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Because of her mom’s spirit of adventure, Molly Teng has moved eight times in her 13 years of life. Now, she just wants normalcy, consistency, and a place to call home. By the time her mom, Dot, drags her to Buckeye Creek, Texas, Molly has reached the end of her rope. Bell Harbor, Maine, just had a more comfortable vibe; it was a place where life was peaceful and simple. Now, she’s in a new place, forced to make new friends, and trying to avoid “the zaps.” For Dot Teng, everything is an opportunity, but for Molly, “everything is something to be navigated” (23). WhenRead More →

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With allusions to people like Mary Bethune, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Jessie Redmon Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, and Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Kwame Alexander commemorates Black History with his latest book: Black Star. But this novel in verse for middle grade readers goes beyond that preservation to tell the story of Charlene (aka Charley) Cuffey. The only thing Charley enjoys more than listening to her Nana Kofi tell stories about courageous ancestors and epic journeys is playing baseball with Willie Green and Henry Jones. With Grandpa’s inspiration, it’s impossible for Charley not to dream big. Charley’s mother, on the other hand, admonishes her asthmatic daughter for “getting allRead More →

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With her novel When We Flew Away, Alice Hoffman writes an emotionally stirring prequel to The Diary of Anne Frank. In this poignant piece, Hoffman reminds readers of the power of hope even when evil walks in the world. Even when it seems impossible to have hope, Anne Frank shows us that it is possible to be brave, to have dreams, and to live on in the words we have written or the record we leave behind. Set in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from 1940-1942, Hoffman’s book begins with Otto and Edith Frank wondering if their escape from Germany to the Netherlands with their two girls wasRead More →

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With their graphic novel Pearl, Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie bring readers a historical fiction account of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent response from the United States. In this version, Amy Hakata lives in Hawaii in 1941. However, when a family member in Japan grows ill and her parents are unable to travel, Amy flies to a country she has never visited. Once in Hiroshima, she sits with her sick Sōsobo. Here, only the food tastes familiar, but as Amy gets to know her grandmother, she learns of Grandma’s legacy as a pearl diver. However, everything changes in an instant, andRead More →

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In her novel Kareem Between, Shifa Saltagi Safadi shares a story about the experiences of seventh grader Kareem, who loves football and dreams of being the first Syrian American NFL player. Seeing his name on an American jersey would spell perfection for him, but first he has to earn a position on the middle school team. Set in Indiana from 2016-2017, Kareem feels invisible since he doesn’t make the football roster and his best friend Adam has moved away. To find comfort, Kareem escapes to the library where the smell of paper and ink and books surrounds him. A lover of words, Kareem uses NFLRead More →

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Set in Paris, 1942, The Night War by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley tells the story of twelve-year-old Miriam Erika Schrieber (Miri). In the face of danger, Miri’s parents have always told her “Verne heldishe (be brave)” and “We don’t choose how we feel, but we choose how we act. Choose courage” (16).   These words become Miri’s mantra when she is forced to flee the Pletzl, a Jewish neighborhood in Paris during a roundup of Jewish people. In a moment, with two-year-old Nora Rosenbaum in her arms, thrust there by a mother wanting to save her child from the Nazis, Miriam becomes Marie when a CatholicRead More →

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Set in Oahu, Hawaii, in 1941, Heroes by Alan Gratz is a novel about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two thirteen-year-old boys: Stanley Summer and Frank McCoy, whose fathers are pilots for the U.S. Navy, bond over their love of comic books. The two see the fleet of ships on Battleship Row as a metaphor for superheroes: the Justice Society of America. Frank is a writer and Stanley an illustrator. Together, they invent characters, write their origin stories, and draw them into situations where they emerge as heroes. However, Frank feels a bit like a fraud. Ever since The Incident in Florida, their last militaryRead More →

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Set in Cuba and the United Stated from 1958-1961, Farewell Cuba, Mi Isla by Alexandra Diaz was inspired by history. Many readers will recall the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs, a time when Cubans fled from the tyranny of Fidel Castro, seeking refuge in Florida. While several of those refugees thought their home in the United States would be temporary, believing that the US would not allow a Communist country so close to their border, that belief did not come to pass. Borrowing from memories of her own family’s stories, Diaz creates two tween cousins, Victoria Pino del Mar and Jacqueline RomeroRead More →

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Kin: Rooted in Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford is a powerful textual tribute to “the ancestors who carried us through” accented by scratchboard-like illustrations by Jeffery Boston Weatherford. In this verse novel, the Weatherfords conjure the voices of their ancestors and speak to them and through them with their art. Seeking answers to key questions: “At what age is hope born, when does resistance first rise up, and when do dreams wither” (22-23), the mother/son pair tells a moving story of their family tree. Their goal is to give voice to their African-American ancestors who were “marginalized, muted, or muzzled” as they tilled fields intoRead More →