Deputy Kelby would be only too happy to find Sarah Dewhurst, daughter of Gareth and Darlene Dewhurst, illegally behind the wheel of a farm truck, and what might he do then?”
  • Sarah recalls the tension between nations. “Khrushchev, the Premier of the Soviet Union, threatening to annihilate them pretty much every week these days.”
  • Malcolm faces off against Mounties in Canada. “The first gunshot took out the side flap of [Malcom’s] hat and the middle of his left ear. The bullet reached him before the sound did.”
  • The fight between Malcom and the Mounties takes a drastic turn when a dragon steps into the fight. The mountain police, “exploded in a wash of fire and blood that Malcolm stepped back behind a tree to avoid, not incidentally stepping out of the line of sight of the first man’s gun. He still caught a wave of blood across the side of his face.”
  • Kelby attacks Jason and Sarah in a racially charged fight. “Kelby’s baton lashed out so fast Jason didn’t even have a chance to duck. It hit him on the throat, and he fell to his knees, coughing as if to choke.” Sarah is attacked and “[Kelby] swung the gun, hitting her jaw.” The fight is described over two pages.
  • Malcolm befriends a gay man, Nelson, who tells the story of how his parents kicked him out of the house. “His father had beat him; his mother had told him to never come back.”
  • Dernovich, a detective who is following Malcom, is shot. “The man lay on the floor of the motel room, astonishment on his face along with the blood bubbling on his lips.” He dies from his injury.
  • As both plot lines converge, there is a scuffle and a gun fight involving Sarah, Jason, the sheriff, Malcolm, and Sarah’s dad. “There was so much shouting, [Sarah] didn’t even hear the gunshot, only saw the pistol flip out of Jason’s hand, saw the blood erupt from his wrist. Then a second eruption from his back as he turned from the force of the first.”
  • Sarah’s father is shot. “He also didn’t know he had been shot until he slumped to one knee.” Her father dies from his wound.
  • Malcom and Agent Woolf have a gun and knife fight. “The gun went off as [Malcolm] cut [Agent Wolff], sending the shot astray, his blade going so deep he severed her forefinger altogether.” The fight is described over four pages.
  • Woolf wakes up as a dragon and goes on a rampage, destroying cities, including Seattle. “The first building exploded, her fire blasting out the entire ground floor and bringing down the eight floors above it in an almost slow-motion tumble.” The destruction goes on for seven pages.
  • The ultimate battle between the main group of characters and the first dragon starts. It goes on for twelve pages; most of it is dialogue with violence including gun shots, firebreath, and impalement. Nameless soldiers are killed by fire. Agent Wolff, the dragon, is impaled in the end. “As [Agent Wolff] took in her breath to destroy them, Jason Inagawa, unheard under the artillery, drove a truck directly into her belly, his family’s steel plow attached to the hood. She cried out. Instead of a blast of pure fire, a rush of acid spilled from her mouth.” Her death scene continues for half a page.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Dernovich observes a teen and thinks “he couldn’t be more than seventeen, disappearing into the trees that lined the river, probably to smoke, or whatever Believer teens did to rebel.”

 Language

  • Hell is used once.
  • Fruit, a slur toward gays, is used three times. Queer as an insult is used once.
  • Damn is used four times.
  • Someone says “that little fucker” and “we’re fucked.”
  • Shit/shitbag is used four times. For example, someone says, “the murdering little shitbag.”

 Supernatural

  • Dragons exist during Cold War era America.

 Spiritual Content

  • A major plot point within Burn is the cult of the Believers. They are a group that believe that humans are a nuisance to dragons and that dragons should once again rule the earth. They worship their main priestess, Mitera Thea, who is their “Mother Goddess.”
  • Another major plot point is a half-transcribed prophecy that foretells the end of the world. The location of the catalyst is in Frome, Washington, on Sarah’s farm.
  • Malcolm is a worshiper of the Believers. He was raised within one of their cells in Canada. He prays to Mitera Thea to aid him on his journey. He considers himself a servant to her.
  • The dragons also believe in a goddess. They call the first dragon the Goddess, the one who created and then tried to destroy the dragons with her chaotic magic. They destroyed her dragon form and turned her into a human.
  • A dragon realizes the Believer’s version of the prophecy is interpreted differently than the dragon’s version. “The Believers thought they were giving the world to dragons. A world without humans. They didn’t know what doom they had started.”
  • God and Christ are mentioned four times; the Bible once. “What in God’s name?” and “Christ” are used as an expletive. The Bible is compared to the Believer’s prophecy.
  • Nelson is called “an abomination against God” because of his sexual orientation.
  • Sarah’s dad mentions an old wives’ tale about dragons: “An animal without a soul is still an animal, no matter how many words it’s learned to lie with.”
  • Sarah talks about how kids used to be scared of dragons. Sarah “knew kids at school who prayed every night that they’d wake up in the morning.”
  • Sarah’s dad mentions another tale: “Just because the devil gave [dragons] the gift of speech doesn’t mean you’re talking to anything more than a mostly undomesticated predator.”
  • Malcolm tries to explain aspects of his religion. “Faith is belief without proof. It is a leap, an act of bravery.”
  • The Spur of the Goddess is the talon of the first dragon. It is believed to be a weapon of destruction. It is also a holy symbol.
  • Agent Woolf tries to kill a dragon because “sometimes one must commit even the vilest blasphemy for the greater good. . . ”
  • Malcolm hitchhikes and meets various drivers, “one of them tries to convert him to Christianity.”

by Signe Nettum

Cinderella is Dead

King Manford rules Lille as a tyrant. He ensures women have no rights and are completely under the power of men. Cinderella has been dead for two hundred years and history has twisted her story to make it seem as though she found true love at the ball with Prince Charming. King Manford uses this story to ensure that each 16-year-old girl attends an annual ball where men choose a woman to wed. Many girls grow up looking forward to this day, where they think they will get their chance to find their own Prince Charming.

But sixteen-year-old Sophia is not like other girls. She has always rebelled against the rules and does not have faith in the story of Cinderella. Most importantly, Sophia does not want to marry a man. Instead, Sophia desires to run away with her best friend Erin. Since homosexual relationships are banned under King Manford’s rule, Sophia and a gay man, Luke, attempt to partner up at the ball. But the king discovers their plan, resulting in devastating repercussions for Luke.

Sophia narrowly escapes and goes on an adventure to take down King Manford. Along her journey, she meets and falls for Constance, the last living descendant of Cinderella’s family. Together they discover the fairy godmother, who is actually an evil witch. They also uncover the lies that have been spread about Cinderella, King Manford, and the rules that hold everyone in this patriarchal hierarchy.

Bayron twists a beloved fairytale into an empowering story where women get to decide their own fate and do not need to wait for their Prince Charming to come and save them. Cinderella is Dead is both captivating and moving as Sophia witnesses a seemingly picture-perfect fairytale crumble around her. In order to create a society where girls have the same freedoms as men, Constance says, “we need to burn the whole thing to the ground and start over. The entire system, the ideals that have been woven into society. It all has to go.”

Sophia is a powerful LGBTQ+ woman of color who works to overthrow a corrupt system. Sophia empowers all readers who have been pushed aside by society, making this novel a must-read for any queer teenager. Bayron’s story exemplifies how standing up for yourself and refusing to be shoved aside can truly benefit all people. Sophia’s adventure touches on many difficult subjects such as domestic violence and homophobia. However, these challenges are told in a sensitive way that will help introduce high school readers to the real difficulties and challenges of the world. Sophia is a powerful and personable character that readers will love, root for, and ultimately feel her pain as she attempts to create a just world.

Sexual Content

  • Sophia is upset the carriage ride to the ball would be the last time she would see Erin. Sophia reminisces, thinking that Erin was “the first and only person I’ve ever kissed.”
  • Sophia is harassed by an old man at the ball who “leans in and presses his lips to mine. I try to pull away, but he holds me close. He smells like wine and sweat, and all I want to do is get away from him.” Sophia fought him back as she “steps back and brings her knee up as hard as she can between his legs.” This causes an uproar, allowing Sophia the opportunity to escape.
  • Sophia and Constance share an intimate moment that Sophia describes. “Before I have a chance to overthink it, I press my lips to hers. Her hands move to my neck and face. A surge of warmth rushes over me as she pressed herself against me. There is an urgency in her kiss, like she’s trying to prove to me how much she cares, and I yield to her, unconditionally.”
  • Constance embraces Sophia when she returns from a trip. “Constance presses her lips against mine as she winds her arms around my neck.”
  • When she has to go to the winter cotillion, Sophia says goodbye to Constance. “I lean forward and kiss her, wrapping my arms around her, breathing her in and hoping this isn’t the last time.”
  • Sophia and Constance embrace. “Tears come again, but she wipes them away with the tip of her fingers, kissing my hand and pulling me close.”

Violence

  • Morris, Luke’s schoolmate, makes fun of Luke for being gay, which angers Luke. “Luke’s fist connected with Morris’s right cheek, sending spittle and at least two teeth flying.”
  • At the annual ball, the guards detain Luke. Sophia sees Luke getting “punched in the ribs and doubling over.”
  • A guard makes fun of Sophia’s friend, saying, “I would have offed myself, too, with a face like that.”
  • The local seamstress is falsely accused of helping Sophia escape at the annual ball. She is publicly executed and her head is cut off with an ax. Sophia saw “the seamstress’ head roll into the dirt.”
  • A local man harasses Constance and Sophia which leads to Constance fighting him. “Constance raises her knife and brings the hilt down on top of the man’s head, sending a loud crack! echoing through the alley. He falls face-first onto the ground.”
  • When Sophia plans to murder the king, she says, “I’m going to have to let him get close to me, so I can put a dagger in his neck.”
  • At the cotillion, a man attempts to flirt with Sophia, and a guard attacks him as a result. “As I turn, a guard sweeps in and strikes him on the top of the head with the hilt of his sword. The man collapsed into a heap.”
  • Sophia tries to assassinate King Manford. “In one quick move I plunge the dagger into his neck. I twist the blade the way Constance showed me. He blinks. Standing upright, he staggers, clutching his throat. I jump back, pulling the blade out. I smile at him. I’ve done it. I’ve ended him. Constance said that if I killed him, he would probably collapse into a heap. King Manford doesn’t move. She told me blood would rush from the wound. He doesn’t bleed.” As King Manford is no longer human, there is simply a gaping hole in his neck, but it did not cause him any pain as the hole slowly closed itself.
  • After Sophia’s attempt to kill King Manford, the guards restrain her. “Someone yanks my arm so hard it feels like my shoulder might come out of its socket.”
  • Sophia escapes her cell by attacking a guard. The guard “blinks, confused, as I bring the candlestick down with all the strength I can muster. It impacts his head with a sickening thud, and he falls into a pile, his knees and elbows jutting out in an unnatural way.”
  • Sophia continues attacking guards with her candlestick as she helps others escape the prison. The other prisoners cheer her on saying, “Hit him again!”
  • Amina, the fairy godmother, betrays Sophia and Constance. Constance stabs Amina for her betrayal. “The tip of Constance’s dagger sticks out of Amina’s chest as Constance grips the hilt behind Amina’s right shoulder.”
  • Sophia realizes King Manford is kept alive through magic and sees a bright core in him where the magic resides. She stabs the bright, magical center. “Bright, hot, and crimson like a heatless flame, the light in his chest erupts out of his mouth and engulfs the king’s entire head as he rears back, his hands clutching wildly at the air. A sound escapes his throat, the cries of a dying animal. What is left of his skin begins to shrivel and crack like burned paper.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Sophia considers Helen, a local potion maker, to be a hoax. Sophia thought, “Her potions were probably watered-down barley wine.”
  • Sophia describes the Bicentennial Celebration where every night of the week, “before curfew, people crowd the square to make music and drink.”
  • As Sophia and Erin ride to the annual ball, Erin speculates, “I hear they have tables and tables of food and wine.”
  • Amina, the fairy godmother, frequently smokes from a pipe. “She puffs away on her pipe, a wreath of earthy-smelling smoke encircling her head.”
  • The evil king, King Manford, meets Sophia at the cotillion. Sophia describes him. “From his smell, a mixture of wine and smoke, to the predatory look in his eyes, everything about him repels me.”
  • Amina describes the guilt she felt for betraying Cinderella, Sophia, and Constance. Amina felt “a twinge of guilt about Cinderella, but it’s nothing that can’t be stifled with a full pipe and a stiff drink.”

Language

  • Damn is used occasionally. For example, Sophia’s mother is frustrated with Sophia’s behavior and says she wishes Sophia “would sit down and stop trying to get herself arrested like some damned fool.”
  • Shit is used a couple of times. When Luke sees Morris, his classmate who always bullies him, he says “shit.”

Supernatural

  • Sophia walks past Helen’s Wonderments and thinks about the different potions Helen claims to brew up. The sign outside Helen’s store reads, “Find a Suitor, Banish an Enemy, Love Everlasting.”
  • Amina, the fairy godmother, explains how she learned magic. “All my life I’ve practiced magic. My mother raised me in the craft, taught me from the time I was young.”
  • Amina, Constance, and Sophia plan to use necromancy to raise Cinderella from the dead so Cinderella can help fight the king. Constance explains necromancy as, “It’s when you communicate with the dead.” Amina corrects Constance by explaining, “You have to call the spirit back to communicate with them.”
  • In order to see the future, Amina, Constance, and Sophia complete a divination ritual. In Sophia’s vision she sees Cinderella and the king. Then, the king’s “face transforms into something horrid and rotting – something dead. A ball of white-hot light erupts between us, pulling at the center of my chest. I cry out.”
  • Amina uses a spell to make the guards sleep. Amina describes the spell as “a little sleeping dust to send them to dreamland. . . It brings nightmares. . . The kind you never forget. The kind that haunt you even in your waking hours.”
  • Amina describes a special stone that allows the holder to see into the future. Amina explains, “An alternative to the kind of divination we used at the pond. An enchanted stone, polished up like a mirror. It can be used to see all sorts of things – the future, the present – but they are exceedingly rare.”
  • Amina raises Cinderella from the dead. Sophia describes the emotions of seeing Cinderella as, “A literal ghost is speaking to us, it takes everything I have not to give in to the little voice in my head that is screaming at me to run.”
  • Amina uses magic to create a gown for Sophia. Sophia describes the experience. “The same strange luminescence that clings to it clings to me. I hold my breath as a dress of shimmering silver materializes around me.”
  • Sophia realizes how the king has stayed alive for hundreds of years. When Sophia is imprisoned, the girl in the cell next to her explains, “He siphons the life from your very soul. There is a light, a pull, and whatever he takes from you, he uses to make himself young, to live as long as he so chooses.”
  • Sophia finds Cinderella’s journal which also explains how King Manford used magic to stay alive. Cinderella had written, “A channel opened between us, a connection. I could see right into his blackened heart. Something invisible, something unnatural, surrounds the source of the light. And now I know that there is no hope for me. Or for anyone.”
  • King Manford attempts to draw the life out of Sophia. Sophia describes the experience saying, “I’m dying. I feel the life being pulled out of me in long, rasping draws. A fire ignites in my chest, burning away any feelings of hope or love or happiness. Something tugs hard at my waist, and suddenly I’m sliding backward across the ballroom floor.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Paige Smith

 

 

 Land of the Cranes 

Nine-year-old Betita knows she is a crane. Papi has told her the story, from even before her family fled to Los Angeles to seek refuge from cartel wars in Mexico. Long before that, Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan, which is now the Southwest U.S. This place was called the land of the cranes. The Axtecs left Aztlan to establish their great city in the center of the universe -Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. But it was prophesied that their people would one day return to live among the cranes in their promised land. Papi tells Betita they are cranes that have come home.

Then one day, Betita’s beloved father is arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are left behind, but soon they too are detained and must learn to survive in a family detention camp outside of Los Angeles. Even in cruel and inhumane conditions, Betita finds heart in her own poetry and in the community, she and her mother find in the camp. The voices of her fellow asylum seekers fly above the hatred keeping them caged, but each day threatens to tear them down lower than they ever thought they could be torn. Will Betita and her family ever be whole again?

Land of the Cranes is told from Betita’s point of view. Her voice comes through in the narration and in the poems she writes for her father. She also draws simple illustrations that help convey her emotions. Even though the story is told from a child’s point of view, younger readers may be upset by the harsh treatment and a brief description of sexual abuse.

Written in prose, Land of the Cranes has some beautiful language. However, Spanish words and phrases are scattered throughout the book, which may cause confusion for non-Spanish speakers. In an extended metaphor, Betita refers to her and her family as cranes. Expanding on this metaphor, when she thinks about her mother’s pregnancy Betita talks about the “egg” and the “nest.” One reason Betita is worried about the “egg hatching” is that “Mami has lost / two babies before. / They worry that this one / might get lost too.”

Land of the Cranes explores the “zero tolerance” policy of ICE detaining undocumented immigrants and the harsh condition of the detention centers. One of Salazar’s purposes for writing the book is to show an example of “a larger, tragic, and true story of the criminalization of migration that spans hundreds of years.”

Younger readers may be disturbed by Land of the Cranes because it deals with the difficult topic of immigration and families being torn apart. In addition, readers may have a difficult time understanding some of the language and when Spanish is used, there are not always context clues to help readers understand the words’ meanings. Despite this, Land of the Cranes would be an excellent book to use as a conversation starter. Sensitive readers may want to skip Land of the Cranes and read Efren Divided, which explores the same topics but uses a more child-friendly manner.

Sexual Content

  • A young woman has a girlfriend.
  • Betita’s friend tells her a secret. “There was a man who cooked our food / who would lock me in the closet with him. / He did things. / He told me it was supposed to feel good / but it didn’t. It hurt so bad, I threw up.”

Violence

  • Betita’s Tio, Pedro, was killed by a cartel. Papi says, “A cartel hurt Tio Pedro / made him disappear / when he didn’t give them / the money they wanted.”
  • A woman in the detention center explains why her family fled to America. She was fearful that the cartel would hurt her family. The woman saw the cartel “kill a man for not paying the rent on his cart. I knew we would be next.”
  • A woman guard tells Betita to undress. Betita stomps “my feet on her foot . . . The guard grabs me by the arm / shakes my body like a sheet /and starts to pull up my blouse.” The guard tries to “hit Mami,” but another guard stops her.
  • A young woman tries to fight the guards, who are putting her in a cell. “They get her up and open the / gate to our cell, and give her a shove. . . She lunges at one of the guards. / The guard’s fist smashed into her nose / which sends her back like a rag doll. / Then the other guard rushes her / while she is down / and kicks / and kicks/ and kicks/ her in the stomach / and in the face.”
  • Betita’s friend was taken to a detention camp for children. Her friend says the guards “hit the kids / who tried to run out of the doors or cried too loudly.”
  • While sleeping, a guard checks on the prisoners. “I count one kick in my face / while I slept, from a guard.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a quinceanera, “Tio Desiderio is on guard / at the bar, making sure some /of her pimply-faced guy friends / don’t try to get beer.”
  • Papi tells Betita that a cartel is “a group of men who sell / drugs / guns / and people / sometimes.”

Language

  • Several of the guards at the detention center call the prisoners “donkeys.” For example, a guard yells, “Burros, time to eat!”
  • The guards call the prisoners names including wetback, perra, and stupid.
  • Betita doesn’t like her friend’s “booger of a brother.”
  • When a guard pushes a prisoner, the prisoner yells, “Don’t push me, you piece of scum!”
  • Dang is used twice.
  • Freaking and damn are both used one time.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Betita’s mother thinks about her brother, who was killed by the cartel. “Mami lights a candle daily / to a small statue of La Vigen de Guadalupe / and a picture of Tio Pedro faded in the frame. . . She prays for protection under her breath.”
  • When her father is deported, Betita cuts a piece of her father’s pillow and “put it on Mami’s Virgencita / smoosh it between the moon / and the angel / and pray for protection. ‘Please, Virgencita, don’t / take Papi with you too.’”
  • When Betita and her mother are taken to a detention center, “Mami prays Tio Juan / will reach Fernanda and that she will / know where to find us. . . Virgencita, protect us, por favor, Mami says.”
  • Betita tells the story about how the Mexican people are cranes. “Several tribes including the Mexica / traveled south like cranes / when Huitzilopchitli. . .The god of war / announced his / prophecy that they /would move south / to build their great /civilization in the / ombligo of the world.”

The Only Black Girls in Town

For over a decade, Alberta and her fathers, Elliott and Kadeem, have been the only Black people on their street in the town of Ewing Beach, California. That is, until a new family moves into the bed and breakfast across the street: Calliope Whitman and her daughter Edie. On the surface, it appears Edie and Alberta are opposites. Alberta has grown up in Ewing Beach for most of her life with her two very present dads. While Alberta grew up in a community dominated by White people, Edie grew up in the diverse county of Brooklyn. But these two girls have something they can strictly bond over: their Blackness and being 12, a time when bodies are going through intense and sudden change.

Alberta’s best friend is Laramie, a White girl, but Alberta and Edie share something special. One day while hanging out at the bed and breakfast, the pair discover a series of journals that were written from 1955 to 1968. They decide to uncover the mystery behind the journals and their writer, Constance. While unraveling the mystery, Alberta goes through many crises that center around her femininity, her Blackness, puberty, and friendships that seem to change way too fast.

Each girl in the main cast (Alberta, Edie, and Laramie) has their own issues and these issues are fleshed out with concise writing, giving the story a good pace while upholding the mystery of Constance. Laramie is dealing with the social hierarchy of middle school and her rapidly changing body, even to the extent of getting her first period and growing three inches in one summer. Edie is dealing with her parents separating and her father’s absence alongside his broken promises to see her. Alberta is exploring the complexities of change and confronting her Blackness and the Blackness of other characters such as Constance.

The Only Black Girls in Town is written from the perspective of Alberta, thus making the reader more sympathetic to her struggles as a 12-year-old girl coming of age. It is an amazing story that speaks on the complexities of race and puberty. Many readers will relate to the idea that hitting puberty means learning more about your own race. Colbert does an excellent job weaving themes of Blackness in her characters along with their changing bodies. The author tells readers that they are not alone in their journey of self-discovery, and she provides a diverse look at Black people.

The Only Black Girls in Town explores the theme that the experience with one’s Blackness is not uniform. For example, Black people do not dress uniformly as seen with Edie and Alberta’s clashing fashion sense. Black people come in a variety of shades: dark, light, medium brown, and even fair-skinned. Black people have different hair ranging from kinky curls to dreadlocks to straight. The story emphasizes that there is no mold for the Black experience. The Only Black Girls In Town also explores the subtlety of racism, often hidden in casual language like when the residential mean girl, Nicolette, demeans Alberta’s achievement as the best surfer in surf camp down to being Black or Laramie says Edie is “faking” her goth and punk self because she believes Black people to be monolithic in experience and appearance. While the White characters are not explicitly racist, their implicit bias is shown in dialogue such as Laramie not caring about the fact that Alberta’s new neighbor is Black and not understanding why Alberta is so excited. The book validates Alberta’s feelings of unease and that feeling of “this isn’t racist but feels racist.”

The Only Black Girls in Town is an amazing story that weaves the trials of middle school with the intricacies of race. The story balances lighthearted tones with a suspenseful mystery that heightens the drama between the characters. During a time where race relations have gradually become more complex and subtle, The Only Black Girls in Town is an important novel for all readers regardless of their race. This novel is for readers who would like a fun mystery and who want to learn about/explore the relationship between Blackness and coming of age.

Sexual Content

  • Laramie says, “Gavin tried to kiss me the other day. After school.” This kiss is mentioned two more times.
  • Laramie mentions that Gavin “would look at me different from how he looked at everyone else.”

 Violence

  • In a journal entry, Constance wrote about how she overheard her employers talking about the death of a boy. “They were speaking about the Negro boy who was killed down South.” Edie infers it’s about the historic murder of Emmett Till, who was lynched in 1955.
  • When Laramie talks about the party she went to, she mentions that Gavin “was going to kill Davis for bumping into a table with a sculpture of some old dude.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Because of her goth and punk fashion sense, Edie is called “Wednesday Addams” in reference to the popular character.
  • “Brat” is used a few times. For example, “Stephan McKee. He’s a total spoiled brat . . .”
  • In the journal entries discovered by the girls, the word “Negro(es)” is used multiple times.
  • The word “mulatto” is used once in a journal entry where Constance recalls an interaction with her colleague May who says, “I’m mulatto, Constance.” The term is used in reference to those who are half Black and half White.
  • In a journal entry, the reader can infer that Constance’s employer, Mrs. Ogden, uses a racial slur to describe Black people. “Mrs. Ogden said the Negroes were getting uppity since they won the Supreme Court case to desegregate the schools. But she didn’t use the word Negroes.”
  • There is a lot of language used to emphasize Alberta and Edie’s “otherness” due to being Black. For example, Nicolette tells Alberta, “It’s just that you’re like, different here and different there, but Irene tries to make it special for you. That’s cute.” in order to demean her achievement of being the best surfer in surf camp, given to her personally by their instructor.
  • The school’s vice-principal assumes Edie and Alberta are cousins because they are both Black.
  • Someone says Edie is a “poser” because, as Laramie puts it, they “don’t know a lot of Black people who dress like that.”
  • Weird is used to describe a lot of situations in the novel. For example, Laramie calls Edie’s black lipstick weird.
  • Constance writes “Lord have mercy on me” once.
  • Alberta says, “Oh my god!” once.
  • Alberta calls Nicolette a “barney” (“someone who’s not very good at surfing”).
  • Nicolette spreads a rumor about Laramie having an accident. Alberta says, “She told people you wet the bed?” Laramie reveals it’s about leaking during her period.
  • Edie tells Alberta about how she feels about her father not coming to visit her or call her when he says he would. Alberta says, “That really sucks Edie.”
  • Alberta and Laramie make a pact to never speak Nicolette’s name for the whole year, so Alberta refers to Nicolette as “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
  • Nicolette says, “You know, Alberta, you could’ve just worn your regular clothes if you wanted to dress like a dork” when she tries to crash the Halloween party next door.
  • Laramie calls Nicolette a jerk while at Edie’s Halloween party. “Alberta is right. You’ve always been a jerk to her, and we should’ve called you on it a long time ago.”
  • Many times, Nicolette is referred to as “mean” and other varying superlatives.

 Supernatural

  • None

 Spiritual Content

  • None

by Emma Hua

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns is set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding. It puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of the country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war. In war, personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, and find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Mariam and her mother live as outcasts. With little contact with the outside world, Mariam dreams of a time when her father will accept her. When Mariam’s mother dies, Mariam has no choice but to show up at her father’s house. Her father quickly arranges for Mariam to marry Rasheed. At first, Mariam is hopeful that living in a new city with a new husband will be the beginning of something good. But after a string of miscarriages, Rasheed becomes violent and forbids Mariam from seeking friendship.

Meanwhile, Laila grew up with parents that believe everyone deserves an education, including girls. While Laila’s childhood is far from perfect, she is surrounded by loving people. Then, just when her family plans to leave their war-torn city, Laila’s parents are killed. With no family or friends left, Laila isn’t sure where to turn. When Rasheed offers marriage, Laila reluctantly agrees to become his second wife. However, she wasn’t prepared for his first wife’s hate or Rasheed’s violence.

A Thousand Splendid Suns has worked its way onto many schools’ required reading lists because the story helps readers understand Afghan history. More importantly, it is a story of family, friendship, and hope. Mariam and Laila’s friendship gives them strength to live in a brutal environment, where their husband is cruel and abusive. Through their plight, readers will begin to understand the role women play in Afghanistan and how the Taliban changed their world overnight.

Readers will be deeply moved by the story’s events. However, the brutality of war, the massacre of innocent people, and the harsh physical abuse of both Mariam and Laila is graphic and disturbing. Hosseini paints a realistic picture of living in a war-torn country, and the images of death will remain with readers for a long time after they close the cover of the book. Even though A Thousand Splendid Suns has a positive message, sensitive readers will find the descriptions of Rasheed’s abusive behavior and the constant death upsetting.

Before you read A Thousand Splendid Suns, grab a box of tissues because the story will bring you to tears. Because of Laila’s friendship, Mariam makes a decision that will forever alter both of their lives. Through Mariam’s experiences, readers will come to understand how powerless women were under the Taliban’s rule, but they will also see how friendship and kindness have the power to change one’s life.

Sexual Content

  • After Mariam’s mother got pregnant, the baby’s father told his wives that her mother had “forced” herself on him.
  • Mariam is forced to marry a much older man. Before the marriage, Mariam thinks about her mother’s words. “It was the thought of these intimacies in particular, which she [Mariam] imagined as painful acts of perversity, that filled her with dread and made her break out in a sweat.”
  • One night, Mariam’s husband comes into her room. “His hand was on her right breast now, squeezing it hard through the blouse. . . He rolled on top of her, wriggled and shifted, and she let out a whimper. . .The pain was sudden and astonishing. . . When it was done, he rolled off her, panting.”
  • Mariam finds pornography in her husband’s room. The women in the pictures, “their legs were apart, and Mariam had a full view of the dark place between.”
  • Mariam’s husband desires intimacy. “His appetite, on the other hand, was fierce, sometimes boarding on violent. The way he pinned her down, his hand squeezes at her breast, how furiously his hips worked.”
  • Laila’s feelings for her best friend, Tariq, begin to change. She wonders “what would it be like to kiss him, to feel the fuzzy hair about his lips tickling her own lips?” Later, they have sex. “Laila thought of Tariq’s hands, squeezing her breast, sliding down the small of her back, as the two of them kissed and kissed.”
  • Laila hears a story about three sisters who were raped and then “their throats slashed.”
  • After Laila’s parents die, an older man asks Laila to marry him. He implies that if she says no, she may have to work in a brothel. Laila agrees to marry him because she is pregnant.
  • After Laila and the man are married, he has sex with her. “Laila had a full view of his sagging breast, his protruding belly button. . . she felt his eyes crawling all over her.” They have sex several times, but the action is not described in detail.

Violence

  • The book often describes the violence of war. For example, someone says that the Mujahideen forces boys to fight. “And when soldiers from a rival militia capture these boys, they torture them. I heard they electrocute them. . . then they crush their balls with pliers. They make the boys lead them to their homes. Then they break in, kill their fathers, rape their sisters and mothers.”
  • After Mariam goes into town, she comes back and sees “the straight-backed chair, overturned. The rope dropping from a high branch. Nana dangling at the end of it.”
  • After Mariam has a miscarriage, her husband becomes different. It wasn’t easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults. . . [Mariam] lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks. . .”
  • Russians took over Afghanistan and people talked about “eyes gouged and genitals electrocuted in Pol-e-Charkhi Prison. Mariam would hear of the slaughter that had taken place at the Presidential Palace.” The president was killed after he watched the “massacre of his family.”
  • Mariam’s husband was angry because of her cooking. “His powerful hands clasped her jaw. He shoved two fingers into her mouth and pried it open, then forced the cold, hard pebbles into it. Mariam struggled against him, mumbling, but he kept pushing the pebbles in, his upper lip curled in a sneer . . . Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars.”
  • A teacher would slap students. “Palm, then back of the hand, back and forth, like a painter working a brush.”
  • A boy shoots a water gun, spraying a girl with urine.
  • After a girl is bullied, her friend fights the bully. “Then it was all dust and fists and kicks and yelps.”
  • A rocket hits one of Laila’s friend’s houses. “Giti’s mother had run up and down the street where Giti was killed, collecting pieces of her daughter’s flesh in her apron, screeching hysterically. Giti’s decomposing right foot, still in in its nylon sock and purple sneaker, would be found on a rooftop two weeks later.”
  • A rocket hits Laila’s house. “Something hot and powerful slammed into her from behind. It knocked her out of her sandals. Lifted her up. And now she was flying, twisting and rotating in the air. . . Then Laila struck the wall. Crashed to the ground.” Laila sees her dead parents.
  • Laila hears a story about soldiers “raping Pashtun girls, shelling Pashtun neighborhoods, and killing indiscriminately. Every day, bodies were found tied to trees, sometimes burned beyond recognition. Often, they’d been shot in the head, had their eyes gouged out, their tongues cut out.”
  • Rasheed, Laila’s husband, hits both of his wives often. “One moment [Laila] was talking and the next she was on all fours, wide-eyed and red-faced, trying to draw a breath. . .” She drops the baby she was carrying. “Then she was being dragged by her hair.” Her husband locks her in a room and then goes to beat his other wife. “To Laila, the sounds she heard were those of a methodical, familiar proceeding. . . there was no cussing, no screaming, no pleading. . . only the systematic business of beating and being beaten, the thump, thump of something solid repeatedly striking flesh.”
  • When the Taliban take over Afghanistan, they kill the Afghanistan leader. The Taliban “had tortured him for hours, then tied his legs to a truck and dragged his lifeless body through the streets.”
  • After Rasheed hits Laila, she “punched him . . . The impact actually made him stagger two steps backward. . . He went on kicking, kicking Mariam now, spittle flying from his mouth. . .” At one point Rasheed put the barrel of a gun in Laila’s mouth.
  • Rasheed gets upset at Laila and begins “pummeling her, her head, her belly with fists, tearing at her hair, throwing her to the wall.” Mariam tries to help Laila but Rasheed hits her too.
  • After an old friend comes to see Laila, Rasheed gets angry. “Without saying a word, he swung the belt at Laila. . . Laila touched her fingers to her temple, looked at the blood, looked at Rasheed, with astonishment. Rasheed swung the belt again.” Rasheed begins to strangle Laila. “Laila’s face was turning blue now, and her eyes had rolled back.”
  • In order to save Laila, Mariam hits Rasheed with a shovel. “And so Mariam raised the shovel high, raised it as high as she could, arching it so it touched the small of her back. She turned it so the sharp edge was vertical . . . Mariam brought down the shovel. This time, she gave it everything she had.” Rasheed dies from his wounds.
  • When an Afghanistan leader is killed, Laila thinks about some of the violence that he caused. “She remembers too well the neighborhoods razed under his watch, the bodies dragged from the rubble, the hands and feet of children discovered on rooftops or the high branches of some tree days after their funeral. . . “

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone is given morphine after being injured.
  • Laila overhears a story about her husband. He was drunk when his son “went into the water unnoticed. They spotted him a while later, floating face down.” The boy died. Someone says, “This is why the Holy Koran forbids sharab. Because it always falls on the sober to pay for the sins of the drunk.”

Language

  • Profanity is rarely used. Profanity includes ass, piss, shit, and damn.
  • As a child, Mariam’s mother reminds her that she is a bastard because she was born out of wedlock.
  • Mariam yells at her half-brother, saying “he had a mouth shaped like a lizard’s ass.”
  • Mariam pleads with her father, asking him not to make her marry a stranger. He yells, “Goddamn it, Mariam, don’t do this to me.”
  • A child yells at a bully, saying, “Your mother eats cock!” The child does not know what the words mean.
  • Someone calls Laila a whore. Later, Laila’s husband also calls her a whore.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The story focuses on characters who are Muslim. They often pray.
  • Mariam’s mom said she had a difficult labor. She said, “I didn’t eat or sleep, all I did was push and pray that you would come out.”
  • Mullah Faizullah teaches Mariam about the Koran’s words. He tells her, “You can summon them [God’s words] in your time of need, and they won’t fail you. God’s words will never betray you, my girl.” During difficult times, Mariam thinks about verses from the Koran.
  • Mariam asks Mullah Faizullah to convince Mariam’s mother to let her go to school. He replies, “God, in His wisdom has given us each weaknesses, and foremost among my many is that I am powerless to refuse you, Mariam.”
  • Mariam’s mother tells her, “Of all the daughters I could have had, why did God give me an ungrateful one like you?” Later that day, her mother commits suicide.
  • After Mariam’s mother commits suicide, Mullah Faizullah says, “The Koran speaks the truth, my girl. Behind every trial and every sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.” Later, he tells Mariam that Allah “will forgive her, for He is all-forgiving, but Allah is saddened by what she did.”
  • After Mariam’s father forces her to marry, her father says he will come to visit her. She tells him, “I used to pray that you’d live to be a hundred years old. . . I didn’t know that you were ashamed of me.”
  • When Mariam learns that she will have a baby, she thinks about a verse from the Koran. “And Allah is the East and the West, therefore wherever you turn there is Allah’s purpose.”
  • When Mariam has a miscarriage, she gets angry, but thinks, “Allah was not spiteful. He was not a petty God. . . Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom, and He Who has power over all things, Who created death and life that He may try out.”
  • When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, flyers were passed out with new rules including “all citizens must pray five times a day. . . If you are not Muslim, do not worship where you can be seen by Muslims. If you do, you will be beaten and imprisoned. If you are caught trying to convert a Muslim to your faith, you will be executed.”
  • A man tells Mariam, “God has made us differently, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can.”

They Called Us Enemy

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans are forced into internment camps. While George knows there is a war against the Japanese, he does not understand why he and his family are being forced to leave their home. Unable to grasp the injustices that George, his family, and other Japanese Americans are being forced to endure, George describes his joyful, yet troubled boyhood in two of America’s ten internment camps.

As George and his family adjust to life in the internment camp, George cannot help but notice the anguish and anxiety his parents and families around them are experiencing. When will the war end? How long will Japanese Americans suffer under this legalized racism? Will George, his family, and the other 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps ever be able to return home?

As he grows older, George angrily questions how his parents and so many other Japanese Americans could have let this happen. George’s later successes as an actor, activist, and author force him to reflect not only on his time in the camps but also on his understanding of his parents and their situation.

This heartfelt story highlights the themes of family, sacrifice, and empathy. As readers learn George’s story and watch his growth physically and emotionally, they will view all stages of George’s life—from blissful childhood ignorance to teenage anger and thoughtful adulthood. In addition, George includes his thoughts on his incarceration. Through simple, captivating images and storytelling, readers are given the chance to grow alongside George as the story progresses.

They Called Us Enemy utilizes compelling visuals and accessible language to engage and educate readers on the difficult and often overlooked subject of Japanese internment. The animated illustrations and comic style make this difficult subject more palatable for young readers while still depicting the tough reality of the characters’ situations.

From the eyes of a young George Takei, readers are able to join George in his journey to understanding and coming to terms with his and his family’s imprisonment. The combination of George’s conversation and a short, accompanied narrative tells not only George’s autobiography but the evolution of Japanese sentiment during and following World War II. Overall, this 2020 American Award Winner lives up to the praise. With its engaging historical background and cultural depictions, They Called Us Enemy is a must-read for readers of all backgrounds.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When residents become seemingly more radical, George notes the unrest that exists throughout his second camp, Tule Lake. This results in “hostile words quickly erupt[ing] into violence throughout Tule Lake.”
  • As George and his family prepare for Christmas, they hear on the radio that Pearl Harbor has been attacked by the Japanese which would “naturally mean that the President would ask Congress for a declaration of war.”
  • Thousands of volunteers from Hawaii and across internment camps form the 442nd regimental combat team of all American-born-Japanese Americans. George narrates that, “the 442nd suffered over eight hundred causalities.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • After leaving the internment camp, George and his family live on Skid Row in Los Angeles where they lived among “derelicts and drunkards.”

Language

  • Older boys teach George and his brother the phrase “sakana beach” in order to prank the young boys and upset the guards. The words do not hold a negative meaning in Japanese but are meant to imitate the phrase “son of a bitch.”
  • Before yelling “sakana beach,” an older boy warns George to “run like hell” in order to avoid being caught by the angry guards.
  • While being arrested by a guard, a man yells, “Damn Ketoh,” which George’s father later explains is an offensive term used against white people. Ketoh translates to “hairy breed.”
  • During a fight between the guards and the internment camp residents, a man yells, “Go to hell ketoh!”
  • The term “Jap” is used in a derogatory manner by non-Japanese individuals throughout the story.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Katie Ng Ross

Dirt Road Home

Two years ago, Hal was sent to a state residence to keep him away from his alcoholic father. Hal escapes the boys’ home but is eventually captured. Now, he’s being sent to serve hard time at Hellenweiler Boy’s Home.

With his dad back on the wagon, Hal can walk out sooner than he thinks if he keeps his cool. But at Hellenweiler, trouble finds those who try to avoid it. In order to stay out of trouble, Hal tries to avoid the other residents, but two rival gangs each want Hal to pick a side. To make matters worse, Hal realizes the head of Hellenweiler, Mr. Pratt, is determined to keep Hal locked up. Is there any way Hal can stay out of the gangs’ fights? Will everyone believe Mr. Pratt’s lies?

Hal is determined to stay out of trouble, but other inmates notice his confidence and compassion. For example, Hal encourages the new arrival of Leroy to quickly choose a gang as Leroy will need protection. But after seeing Leroy and Hal interact, the gang leader chooses a cruel initiation task—beat up Hal. Hal quickly realizes Leroy’s struggle and promises not to fight back. Hal takes the beating because he knows it is the only way Leroy will be safe. Throughout the story, many boys fight each other. Some of the fights are barbaric and bloody, which may upset more sensitive readers.

Readers will admire Hal for his determination and grit. Hal’s experiences highlight the violent nature of boys’ homes and the corrupt system that is designed to keep the boys behind bars. The boys often fight each other and the guards gladly ignore much of the fighting. However, the guards seem to relish in being able to use violence to stop the fighting. While the story ends on a positive note, readers will be left wondering if all of the boys can be reformed or if are some of them already destined to live in a prison for the rest of their adult lives.

Full of violence, questionable characters, and suspense, Dirt Road Home will keep the reader interested until the very end. The story has a darker tone and explores difficult topics such as alcoholism, justice, and prison life. Hal and several other characters made an appearance in Alabama Moon. Even though readers do not have to read Alabama Moon to understand the story, understanding Hal’s background will help readers have empathy for him. Dirt Road Home is an easy-to-read story that illustrates how one person can make a positive difference in others’ lives.

Sexual Content

  • Hal dreams about his girlfriend and “the time I couldn’t help myself and leaned over and kissed her on the tailgate of my truck. And the way I’d felt when she’d kissed me back and then later when she’d stood behind me and put her hands in the front pockets of my jeans and pulled close against me.”
  • Hal kisses his girlfriend. “I leaned into her and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were soft and tasted like cherry ChapStick. I’d been thinking about that kiss ever since.”

Violence

  • Two rival gangs try to recruit new boys. A boy chases after a basketball and gets too close to a rival gang member. “The Hound slapped the ball out of the Minister’s hand and bent down to get it. The Minister kneed the boy in the stomach and the Hound collapsed, holding himself.” An adult breaks up the fight.
  • As part of a gang initiation, Hal’s friend Leroy is told to beat up Hal. Hal tells him, “I won’t fight back, Leroy.” Leroy “drew back and hit me in the ribs. I grunted and leaned over and grabbed my side. . . He punched me hard in the stomach. I doubled over and went to my knees. . . He hit me across the face and I fell sideways. I rolled over and looked at him. Tears were coming down his face. ‘Kick me,’ I said.” Hal is taken to the infirmary.
  • When Hal refuses to join a gang, Tattoo “slammed his hand into my throat and pressed me against the wall. I gasped for breath as he held me there. . . He hit me again. I felt the coppery taste of blood in my mouth. Then I saw it running down his hand.” Hal is knocked unconscious. The scene is described over a page.
  • A gang member tries to make Hal throw a punch. “Jack’s hand shot out and grabbed me by the throat and pinned me to the wire. He was breathing heavy through his nose, and his eyes danced with craziness.” An adult intervenes.
  • When one of the boys refuses to fight, he disappears. Someone tells Hal, “Chase accepted a service he could not pay for. He is gone. . . He was taken away in an ambulance last night.”
  • Hal sneaks down to the basement intending to fight Jack. “I tightened my grip on the shiv and started to stand. Before I could rise, another figure slipped out of the darkness behind Jack and pulled him to the floor. The room was suddenly filled with screaming.” Someone beat up Jack. The next morning, one of the boys is found in bed with “blood staining his bedsheet and the entire side of his shirt.” Both boys heal from their wounds.
  • The two gangs fight. “It was a blur of chaos and confusion as the Hounds descended on their cowering prey . . .” Guards watch the fight and then one “stepped down onto the yard. Behind him came three more guards, each of them with his own club. . . Then I saw sticks rising and falling and caught glimpses of their faces, jaws clenched and eyes narrowed at the pleasure of what they dealt. I heard grunts of pain and more yelling. . . in the end, the guards stood in the settling dust. A few boys lay around them, moaning and curled into fetal positions.”
  • Paco explains how he became a gang leader. “I put a rock in my fist and walked up to their leader and hit him in the face with it until he fell to the ground and spit his teeth into the dirt.”
  • During a fight between the two gangs, “the boys are so worked up that they continue to fight and do not notice the guards. Perhaps even if they did notice they do not believe what is about to happen. . .” The guards attack the boys. After the fight, “there are several boys lying on the ground. One of them is not moving. . . Caboose’s younger brother.” When Caboose refuses to leave his brother’s side, “the guards close in and I hear the clubs hitting his back like punches to a side of beef. Slowly, after many blows, Caboose becomes silent. . . Then, after many more blows, he rolls over and falls across his brother.”
  • A guard finds a shiv in Hal’s locker. The guard grabs Hal and, “I felt the hand on my shoulder. I tried to twist away and the fingers dug clawlike into my collarbone and pain shot up my neck. Then I was hit hard from behind and I went to my knees with the room spinning.” Hal is put in solitary confinement.
  • Paco tells the story of how he ended up in the boys’ home. He was bullied. He became tired of the jeers and ridicule. “I snapped. I began picking up desks and throwing them at students from the back of the room. They screamed and ran for the door. . . All I had to do was throw the desk at the cluster of them.” Paco blames the boys’ home for turning him into a “violent youth.”
  • The gangs fight. Jack, one of the gang leaders, “charged and rammed Paco against the fence. . . Jack began driving his fists into Paco’s kidneys over and over while Paco did nothing to defend himself. . . Jack came at Paco again and began hammering his face with the fury of an insane person. . .” Paco’s friend Caboose “picked him up and put him over his shoulder like he weighed nothing. Blood drooled out of his mouth and down Caboose’s back.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Hal’s father is a recorded alcoholic. In a brief conversation Hal asks, “He goin’ to AA meetin’s?” Occasionally, Hal thinks about the past, when his father would drink whiskey.
  • When Hal’s father comes to visit him, Hal is worried because his father has lost weight. His dad says, “I guess I’ve been wired to the stuff [alcohol] for too long. Gotta get reprogrammed.”
  • One of the boys tells Hal, “My parents are in jail for sellin’ drugs.”
  • Before Hal had to go to the boy’s home, he spent time with his girlfriend. They were “drinking a couple of hot Budweisers I’d found in the toolbox.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes ass, crap, damn, hell and pissed.
  • Someone is called a wuss several times.
  • Christ is used as an exclamation twice.
  • Hal’s father writes Hal a letter. In it, he writes, “I figured you wanted her [Hal’s girlfriend’s] address, numbskull.”
  • While talking to his father, Hal calls his mom a “fat old nag.”
  • One of the boys calls someone a “dumb spic.” The boy replies, “Bring it on, cracker!”
  • Someone tells Hal that he will have to join a gang for protection. When Hal refuses, someone gives him a shiv. Hal says, “Then I’m screwed!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Written originally as Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You is the exploration of racism in the United States since before the founding of America. The book is remixed for younger audiences by prolific author and the Library of Congress’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jason Reynolds. The fast-paced book explores the history of racism and how we can build an antiracist present and future.

Reynolds makes it clear that Stamped is not a history book, but instead a book about racism in present times. Although there is plenty of history described, he pulls the essentials from Kendi’s book and brings these historical events and people to life for younger readers. He shows how racist thoughts have persisted through time and affect everyone today. Most importantly, he uses Kendi’s definitions of segregationists, assimilationists, and antiracists to explore various thoughts about race, race relations, and racist ideas.

Reynolds breaks down the three terms by saying, “The antiracists try to transform racism. The assimilationists try to transform Black people. The segregationists try to get away from Black people.” Reynolds’ ability to bring difficult topics to a level that young teens can understand is remarkable, as racism is so prevalent and widespread across the United States and the world.

Despite Reynolds’ sense of humor and smooth-flowing writing, Stamped is not a cheery book, nor is it supposed to be. The history of racism is terrible; terrible things have happened and still happen – a point which Reynolds and Kendi make throughout. There is are discussions about mass incarceration, lynching, slavery, and kidnapping – all of which pertain to the history of racism. They also analyze major players in the Civil Rights movement, some of which fall into the assimilationist category, and others into the antiracist category.

Racism exists, and Reynolds and Kendi ask that people become antiracist in thought and in practice. Hope is a strong thread that pulls the novel together, despite the atrocities committed because of racist beliefs and policies. If people can become antiracist, the future can be so much brighter for many people who have faced oppression. Everyone should read Stamped because it isn’t a history book; it’s a guide to a better way of being and treating people.

Sexual Content

  • Reynolds breaks down a scene from the book of Genesis in the Bible, discussing how Noah orders his “white sons not to have sex with their wives on the ark, and then tells them that the first child born after the flood would inherit the earth. When the evil, tyrannical, and hypersexual Ham has sex on the ark, God wills that Ham’s descendants will be dark and disgusting, and the whole world will look at them as symbols of trouble.”
  • It was not uncommon for slave owners to start “breeding slaves. . . [Thomas Jefferson] and other like-minded slave owners began forcing their men and women slaves to conceive children so that they, the owners, could keep up with all the demands of the Deep South.”

Violence

  • Reynolds and Kendi detail the racial violence that has occurred throughout history and in present times. They often discuss topics such as murder, slavery, and incarceration, as well as a host of other atrocities. For instance, “Young Black males were twenty-one times more likely to be killed by police than their White counterparts between 2010 and 2012, according to federal statistics.” Other details of violence are frequently shared throughout the book.
  • Reynolds also discusses violence against Native Americans. For example, he talks about Metacomet, “a Native American war leader, [who] was killed, which basically ended the battle in 1676. Puritans cut up his body as if it were a hog’s, and paraded his remains around Plymouth.”
  • Reynolds describes the movie The Birth of a Nation, where, “A Black man (played by a White man in blackface) tries to rape a White woman” who then “jumps off a cliff and kills herself,” and “Klansmen avenge her death.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Reynolds writes about tobacco as a major cash crop in the American South prior to the founding of the country.
  • There is a discussion about the “War on Drugs” and “crack babies” in their relation to racism and racist government policies.

Language

  • Based on historical context, language is used to dehumanize Black people is scattered throughout the book. The language describes the growth and pervasiveness of racism. Reynolds, for instance, discusses the thoughts of Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini, who said that “Africans were born of a ‘different Adam,’ and had a different creation story. Of course, this would mean they were a different species. It was kind of like saying that Africans weren’t actually human . . . Africans went from savages to SAVAGES, which revved up the necessity for Christian conversion and civilizing.”
  • Racial slurs are used in historical context. For instance, Reynolds talks about a group of artists that emerged out of the Harlem Renaissance that referred to themselves as the “Niggerati. They believed they should be able to make whatever they wanted to express themselves as whole humans without worrying about White acceptance.”

Supernatural

  • Reynolds describes Curse Theory, saying, “In 1577, after noticing that Inuit people in northeastern Canada were darker than the people living in the hotter south, English travel writer George Best determined . . . that it couldn’t have been climate that made darker people inferior, and instead determined that Africans were, in fact, cursed . . . And what did Best use to prove this theory? Only one of the most irrefutable books of the time: the Bible.”
  • Reynolds talks about witches and witchcraft. Reynolds writes, “[Cotton] Mather wrote a book called Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions . . . Mather’s book, outlining the symptoms of witchcraft, reflected his crusade against the enemies of White souls.” This book launched the Salem witch hunt of 1692.

Spiritual Content

  • Reynolds uses comparisons to make history digestible and sometimes includes religious descriptors. Gomes Eanes de Zurara wrote propaganda for Prince Henry to encourage the slave trade. For instance, Zurara “made Prince Henry out to be some kind of youth minister canvassing the street, doing community work, when what Prince Henry really was, was more of a gangster.”
  • Reynolds describes the links between racism and Christianity, and many times the Bible is referenced. For instance, at one point Reynolds says, “Zurara’s documentation of the racist idea that Africans needed slavery in order to be fed and taught Jesus, and that it was all ordained by God, began to seep in and stick to the European cultural psyche.”
  • Reynolds discusses Puritans. He says, “They were English Protestants who believed the reformation of the Church of England was basically watering down Christianity, and they sought to regulate it to keep it more disciplined and rigid.”

by Alli Kestler

Efrén Divided

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

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

 Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language

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

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

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

Shadowcaster

Alyssa ana’Raisa, the reluctant heir to the Gray Wolf Throne, must overcome the impossible. After suffering the loss of her sister, brother and father, as well as an attempt on her own life, she wants nothing more than to end the war that’s consumed her world for decades. To protect her mother and her friends, Lyss will do whatever it takes to strike a blow against Arden.

Halston Matelon is simply trying to survive the king of Arden’s wrath. Once Hal’s father betrays the king, a target is put on Hal’s back, forcing him into dire situations that could end his life. But when Hal’s captured by an enemy commander, he must confront his own prejudices, as well as a budding, forbidden love for the woman who bested him.

Breon d’Tarvos has stayed far away from the front lines of the war. Performing as a street musician for a little bit of coin, Breon has managed to survive on the streets. Yet that all comes to an end when he’s pulled into an assassination attempt on Princess Alyssa. Now Breon is on the run, hoping to escape to a safe haven on the coast. But nothing is ever that easy.

Shadowcaster is a great follow-up to Chima’s first entry in the Shattered Realms series, Flamecaster. Following three main characters, Lyss, Hal, and Breon, the story unfolds in the northern Queendom of the Fells. Whereas the first book focused on the fanatical religious state of Arden, its prejudices against wizards, and the political intrigue of King Gerard’s court, the sequel explores the different cultures of the north, where wizards are both respected and free, and where many cultures co-exist.

Each of the main characters is linked to the various themes present within the story. For instance, Lyss’ storyline explores dealing with grief. Throughout the novel, Lyss’s motivation stems from the deaths of her family, and she’s forced to confront the pain of finding out her brother may still be alive.

The theme of confronting prejudice is squarely placed in Hal’s storyline. When Hal is captured by Lyss, he is forced to see the northerners as people, and he even falls in love with her. This opens Hal’s eyes to the idea that his prejudices are wrong.

Breon’s story focuses on struggling to survive. As a poor street musician, Breon fights to get food on a daily basis. He also struggles with addiction to a drug known as “leaf.” With little money, no home, and few friends, Breon represents the civilians who are trying to survive amidst a war. Each of these themes is well written, and each is powerful in its own right.

Lyss, Hal, and Breon are all likable, relatable characters. Lyss is relatable because she struggles to fit into people’s expectations of a princess. Rather than lead, Lyss wants to continue as a soldier, fighting for what she believes in. Both Hal and Lyss want to protect their family. Plus, Hal is fiercely loyal to his men, wanting to protect them in dire situations. Breon, while suffering from drug addiction, is likable for his desire to make honest coin and to live with his sweetheart, Aubrey. These three, combined with some thrilling battle scenes, will keep readers on the edge of their seats. In addition, the romance between Hal and Lyss will leave readers wanting more. Their romance sets a fun, exciting pace that ends in a cliffhanger. Readers will look forward to continuing this epic story continues in the third book, Stormcaster.

Sexual Content

  • Lyss has a crush on her friend, Finn. Later on, she admits to herself, “She’d had a crush on Finn sul’Mander since she was eleven years old.”
  • When Finn gets engaged to Julianna, they were “blushing and Finn was smiling. Julianna held up their joined hands to display her engagement ring.” Later on, Lyss watches as “He kissed Julianna again. And again.”
  • The diplomat tells Lyss, “You’re not the beauty that your mother is, or your sister, Hana, may she rest in peace, or your cousin Julianna—such a lovely girl—but there’s a lot can be done with the proper staging.”
  • Hal overhears Bosley, a member of Lyss’ squad, talking about his conquest of Lyss. Hal thinks, “Bosley had described a series of recent trysts with her in embarrassingly graphic detail. Maybe customs were different here in the north, but it seemed crude and dishonorable to share that.”
  • Hal thinks, “If Bosley was sleeping with his commanding officer, the last thing Hal wanted was to get caught in that crossfire.”
  • Hal and Lyss begin a short romance. After falling on top of her by accident, Hal thinks, “it took everything that was in him not to finish their match with a kiss.” Later, Hal thinks, “The truth was, he wanted to kiss this northern girl, and go on from there. He wanted her more than any woman he’d ever known.”

Violence

  • In a battle between squadrons, Lyss sees Hal “lean down from his horse and scoop up a soldier who was staggering around aimlessly, blood pouring from a head wound.”
  • In the Clans, a group residing in the Fells, the amount of braids one has indicates how many people they’ve killed. Less notices “The many braids in Shadow’s hair were evident that he rarely said no to a fight, and that he usually came away with a kill.”
  • Hal thinks back on the people he’s killed. “Several times in the past, Hal had discovered that the man he’d just killed was actually a woman.”
  • When thinking of his friends, Breon thinks, “And Goose? He’d cut your throat for a wad of leaf, but other than that he’d always been a harmless sort.”
  • In an assassination attempt on Lyss, one of her squad is hit with an arrow. Lyss “ran her hand over his uniform tunic until she found the arrow shaft embedded in his right lower back.” Just after that, she’s attacked again. An assassin strangles her, and “his fingers didn’t loosen until Lyss’s shiv transfixed his throat and blood spilled over her leathers.”
  • In the city of Delphi, the residents have been fighting back against Arden’s occupation. The former mayor “was found dead in an alley, his throat cut, his body wrapped in an Ardenine flag.”
  • When arguing with Hal, Lyss tells him, “When Princess Hanalea was murdered, your king sent her head to her mother in a golden casket with a note, in case she didn’t give credit where credit is due.”
  • Sasha tells Breon that he’ll be executed for the attack on Lyss. She says, “But two of her escorts were killed in the attack. That ought to be enough to hang you.”
  • Someone says, “Whenever Montaigne got a little down, he just murdered a few people, and that set him to rights.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Breon and his friends often use leaf, which is a street drug. Breon thinks, “People said that leaf fried the brain, and maybe that was true. He could quit anytime, and maybe he should.”
  • On a trip to the coast, Breon thinks, “Or maybe it just seemed longer because Breon has passed much of the trip in a pleasant haze of leaf.”

Language

  • Ass is used several times. For example, when trying on a pair of pants, Breon thinks, “he had to cinch in the breeches to keep them from sliding down his bony ass.”
  • Asshole is used several times. Lyss tells off someone, saying “At least that’s fixable. Being an asshole isn’t.” Asshole is used a few times in the novel.
  • Hell and damn are used a few times. For example, when asked if he’s a wizard, Breon retorts, “Damn right I am.”
  • Sasha tells Breon, “Poke me, and I’ll poke you back, you scaly, scum-sucking sneaksby.”

Supernatural

  • Flashcraft refers to magical items that are created by the Clans in the Fells. Lyss receives a flash craft locket. “When she touched it, the portraits would shift, displaying first one person and then another.
  • In Arden, wizards are called mages and are typically slaves.
  • Hal, who is from Arden, believes witches like Lyss can turn humans into animals. However, this isn’t true.
  • Mystwerk is a school where wizards learn magic.
  • In the Fells, the ruling line of Queens can see wolves that bring prophetic dreams and visions. Less tells Ash, “I just keep having these dreams, where everyone’s dead and I’m all alone on Hanalea Peak, just me and the wolves.” Just after that, Ash tries to soothe her with his magic. Lyss snaps at him, “Stop soothing me!”
  • While Breon is imprisoned someone threatens to use magic on him to get him talking. Breon thinks, “What did he mean by persuasion? Magic? Torture? Hypnosis? Could this mage really make him tell the truth?”

Spiritual Content

  • A dedicate at a temple hands out food to those who need it. Breon notices “The dedicate offered a blessing along with the bread and fruit.
  • The Church of Malthus is the state religion of Arden. Lyss asks Hal, “Is there any way your war-weary people and your bloodthirsty church would allow them to live?”

by Jonathan Planman

 

 

 

The Lions of Little Rock

Twelve-year-old Marlee, who is shy and quiet, feels like her whole world is falling apart. And she’s sure that starting middle school is only going to make things worse until she meets Liz, the new girl. It may look as if they have nothing in common—Liz always knows the right thing to say, and Marlee can barely stand to speak up in class—but they become fast friends. Then, Liz is caught “passing” for white and leaves school without even a goodbye. Marlee decides she wants her friend back. But to stay friends, Marlee and Liz must be willing to take on segregation—and the dangers their friendship could bring to both families.

The Lions of Little Rock is historical fiction at its best. Not only is the story engaging, but it also sheds light on the struggle to desegregate schools in Little Rock Arkansas during the 1950s. The story focuses on Marlee and Liz, who refuse to give up their friendship just because they are of different races. Both girls help each other face their fears, and they encourage each other during difficult times. Through their interaction, Marlee comes to realize that, “A friend is someone who helps you change for the better. And whether you see them once a day or once a year, if it’s a true friend, it doesn’t matter.”

When someone finds out that Liz is passing as white, Marlee tries to understand her friend’s actions. Marlee’s family maid explains why passing as white is so dangerous. “If you’re really lucky, you lose your job or you’re kicked out of school. If you’re a little less lucky, you get beat up, but after a few weeks your injuries heal and you’re left alone. If you’re not lucky, a lynch mob comes and firebombs your house killing you and everyone you love.” Through Marlee and Liz as well as historical examples, the reader will come to understand racism.

Marlee changes from a timid girl who barely talks into a confident person who is willing to fight for what is right. Much of Marlee’s inspiration comes from the Little Rock Nine because they “believed they had a responsibility to make things better. Believed they could make things better, even though they were still just kids.” Marlee isn’t content to just watch the adults try to make a difference. Instead, despite her mother’s objections, Marlee joins the Woman’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools. As part of the organization, she helps fold pamphlets, talks to voters, and performs other small jobs that make a huge impact. In the end, Marlee learns the importance of standing up for herself and others.

The Lions of Little Rock won the New York Historical Society Children’s Book Prize. The entertaining story teaches important life lessons about friendship, facing fears, and finding your voice. The story is historically accurate; the author’s note at the end of the book explains which parts of the story were fictional and which events were factual. The book also includes three pages of discussion questions. Everyone should read The Lions of Little Rock because it will help readers understand racial tensions in the late 1950s as well as show the importance of making a difference in your world.

Sexual Content

  • Marlee has a crush on JT. When Marlee drops her pencils and begins gathering them, “JT handed me one of the pencils and our fingers touched and I could almost hear the wedding bells. . . By lunchtime I’d planned our honeymoon in Italy and was trying to decide if we should name our first son Orbit or Cosine. . .”

Violence

  • Marlee’s father invited a “colored minister” to speak at church. “The next day there was a note tucked in with our paper. It said, ‘You let your youngest walk to school tomorrow, she won’t make it.’ And it was signed, KKK.”
  • On Halloween, JT and his brother egg a house. JT’s brother tries to force Marlee to throw an egg at the house. Later a “colored boy” is arrested for the crime.
  • Marlee’s father tells her about Emmett Till. “He was a young Negro boy who went down to visit some relatives in Mississippi. One day someone saw him talking, some say flirting, with a white woman. . .He was murdered. . . He was only fourteen years old.”
  • The story implies that JT’s mother, Mrs. Dalton, is abused by her husband. Marlee “remembered her because she had a scar over her left eyebrow. . . JT had said once she’d got the scar when she tripped on the stairs.”
  • The story implies that JT’s father hits him. JT shows up at school with a black eye.
  • Someone tells Marlee about John Carter, “a colored man.” He was “taken by a mob of people. No one did anything. . . They hung him and shot him and dragged his body down the street and then burned him.”
  • Marlee was at the “colored pastor’s” house when she saw JT’s brother drive by several times. Everyone goes outside and then, “we suddenly heard a car pull up in front of the house. . . There was a crash and the sound of breaking glass. A screech of wheels, driving off. And then, an explosion.” No one is injured.
  • When the schools are integrated, protestors show up. In order to break up the protestors, “the firemen turned the hoses on. In an instant, the segregationists were soaked.” Several people are arrested, but no one is injured.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Marlee compares people to drinks. When she meets Liz, she wonders if Liz is “like a shot of whiskey given to you by your older cousin.”
  • At a football game, Marlee sits by JT and one of his friends. The friend, “smelled funny, like a warm beer.”
  • Marlee and her sister used to go to a pond to have picnic lunches. “At night, sometimes teenagers would park there on dates or sneak off to drink beer.”
  • Marlee sees JT’s brother and his friend at the zoo. On the bench they are sitting at are “some beers.”

Language

  • Marlee thinks that someone is a jerk. Later, she tells her friend that, “JT is a jerk.”
  • Nigger(s) is used 4 times. Someone discovers that Liz was passing as white. JT’s brother tells Marlee, “We’ll find your little friend and show her whole family what we think of niggers who try to pass.”
  • Someone calls Marlee an idiot.
  • Several people call Marlee a “square” because she likes math.
  • Someone calls Marlee a coward.
  • Darn is used several times.
  • “Oh Lord” is used as an exclamation once.
  • After someone throws an explosive into a house, the person’s father asks, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Marlee has a hard time talking to her family’s maid, Betty Jean. Marlee “just stood there, helpless, praying Betty Jean would understand.”
  • At church, Marlee hears the Bible verse, “But even if you do suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed.” Often, when Marlee has to make a decision, she reminds herself of this verse.
  • Marlee goes to meet Liz at the colored movie theatre. When a woman questions Liz, Marlee “prayed for the lights to go down and the newsreel to start.”
  • When a “colored boy” is arrested for throwing eggs at a house, Marlee’s father bails the boy out of jail. When the boy’s mother sees him, she says, “Oh, thank God.”
  • Marlee’s church makes a float for the Christmas parade. The theme was from Matthew 19:14. “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
  • Marlee’s family goes on a plane. Her mother and sister are nervous. Marlee “thanked God that neither one of them had actually thrown up.”
  • Marlee’s mom is a substitute at Marlee’s school. Marlee “prayed no one would see us together.”
  • JT and his brother see Marlee in the woods. Marlee tries to distract them so they do not see Liz. She “started walking, praying they would follow me.”

Blended

Eleven-year-old Isabella feels like she’s being pulled in two. Her divorced parents fight over everything! Her whole life is divided. Her time is divided between her parents—every other week, she has to change houses, change rules, change names, and even change identities.

Isabella’s father is black, and her mother is white. She isn’t sure where she fits. After all, if you’re only seen as half of this and half of that, how can you ever feel whole?

Each chapter of Blended jumps between Mom’s week, Dad’s week, and exchange day. This allows the reader to understand how her parents’ divorce affects Isabella’s daily life. While Isabella is trying to navigate between her two parents, she also has to deal with her parents’ live-in partners. The story portrays the headaches caused by squabbling parents and having two homes. In addition, having a white mom and a black father causes confusion. For example, Isabella isn’t sure how to fill out school forms. She tells her mom, “Well, I don’t answer ‘other,’ because that’s like being nothing, like maybe I could be Martian or something. I’m not nothing. I am something. I am somebody.”

Blended also explores racism—both intentional and unintentional. Several times throughout the story, someone says a hurtful comment about Isabella’s race; however, the speaker intended the statement to be a compliment. Equally important is the time Isabella spends in English; the class discusses recent school protests. Some students are hoping that “walking out of school can help change gun laws and stuff.” As part of an assignment, Isabella takes a poem written by an African American author and writes her own version of the poem. This allows the reader to further understand Isabella’s feelings.

The story hits on difficult topics of racism and identity confusion by focusing on Isabella, which allows the reader to understand her feelings. Middle-grade readers will relate to Isabella, who is trying to understand herself and the world around her. Blended deals with relevant conflicts in today’s world. One instance is when Isabella is shot by a police officer; the scene will evoke a strong emotional response because readers will understand Isabella’s fear, confusion, and pain. While the story shows an example of police brutality, it avoids excessive criticism of the police.

While Blended teaches essential life lessons, the plot jumps from topic to topic and the parent drama becomes tedious. Despite this, the story is fast-paced and shows many perspectives. In the end, Isabella begins to understand the importance of speaking up. The story doesn’t end with a cheerful, happy event. Instead, it acknowledges Isabella’s pain and her hope for a better future. Readers who would like to read more about racial inequality and the Black Lives Matter movement should also read A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In English, the class talked about what “lynched” means. One boy says, “They show that [a lynch] in cowboy movies all the time. No big deal.” Later someone puts a noose in Imani’s locker. “Inside her locker, dangling from the coat hook, is a thick rope, the kind we use in the gym. It’s knotted and tied round and round at the top. The bottom of it is looped.”
  • Isabella’s mother’s boyfriend says his dad would “beat the crap outta me.”
  • Darren gives Isabella a ride to her piano recital. On the way, he gets pulled over by the police. Darren is confused when the police officer “gives the window another wallop.” When Darren opens the door, “he’s yanked right off his seat. He nearly falls, but a cop grabs his arm. Darren thrusts his other arm up in the air… The back door is flung open and someone grabs me [Isabella], roughly, and pulls me out—literally pulls me out of the car.”
  • When Darren and Isabella are pulled out of the car, the police put Darren on the ground and restrain him. Isabella tries to see Darren. “I look around for him and see instead a female officer approaching me with her gun out. It is aimed at me. A gun is aimed at my head! …Why is she pointing that gun and I want her to put it down and Darren is standing again he’s bleeding… Darren is bleeding, and his arms are pulled behind his back because he actually is in handcuffs.”
  • At one point, Isabella thinks that her parents are going to be worried that she’s late for her recital. She reaches into her pocket for a cell phone. “The lady officer yells, ‘Gun! Gun!’ Every point of light I’ve ever known explodes at the moment… I collapse to the ground. The last thing I remember hearing are Darren’s hoarse screams and a male voice shouting, ‘Shots fired! Shots fired! Send emergency medical crews ASAP.’” The scene is described over eight pages.
  • After Isabella is shot, she hits the ground. “I think my head bounces. The back of it hurts so bad… Confused voices surround me… Why is my arm on fire? And my head! Oh, my head! It hurts so bad.” This part of the scene is described over three pages.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Isabella’s mother’s boyfriend says that his father “loved him some liquor, and he’d have his friends over every Saturday for whiskey and whatever. After they’d had two or three drinks…or more, they’d really relax and start talking smack.”
  • While in the hospital a nurse gives Isabella ibuprofen.

Language

  • Isabella says that the piano at her father’s house is “freakin’ fierce.”
  • During a class discussion about lynches, one girl gets “pissed off.”
  • Someone calls a classmate an idiot twice.
  • “OMG” is used as an exclamation three times.
  • Isabella freaks out and runs from her parents. Later, she tells her friend, “I probably scared the poop out of them.”
  • Heck is used twice. When a man bumps into Darren, Darren says, “What the heck?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Isabella is in the hospital, a nurse sees her family “holding hands. And praying at one point.”
  • A classmate texts Isabella, “I prayed for you and your fam.”

Backfield Boys: A Football Mystery in Black and White

Jason and Tom are two best friends from New York who love to play football. They are stoked when they are accepted to Thomas Gatch Prep (TGP), a private boarding school in Virginia created specifically for athletes. After their first week of practice, Jason, who is white, expects to be placed as a wide receiver because of his speed. Tom, who is black, expects to be placed as a quarterback because of his strong arm and accuracy. But when Jason is assigned as a quarterback and Tom is assigned as a wide receiver, the boys start to suspect racial bias. As the year progresses, Tom and Jason, along with their roommates Billy Bob and Anthony, start to notice deep-seated racism in the school.

Tom and Jason discover that there have been zero African Americans that have played as quarterbacks at TGP. Determined to expose the racism at the school, Tom and Jason enlist the help of two reporters: Teel and Robinson. These two reporters have already heard about the underlying racism at TGP, but they’ve never had enough evidence to prove it. As the football season gets underway, Tom and Jason gather more evidence of racism. Tom is never put in any of the games. All of the students were assigned roommates, and there are no interracial rooms. One of the biggest stories they find is that Mr. Gatch, founder of TGP, invited a former KKK grand wizard to speak at a school he worked at thirty years ago. The boys are stunned that the founder of their school has ties to the KKK, but it’s still not enough of a story for Teel and Robinson to publish.

In addition to attempting to expose the racism in the school, Tom, Jason, Anthony, and Billy Bob deal with the everyday pressures of high school, including deciding on who to take to the school dance. Fortunately, Billy Bob uses his southern charm to win over a group of senior girls, providing himself and his friends dates. Their big news break occurs at the school dance. The dance is going well until Mr. Gatch yells at Tom and Anthony for dancing with their dates, who are white. His explosion lands him and his school in the public eye.

A couple of weeks later, the head football coach, Coach Johnson, calls a meeting, but only the white coaches are invited. Coach Johnson announces he is leaving and the new head coach is a black man, which causes uproar. Coach Johnson says, “We all have to make sacrifices in today’s world. Bad enough we had to put up with a black president in this country.” The meeting is further evidence of racism and when the media hears a recording of the meeting, the story explodes in the media. The school is split into those who support Coach Johnson and those who don’t.

There are underlying real-world, political elements in Backfield Boys. Trump is referenced a few times. For example, Tom, Jason, Anthony, and Billy Bob sit with their friend Juan del Potro and other Hispanic students at lunch. Tom comments, “Donald Trump would not like our table.” Juan adds, “He’d want a wall down the middle of it.” After the story of the coaches’ meeting is published, “Fox News was having what felt like a field day with the story, the issue to them being that the United States was being destroyed by ‘chronic political correctness.’” The main characters are obviously not supporters of Trump and have no reserves about expressing their political and religious opinions.

Backfield Boys describes, in detail, many football games, which will satisfy football fans. Tom and Jason always know which plays will work best, which is unrealistic since this is their first year playing football. Tom, Jason, Anthony, and Billy Bob don’t have any flaws and are always presented in a positive light, which makes them unrealistic characters. They are extremely mature and witty for their age, providing the book with good humor. They are admirable in that they could have chosen to just leave TGP, but they decided to stay and work towards exposing the racism in the school. The story drags at times, and the climax comes at the very end. Backfield Boys is about football, but it is also about underlying racism that still exists in sports today.

Sexual Content

  • Billy Bob stands up to Mr. Gatch after being yelled at for dancing with a black girl. Grateful, Zoey “walked a few steps over to Billy Bob, leaned down, and gave him a long kiss on the lips.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Jason and Thomas want to tell the coaches they are in the wrong positions, but they don’t think it will go over well. Jason says, “I was only with Coach Reilly a couple of minutes, but my sense is that he’s a serious jerk.”
  • While he is checking for students who want to go to church, Coach Ingelsby insults Jason’s Judaism. After Coach Ingelsby leaves Jason’s room, Jason says, “Go with God, you jerk.”
  • A football player who was yelled at and blamed for hurting his teammate dropped out of TGP. Anthony says he doesn’t blame him because “Bobo did everything but call him the n-word.”
  • Robinson knows it will not be easy to prove Coach Bobo is racist. He says, “[Coach Bobo] may be a racist, but he’s no dummy.”
  • After Billy Bob performs a play Coach Johnson didn’t call, Coach Johnson tells him to “sit your butt down the rest of the night.”
  • Gatch, the owner of TGP, is furious that Tom is dancing with Toni, a white girl. He shouts, “Good God, do you expect me to just stand here and watch while you paw this beautiful young girl?”
  • Tom tells Teel and Robinson about Mr. Gatch’s response to him dancing with a white girl, and how that proves Mr. Gatch is a racist. “We got [Mr. Gatch]. He did everything but call Anthony and me the n-word.”
  • After making a good play during a football game, Billy Bob tells Coach Johnson “You’re welcome for saving your butt – again – tonight.”
  • When the coaches discover that the new head coach is a black man, Coach Ingelsby says, “Well, I sure as hell am not working for a goddamn. . . ” The book goes on to say, “And then he said it, the n-word.”
  • “What the hell?” and hell are used several times.
  • “My God” and “Oh, my God” are used several times as an exclamation.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • During football practice, Jason runs the fastest out of everyone. Tom jokes, “Wait until they find out you’re Jewish. They’ll want to drug test you.”
  • Billy Bob tells Jason he is the first big city kid he has ever met. Jason replies, “Maybe I’m the first Jewish kid you’ve met, too.” Billy Bob asks Jason if it was scary living in the West Side of Manhattan, and Jason answers, “Probably no scarier than it would be to be Jewish in Gadsden.”
  • Jason and Thomas joke with each other during a blessing. An upperclassman whispers, “Hey, freshmen, you need to shut up and show some respect during the blessing.”
  • After a prayer is finished, an upperclassman asked them, “What’s the matter, you big-city boys don’t believe in God?” Another student chimes in, “Are you Muslim or something? You pray to Allah?”
  • When the two upperclassmen question Tom, he replies, “You pray to whomever you want, and I’ll pray to whomever I want, and we’ll leave it at that.” Billy Bob jumps to Tom and Jason’s defense by saying, “I go to church every Sunday and pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, just like you do. But at this school we’ve got folks from all over, and we all better learn that not everyone’s the same as us.”
  • The chaplain at TGP prays, “Dear Lord, we thank thee for our food today. May we be faithful stewards of thy bounty. Grant us the grace to walk where your son Jesus’s feet have gone.”
  • During a school prayer, “Jason wouldn’t bow his head for a prayer mentioning Jesus as the son of God.”
  • “Tom didn’t bow his head because he believed that all prayer should be silent and private.”
  • At the end of practice on a Saturday, Coach Johnson tells the football team to, “Pay your respects to the Lord in the morning.”
  • Jason stays at the school while Billy Bob and Anthony take a bus to go to St. Michael’s Catholic church. Jason recalls the school forms saying, “If the Protestant services offered on campus on Sunday were not deemed appropriate, transportation to churches of their denominations in the area would be supplied.”
  • Coach Ingelsby asked Jason if he was going to church, and Jason responds, “I’m Jewish.” Coach Ingelsby retorts, “So Jewish people don’t go to church?” Jason tells him, “Coach, if you’re Jewish you go to temple, not church. And, generally speaking, you go on Friday night or Saturday morning.” Coach Ingelsby asks, “Jewish people don’t believe in Jesus Christ, do they?” Jason answers, “Most Jews believe he existed. They just don’t believe he was the son of God.” Coach Ingelsby tells Jason he feels sorry for him because he is “missing out on salvation.”
  • On Sunday mornings, the school library is closed. There is a sign that says, “God first, studies second.”
  • Tom tells Jason that Coach Ingelsby asked him about Jason’s Tom jokes, “Well, at least Billy Bob and Anthony are in church. Maybe God will tell them how we can deal with this place.” Jason responds, “Not sure even he has the answer to that.”
  • After he and Tom talk to the reporters about a possible news story for TGP, Jason jokes, “Let’s go see if our good Christian roommates are back from church yet.”
  • While interviewing Tom and Jason, a reporter tells them the coaches reference God a lot in their media interviews. “There’s a lot of giving all the glory to God. You’ll find that’s big at TGP.”
  • While being interviewed in the locker room, the players hide when Coach Johnson walks in. The reporter whispers he hopes Johnson went back into his office. Billy Bob says, “Hope might not be enough. We might need to say a prayer.” Tom whispers back, “All glory to God.”
  • Tom runs into Coach Ingelsby, who is making his weekly church rounds. Coach Ingelsby asks Tom, “No worship again today for you?” Tom replies, “No offense Coach, but how or when I practice my religion, whatever it may be, is really my business alone.”
  • After a football game, Coach Johnson “drops to one knee” and says, “Now let’s give thanks.” Since everyone else knelt, Jason knelt too. He “felt awkward at these team-prayer moments but knew he would feel more awkward if he remained standing. He bowed his head.”
  • At the end of a football game, Coach Johnson prays, “We thank you, Lord, for the great execution of our defense and the wonderful pad level from our O-line.” Jason wants to crack up “at the notion that God paid any attention to TGP’s defensive execution or pad level.”
  • When Coach Johnson’s prayer is finished, Coach Ingelsby tells Tom and Jason, “Nice of you two to kneel along with your teammates.” Jason responds, “I believe in showing respect for all religions, Coach. Mine and others.”
  • After a game, Coach Johnson tells the players to take a knee and prays, “Lord, let these young men learn from the mistakes they made tonight.”
  • During the school dance, the football coaches try to separate Tom and his dance partner, Toni, because they are an interracial couple. Tom’s friends are also part of interracial dance partners. As Toni stands up for herself, Tom “was hoping and praying the other girls were giving similar responses to being ordered to change partners.”
  • Tom describes the plan for him and his friends to meet reporters. “All four of us will be going to church tomorrow – even Jason, the godless Jew.”
  • A football player notices Jason heading to church. He asks, “Hey, what’s a Hebrew doing going to church?” Jason, as a cover up, replies, “I’m thinking about converting.” To get the football player off their backs, Billy Bob jokes, “It’s the Lord’s day. How about giving it a rest?” When the football player doesn’t respond, Jason thinks, “Invoking the Almighty seemed to do the trick.”
  • “Amen to that” is used several times as an agreement to a statement someone says.
  • “Thank God,” is used several times.

by Jill Johnson

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

Dit is looking forward to the new postmaster’s arrival. Dit was told that the new postmaster would have a son his age. But when the postmaster and his family arrive, everyone is surprised that he’s black. Dit is also upset that the postmaster has a daughter, not a son. Dit has no desire to be friends with Emma, a well-educated girl.

Dit’s mother has a rule. “We didn’t have to like anyone, but we had to be nice to everyone.” Dit’s mother orders him to show Emma around. At first, Dit doesn’t like Emma. She doesn’t play baseball, fish, or climb. She’s smart and talks properly. But Emma is also the first person to ever listen to Dit, and in a house with ten children, that’s important.

Emma forces Dit to think about the difference between the colored kids and the white kids. Then when the town barber, Doc Hadley, is accused of murder and sentenced to be hanged, Dit is faced with an ugly truth. A white man’s word will always be believed, even if it is not true. Dit and Emma know Doc Hadley doesn’t deserve to be punished, so they come up with a daring plan to save Doc from the unthinkable. But if they are caught, the consequences could be disastrous.

Set in 1917 in Moundville, Alabama, and inspired by the author’s family history, The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had takes a look at race relations. The story is told through Dit’s perspective, which allows the reader to see Dit’s personal growth as he comes to understand the inequalities between blacks and whites. Because of Dit’s growing friendship with Emma, he is targeted by bullying. Soon, Dit is faced with a terrible decision—doing what is right or closing his eyes to injustice.

While the story is full of interesting characters, Dit is the only character who is well-developed. Even though the friendship between Dit and Emma is wonderful, a hint of romance at the end is far-fetched. Much like To Kill A Mockingbird, a man is unjustly sentenced to hang. However, this subplot was not fully explored, limiting the emotional impact of the story. Even though Dit is a compelling narrator, the story has several scenes that do nothing to advance the plot but instead make the story drag.

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had explores the time period between the end of slavery and the beginning of the civil rights movement. The main lesson that readers will take away is, “Some things are worth fighting for. . . You want to do something for this town? Next time you see an injustice, take a stand. It’s worth the risk.”

This coming-of-age journey allows readers to learn positive lessons about social justice, making mistakes, and friendship. While many of the events in the story are predictable, teens will enjoy the surprising conclusion. Unlike Levine’s book The Lions of Little Rock, The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had doesn’t have much of an emotional impact. The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had imparts important life lessons, but the slow pacing will make it hard for some readers to stay engaged. Readers who want to explore racial relations during the 1900s should read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones & Gilly Segal also explores racial inequality, and how it still exists today.

Sexual Content

  • Several times, Dit’s friends tease him about kissing Emma. For example, when they see him talking to her, “Chip snickered and made kissing sounds.”
  • Dit tells his friends that he hasn’t seen Emma. Chip replies, “Course you ain’t. ‘Cause you got your eyes closed when you’re kissing her.”
  • A black boy’s grandfather was white. The boy explains, “My grandpa was a white man, a big plantation owner. Took my grandma out in the woods and nine months later she had my pa.”
  • Dit and Emma hear noises in the barn. “It sounded like two people, whispering and laughing. . . there, sitting on a bale of hay, was my oldest sister, Della. And she was kissing Mr. Fulton’s oldest boy.”
  • Emma tells Dit, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” Then she kisses him on the cheek. Later, Dit kisses her on the cheek. They kiss on the cheek three times in total.
  • Emma and her parents are moving. As Emma and Dit say goodbye, he asks her, “Can I kiss you goodbye?” After getting permission, Dit kissed her “right on the lips and everything. I probably should say it was gross or something. But it was actually kind of nice.”
  • The town has a different cemetery for “fallen women.”
  • Dit asks his dad, “Are you ever gonna give me the talk?” His father replies, “The part about girls, it’s just too embarrassing. Ask Raymond.”

Violence

  • Dit uses a flip-it to kill a bird. “The bird was stretching out its neck for another ant. When the rock hit it, the yellowhammer fell to the ground.” Dit feeds the bird to a caged eagle.
  • Dit shoots a buzzard out of the sky. “The bird jumped up and let out a terrible scream.”
  • When someone calls Dit a “nigger lover,” Dit “slugged him. Hit him right in the nose. He staggered but didn’t fall over, so I punched him in the stomach.” Several kids break up the fight.
  • In the past, the sheriff killed a man “in a bar fight. Claimed it was an accident, but everyone knew it wasn’t.”
  • A woman paid Dit to throw a bag of kittens into the river. Dit “closed my eyes and with a deep breath hurled the sack up over my head and into the water. Took off running before I even heard the splash.” Later, Dit and Emma go to the river and find the sack with the kittens still alive.
  • Someone tells Dit about a man who died and that “He lay perfectly still with his eyes wide open.”
  • Emma’s mother tells her, “Your great-grandmother used to get up before sunrise and work in the fields all day without a rest. If she didn’t work fast enough, she was whipped until the blood ran down her back.”
  • Two of Dit’s friends lock him in a prison cell. They want him to “admit you love that nigger girl.” When they let Dit out of the cell, his “fist hit Chip square in the jaw. He fell to the ground.”
  • Someone makes a reference to “the poor Negro who was lynched in Jefferson County last month.”
  • When Emma was practicing for the school play, Big Foot comes into the schoolhouse to kick her out. He tells her to leave. When she doesn’t he “picked up Emma and threw her over his shoulder like I’d seen my pa do with a sack of potatoes. . .” A black man named Doc tells Big Foot to put Emma down. “Big Foot dropped her then. Just let go of Emma’s feet and she slid right down his back. Her head made a loud thwack as it hit the floor. . . Blood was pouring out of a gash on her forehead.” Emma’s wound needs stitches.
  • When Doc stands up to Big Foot, “Big Foot punched him in the jaw. Doc staggered but remained upright. Big Foot slugged him again. Doc fell to the ground this time. Blood flowed from his lip to his chin. . . Big Foot charged Doc Hadley then, ran at him like a crazed bull. . . We could hear punches being thrown and then there was a crack of something like a broken bone.” Doc Hadley is knocked unconscious and has several wounds. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Later, Doc Hadley’s wounds are described. “Doc Hadley was hurt bad. His left arm was broken; he had two black eyes, a split lip, a twisted ankle, a couple of bruised ribs and a lump on his head the size of an old twine baseball.”
  • Big Foot goes into Doc Hadley’s barbershop.” Big Foot “punched him in the stomach. Doc doubled over in pain and Big Foot hit him again, knocking him to the ground.” Both men pull a gun. Big Foot yells, “Get up off the floor so I can shoot you like a man!”
  • Big Foot shoots his gun. “Big Foot approached the barber chair, his boots crunching on broken glass. He was too close to miss now, and his finger was on the trigger. Doc aimed for Big Foot’s leg, but the sheriff spun the chair around, hitting Doc’s arm. Both pistols went off at once. The sheriff gasped and fell to the ground, twitching wildly.” Big Foot dies. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Big Foot’s mother talks about the past. “But he was always a violent boy. Got in fights at school, tortured stray dogs around town. . . He only got worse as he got older, drinking and brawling in bars. Then there was that man in Selma. I knew it wasn’t no accident.”
  • Dit and Emma come up with a plan to free Doc Hadley from jail. In order to get blood for their plan, Dit catches a rabbit. “It quivered in fear, its dark eyes huge in the candlelight. . . .With a snap, I broke the rabbit’s neck. It twitched for a moment, then hung limp as an old hat, warm in my hands.” Dit feels guilty about killing the rabbit.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • After Big Foot beats up Doc Hadley, “Big Foot didn’t leave his front porch for that whole week, just sat there and drank beer.”
  • An old man walks around town. He thinks he is sleepwalking. He tells Dit, “My daughter warned me about drinking a whole bottle of whiskey in one sitting.”

Language

  • When a new postmaster and his family move to town, they are referred to as “niggers” ten times. For example, someone says, “Only one school around here for a nigger. And if you ask me, that’s one too many.”
  • Someone tells Dit, “I think it’s terrible that a nice boy like you runs around with a nigger.”
  • Several times, someone calls Dit a “nigger lover.”
  • When a plane lands in a field, someone exclaims, “Jesus, Joseph and General Lee.”
  • When assigning parts for the school play, the teacher asks a boy to be the ringmaster. The boy refuses because “I don’t want to be no Chinaman with slitty eyes!”
  • A boy calls Emma an egghead.
  • Attempting to stop a fight, Emma throws hot grease on Big Foot. He yells, “Goddamn it!”
  • When the mayor discovers that someone killed himself, he says, “Oh my God!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Dit and Emma find an old pottery bowl with a drawing on it. Someone tells them, “This bowl was used by the Indians. When someone died, they filled it with water and placed it in the fire so their loved ones would not go thirsty on their journey to the underworld. The hand and the eye stand for the God who made everything and the God who sees everything.”
  • When a man tells Dit about his dead wife, Dit’s “lips moved briefly in a silent prayer.” Later the man tells Dit that he was, “angry at God for taking her away.”
  • After Dit throws a sack of kittens into a river, he feels guilty and goes to church. Dit “folded my hands in prayer and tried not to think about the kittens.” During the service, the reverend says, “Our sermon today is entitled ‘How Long Will Hell Last.’ Those who have been unjust and have inflicted suffering on those smaller and weaker than themselves will burn in hell. . . Those who harm innocent creatures will suffer in hell as surely as those who’ve broken all Ten Commandments.”
  • When Dit and Emma find the kittens alive, Dit thinks, “God had worked a miracle in exchange for my dime.”
  • Dit goes to church on Christmas Eve. He listens to a sermon about “the Star of Bethlehem and how amazed the shepherds had been when they had seen it.” Dit tries to pay attention because he “didn’t want to accidentally end up going to hell.”
  • While driving, a car spins out of control. Dit, “started praying, but the only prayer that came to mind was Jesus, Joseph and General Lee.”
  • Doc Hadley’s son wants to see his father’s body. Someone tells him, “Your daddy’s moved on to a better place.” Someone else asks, “He was a suicide. Don’t they go to hell?”

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

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

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

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

Violence

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

Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language

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

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Alli Kestler

The Paper Cowboy

More than anything, Tommy wants to be a cowboy just like the great Gary Cooper or the Lone Ranger, but really he’s more of a bully. He picks on other kids at school, gets into fights, and acts more like one of the bad guys than the cowboy he wants to be. But there’s a reason Tommy misbehaves: things at home are bad. After his sister is badly burned doing a chore that it was Tommy’s turn to do, his mother’s usual moodiness and scoldings turn into beatings. Tommy is racked with guilt. And without his sister, who is hospitalized, he’s left alone to face his mother’s anger.

As the beatings get worse, Tommy’s bullying spirals out of control. He’s even caught stealing from the neighborhood store. Instead of taking his punishment as a true cowboy would, Tommy seeks revenge on the store’s owner, Mr. McKenzie, by framing him as a communist. The results are disastrous.

But in his heart, Tommy knows a cowboy would make things right, so he sets out to find the real communist. But when the real communist is uncovered, it may make Tommy question what it really means to be one of the good guys.

The Paper Cowboy is a compelling story told from Tommy’s point of view. As Tommy navigates through life, he takes inspiration from the cowboys he has seen in movies. Tommy “longed to be a cowboy. Not a bully. But a cowboy who stands up to others. Who fights for the people he loves, for the town they live in.” After Tommy frames Mr. McKenzie for revenge, Tommy is racked with guilt and he becomes convinced that finding the real Commie is the only solution. As Tommy talks about his dilemma, one character says, “It only takes a little poison to ruin a well on a farm, or to spoil a reputation in a big city.” Later, someone tells him, “It doesn’t matter what you intended. The damage has been done. It’s easy to start a rumor. Much harder to stop it.”

The Paper Cowboy portrays the fear of the McCarthy Era by focusing on the townspeople Tommy comes into contact with. It is through these interactions that Tommy stops judging people based on their appearances and instead judges them based on their character. When Tommy is determined to prove that his neighbor, Mrs. Glazov, is a communist, he begins spending time with her hoping that he can find evidence. He thinks she is a communist, but as he learns more about Mrs. Glazov, he begins to like her and wonders, “What was wrong with me?” In the end, Tommy comes to the conclusion that Mrs. Glazov doesn’t belong in jail, even if she is a communist.

Readers will quickly get caught up in Tommy’s world. While Tommy isn’t always likable, readers will empathize with him as he struggles to become a better person, to right his wrongs, and to understand others. The Paper Cowboy takes readers back into time and allows them to understand how the politics of the McCarthy era affected one small town. In the end, Tommy grows into a cowboy, is able to emulate Gary Cooper’s good qualities, and makes his father proud. Tommy’s dad says, “It wasn’t the shoot-out that made Gary Cooper a great man. It was that he cared for others. He faced his problems. He didn’t walk away. He solved them. A good cowboy is a leader who looks after his heard and his posse. No one goes missing.” Tommy’s well-developed voice jumps off the page and his experiences will show readers the importance of finding your own voice and doing what is right.

Sexual Content

  • Tommy’s sister Mary Lou wanted to wear lipstick, but her mom “wouldn’t let her. She said it was only for loose women. I wondered what that meant. . .”

Violence

  • Tommy’s mom is abusive. She frequently yells and slaps him. After Tommy steals two yo-yos, his mother makes him take his pants down. “This was standard procedure for a whipping. I didn’t mind so much with my dad, but it was humiliating to pull down my pants and underwear in front of my mom. I put my hands on the kitchen counter. . . The belt whipped through the air. Eight, nine. It made a whistle and then a slap as it hit me. Ten, eleven. She didn’t stop. Mom kept hitting me, again and again, until finally the belt snapped back and hit her on the chin. . . In the quiet, I could feel each individual welt on my buttocks. There were tears on my face, but I wiped them away.” Tommy thinks he deserved the punishment.
  • Tommy mentions Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg who were “convicted of spying for the Soviets.” They were executed. During recess, Tommy and his friends like to play “electric-chair tag.”
  • One of Tommy’s classmates has a burn scar on his face. The boy’s father explains, “It happened during the war. There was an air raid and we’d made it to the shelter. We thought we were safe. . . But a bomb caused a water heater to explode and it scarred his face.”
  • When a boy tells the store owner that Tommy stole the yo-yos, Tommy punched the boy in the stomach and the boy “bent over double.” Later, Tommy shoves the boy, who “lost his balance and fell into the dirt.”
  • Tommy’s mom gets upset at him and commands him to take his pants down. “When Mom started whipping me, I tried to make myself concentrate on normal things. . . But Mom just didn’t stop. I could feel the welts forming on welts on my butt. And when a lash went wild and hit my back, I couldn’t help crying out. . . Mom kept hitting me. It felt like a thousand bees, stinging me at once. . . Mom kept on. And Dad never came in to see if I was okay.”
  • Tommy’s neighbor tells him why she came to America. “The Nazis not just throw me in camp. They kill my boys and my husband.”
  • Tommy’s mom is upset that Tommy gave Mary Lou a pain pill. “Mom yelled at me to stop [crying], and I tried to, I really did. I wanted to be tough and stoic, but the tears kept coming. . .” Mary Lou told their mom to stop. “I knew Mary Lou was trying to help, but it was mortifying to have my older sister see me, my pants around my ankles, crying like a baby. . .Mom just ignored Mary Lou and kept hitting me. . .Mom paused, the belt dangling from her hand. . .Mom was breathing hard, sweat on her forehead, even though it was cold in the room.” Tommy’s dad intervenes.
  • Tommy and his friend, Eddie, play a mean joke on Little Skinny. At school, Little Skinny confronts them and “punched Eddie in the stomach. . . Little Skinny had his full weight on top of Eddie and was pounding away. One hit after another, I could see the blood pour out of Eddie’s nose.”
  • When Tommy is late, his mother slaps him. Tommy tells her, “’Go ahead. Slap the other side.’ She did.” One of the school nuns intervenes.
  • Tommy’s dog is hit by a car. “There was a huge red gash from one end of his belly to the other. . . I was pretty sure I could see his guts hanging out.” Tommy takes the dog to an adult friend, who is able to sew the dog’s wound. The dog lives.
  • When Tommy misses the bus, his mom “didn’t wait for me to pull down my pants this time, just slammed my hands down on the counter and started hitting me. . . I was too terrified to cry. Her blows were wild now, as likely to hit my back or my legs as my buttocks.” Tommy’s sister Pinky tries to stop her mom. “The belt flew through the air again. Pinky gasped. A big welt rose up on her skinny little arm.” Tommy yells and runs out of the house. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Tommy doesn’t keep his best friend, Eddie’s, secret. So at school, Eddie, “slugged me in the stomach. I wasn’t expecting the blow and I fell to the ground. My belly ached, twisted in knots, and for a moment, I thought I was going to throw up.” Tommy thinks about his mom’s beatings and doesn’t hit back.
  • Tommy, Eddie, and their dads go fishing. Eddie’s dad, Mr. Sullivan, gets drunk and the men start arguing. Mr. Sullivan “slapped Eddie on the cheek” for being disrespectful. Then Mr. Sullivan began shaking Eddie. Tommy thinks, “I bet it hurt being shaken like that. It had hurt when Mom had hit me.”
  • As the men’s arguing escalates, Mr. Sullivan “pulled out a handgun and pointed it at my dad’s face. . . Dad picked up the knife we used to gut fish.” Tommy and Eddie work together to diffuse the situation. Mr. Sullivan, “still had the gun pointed at my dad, but it was a bit lower now. . . Eddie and I both jumped onto his father, knocking him to the ground. The gun went off, but the bullet went wild, into the marshy grass.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • While Mary Lou is in the hospital, the doctors give her morphine for the pain. Her mother worries that “she’ll become an addict!”
  • When Mary Lou is allowed to go home for a visit, her mom “started rationing Mary Lou’s pain pills.” Her mom is worried that Mary Lou would become a drug addict.
  • When the sheriff goes to talk to the store owner, the owner gives the sheriff a beer.
  • On Halloween, a doctor gives Tommy’s mom “a pill” to help her sleep. After that, Tommy’s mom continues to take the pills and sleeps a lot.
  • After Tommy’s father goes to see Mary Lou, he comes home smelling like whiskey.
  • On Thanksgiving, Tommy’s father leaves and when he comes back, he “smelled like alcohol again.”
  • While in a courtroom, Tommy “listened to the next case: a man who had had too much to drink had backed his car into his neighbor’s bed of prize-winning roses.”
  • A man is fired because he was drinking at work.
  • While eating lunch with a friend, Tommy’s dad has a beer.

Language

  • The kids in the book occasionally call each other names such as stupid, jerk, and idiot.
  • Crap is used once.
  • A boy tells the store owner that Tommy stole the yo-yos, and Tommy calls the boy an idiot and a rat. Tommy’s friend calls the boy a tattletale.
  • Tommy calls a fat classmate, “Little Skinny.” Tommy often calls Little Skinny names such as idiot and fatty.
  • Tommy’s mom has to go in front of a judge for a speeding ticket. She curses to the judge in Polish, saying “pieprzony dupku!”
  • Tommy calls a girl, “Lizard-Face.” One of his friends joins in and calls someone else, “Monkey-Head.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Tommy’s family is Catholic and he goes to a Catholic school. When Tommy’s sister is burned, his mom says “prayers to the Virgin Mary.” Tommy says, “so many Hail Marys, it seemed like those were the only words left in the world.”
  • At school, the students have mass “every morning. That meant thirty-five minutes of peace and quiet—well, except for the standing up and kneeling, and chanting in Latin, but I could do all that in my sleep.”
  • After Tommy’s sister is injured, several people tell him, “We’re praying for your sister.”
  • When Tommy sees his sister for the first time after the accident, he begins to cry. He thinks, “I know I should be happy and thanking God, but I couldn’t stop crying.”
  • Tommy thinks the “Commies didn’t believe in freedom of religion either. Heck, they didn’t believe in religion at all.”
  • One man doesn’t want to include Sam when planning an event because his dad was rumored to be a communist. However, someone reminds the group of, “Ezekiel 18:20. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father.’”

The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

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

Violence

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

Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language

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

Supernatural

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

Spiritual Content

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

by Caroline Galdi

 

EndGames

Blue arrives in the capital city of Altalus, where she is determined to find her friend Crow, the boy who was created to be a flying war machine, and Jack, the engineer who built him. But soon she is inadvertently kidnapped by Snow and Red, twins from the enemy side of their ten-year war. They set off on a dangerous adventure that brings them to the front lines of the war, and eventually realize that they must work together to help end it. But with larger, more powerful forces at work, the fight for peace and survival will be more difficult than they ever imagined.

The majority of EndGames’ plot focuses on the war between Goswish and Grimmaea. However, readers may have a difficult time following the story because of the abrupt transitions. The story jumps from scene to scene causing readers to struggle with keeping up with the new characters and all of the new information. While NewsPrints focused on Blue and Crow’s relationship, in EndGames the two are separated and have little contact. Readers will miss the interaction between the two.

Even though the story is recommended for readers eight and up, younger readers may not be able to understand the more mature themes that appear in the book. The story is very anti-war and shows the dangers of using children to fight an adult’s war. EndGames also shows how governments only print news that is beneficial to them. Instead of being concerned with the truth, many newspapers only spread the government’s propaganda. The newspaper only runs an important true story when “the truth happens to sell even better for the Bugle.”

Unfortunately, EndGames tries to accomplish too much. The story has themes of imperialism, gender roles, and discrimination as well as an anti-war message. EndGames features both a blind character and a transgender character. A female aviator tells Blue, “Oh I’ve always knon I was a boy. . . Other people just didn’t know it yet.” However, the transgender reference is brief and awkward.

Although the artwork is stunning, younger readers may be confused because of the quick transitions. Even though the illustrations help tell the story, some scenes are still confusing. The frantic pacing allows the story to skip over information that may have made the scene’s action clear.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While flying, two airplanes shoot at each other. A plane is knocked out of the sky by “friendly fire.” No one is injured. The scene is illustrated over six pages.
  • When another country’s Navy appears, a soldier uses a weapon in an attempt to “destroy that machine before your Goswish troops can get it back.” The weapon hits a target and starts a fire. The soldier is shown celebrating the destruction. The scene is illustrated over six pages.
  • As airplanes approach, the army is told “to protect Goswing, we must destroy Grimmaea!” Airplanes are shot down and fall into the ocean. The scene is illustrated over four pages.
  • Blue is left on unstable land that is being consumed by lava. Blue falls into a crack in the ground, but is saved.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Goose Butts!” is occasionally used as an exclamation.
  • Heck is used once.
  • Someone calls Blue an “idiot.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None
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