Kate Mester
The story felt a little disjointed, but overall a good slice-of-life senior year YA book with deep themes. Ahmed drew from her own life in Batavia, IL (my central IL heart was REALLY here for this!) and how overwhelmingly and suffocatingly white the small Chicago suburbs are. I like that many readers will have a first-hand windows experience into being on the receiving end of Islamaphobia and have their empathy and understanding muscles worked. Some of the secondary characters feel a little stock, but the film references were legit.
Well, that took an even darker turn! The first book in the series, while it had dark content, still felt light, and lived up to the “good girl” title. But Jackson clearly had a vision for how Pip was going to change and grow, and I'm surprised but not shocked by the direction, though I think it'll be controversial. I did appreciate Jackson's tight plotting throughout the series, the repeated callbacks that she had clearly set out from the beginning, and Pip's (mostly) realistic emotional journey as all of the violence she investigated affected and changed her and made her more morally grey.
A good graphic bio on RGB's life for kids, elementary and middle specifically. I liked that the graphics where various shades of blue with pops of red. Includes a timeline and the quotes are extensively researched. This bio goes up to Feb 2019, a year before her death. 1 mention of the influentit Pauli Murray, who I would also love to see get the same attention and the graphics treatment!
Suspense that...didn't make sense and went nowhere. A messy bummer of a book. So much made absolutely no sense (like the man in the yellow hat) and the payoff wasn't one, it loosely connected some of the dots, left the rest, and then just ended. It's a promising idea that needed better writing, editing, and character development.
Another good listen from Pheebs. I really liked that she wrote so seriously for “We Don't Need Another White Savior.” People coming just for the comedy are going to be hit with a well done Atlantic-style thinkpiece. The comedy is also there, particularly in her ignorent asides, which are why I listen instead of read her books. As her books have grown with her career, I appreciate that she added essays about being a boss and traveling, with advice specific to Black women in these contexts. This is where I'm ignorant, but I'm hoping her next book will be a compilation of previous and new Thirsty Thursdays, because those posts are hy-ster-ical.
Wowza, this was excellent! Wimberly writes Tybalt's story, set in the 80s NY hip-hop scene with katana fighting, told through iambic pentameter, some from Shakespeare and some updated but no less impressive in it's references (It's gotta be the shoes, etc). The art and colors are stunning. What an impressive remixed work. This would be a great comparative addition to an AP or honors class after students read R&J.
3.5 A brief but clear graphic novel introduction to the Tulsa Race Massacre for students from 6th grade and up. Intro and back matter focus on Indigenous land in Oklahoma. Could be paired with Unspeakable, Black Birds in the Sky, The Burning, or Angel of Greenwood.
Great graphic that can be for 8th grade and up. Gharib takes us from her life growing up in Cerritas, CA as the 1st gen American child of an Egyptian father & Filipino mother, straddling the two cultures while also trying to navigate being an American and proximity to whiteness, through college and navigating the working world, up until her present adult life. The art is really fun and the color palette is limited to red, white, and blue, which makes sense to the theme but makes a lot of people redheads! Lots of teens will make connections here. Would be a great lit circle option.
Colbert did a great job with her research and making Black Birds a really readable narrative, bookended by her own thoughts in the Preface and Afterwards. The first few chapters set up historical context for this massacre, going through other riots/massacres that happened right before Tulsa and the consistent violence enacted by white supremacy anytime Black people made advances towards equality. However, this means that the actual details and story of that night and morning are much more surface than more in-depth books like Hilary Beard's The Burning. This would be a great book to start with as an introduction to the Tulsa Race Massacre for 8th to adult, but would be well-paired with more primary sources or even more detailed nonfiction accounts.
3.5 Started slow but really careened towards the end to then just....fizzle out. I liked that this was a departure from her other books but she took on so many big themes (gentrification, Get Out specific racist town plot, anxiety & mental health, mass incarceration, decriminalizing weed, televangelism scams) that it ended up a little messy with a lot of hanging and/or underdeveloped plot threads.
Excellence. A collection of essays on female body image, feminism, white supremacy, who gets to be a public intellectual, and so much more. Academic but with the framework of her own personal narrative, it was so was illuminating, sometimes witty and sometimes a gut-punch. I highlighted so many quotes that I'll return to. Also, if there was an award for best footnotes, this would be the clear winner!
Get Out meets Gossip Girl is exactly on the nose. Took a while for the plot to kick in and get moving. Could have used some tighter editing and the characters didn't feel like real people, they felt like ideas, which in the afterwards seemed like the author's intent.
I listened to this (thanks for the ALC, LibroFM!) narrated by Elhillo herself, and she performs it so becautifully, but it's one that I'll likely read physically as well to see how the poems play out on the page. I talked to a class about this as I was mid-way through, and they were all really interested in the premise. Nima, a Sudanese-American girl, doesn't feel like she fits in anywhere/into anything and thinks she is the problem, that if she was born as a twin/sister that doesen't exist, Yasmeen, everything would be better, SHE would be better. Through some magical realism, she is able to see the possiblities of the other life she imagines, and how it plays out for her family. She learns some complicated lessons and sees some truths about her family and herself. I just got the Breakbeak poetry series for the library, and Elhillo is featured, so I'll certianly be looking out for more of her writng beyond this. An important story and an inecredibly well done book debut.
The essays about his mother were particularly strong. The rest, definitely not as much. I appreciate that he went for it, but it didn't land a lot of the time.
A really compelling memoir in verse by Gansworth. I listened to most of it, because I like his voice and I appreciated hearing the poems written in or containing Tuscarora. It was interesting to hear some of his personal stories that clearly influenced If I Ever Get Out of Here. There's photographs that he references and his art in the print version, so I would recommend looking at them even if you choose to do the audiobook. A moving and thoughtful memoir, I know this one will stay with me. I'd love to see in a future BOB list!
A star-crossed teen romance that's really about family secrets and dealing with trauma and how all of that emotional baggage affects your relationships. There's also lots of basketball. Adult me thought much of the relationship on/off drama was cringey but it will be so relatable to the teen audience. I really appreciated the focus on healing from toxic relationships and working on a better sense of self rather than relying on a partner to fix you - that's a message that can't be relayed enough in YA - though I did wish that characters going to therapy would be shown, to normalize therapy for kids. Will definitely booktalk, this one has major appeal.
Based on the tagline, blurbs, and hype, I was hoping for funny sci-fi that I could booktalk, but this was surface with barely realized characters, full of boring tropes and not funny (barely even sarcastic) or really containing much space action. I only finished to see if it redeemed itself. Nope, stayed basic until the end. An additional star for being queer, saving it from one star.
Made lots of sticky notes and look forward to discussing this and implementing some ideas with my ELA & ELL teams (and hopefully other teams too!)
Important collection of graphics and personal essays written by 16 Latinx immigrant teens now living in DC. Appreciated their hopefulness and vulnerability in writing and sharing their stories. Ordered a small set of these and can't wait to share them with ELA classes and see student responses!
This is a TOUGH but realistic book about 3 teens deciding to escape their “small lives” (a theme of this book) to ride La Bestia and cross the desert into the US. Torres Sanchez's parents are from Guatamala, and though she has not experienced this journey herself, she has done lots of research into true stories of migrants and immigrants who have taken this journey. The story is claustrophobically tragic, I had to take breaks from it, but it's not without hope. Her writing is excellent, there's a tiny bit of magical realism/sprinkle of religion, and the characters and situations feel authentic. There are many students who will unfortunately relate to this and many who will learn from this, so I'll be sure to booktalk with lighter Latinx books so windows readers won't think the Latinx experience is only a monolith of tragedy and mirrors readers also have joyful realistic books.
2.5 The art was much better than the story line here, so I bumped my rating an additional star for Ellen's excellent & realistic drawings. I understand Colleen's intent, and even the 2004 setting (though not enough was done to ground that setting, so a reader could easily forget that and get confused) but I don't believe a cis non- #ownvoices author did well here. She put in dialogue about a character volunteering their deadname and the redemptive arcs...weren't. I do appreciate an effort to show religion as problematic but not necessarily the enemy, but overall she tried to do too much here and many storylines weren't respectfully or sensitively done.
Gorgeous, moving, and thoughtful, what an exquisite graphic novel that shows how a true marriage of both text and art can create an alchemical change to storytelling. Nguyen's use of colors to orient the reader to each different storyline/timeline will be so helpful for the MG/YA audience, because he doesn't pander to the audience in complexity of word choice or theme, especially in the back matter. So many weighty topics for discussion, all beautifully explored. This would make an excellent book group/lit circle pick.
For fans of Sadie or Good Girl's Guide to Murder - another book featuring a great audio production cast, 2 time periods, and a podcast within the narrative. Frick describes this as “Rebecca in the Hamptons” and I'd say that's pretty accurate! The audio was super well done and it was a good escapist read with some layers, and not as gritty/emotionally wrenching as Sadie.
Read from NetGalley: A novel in verse that is semi-autobiographical about a first generation Nigerian immigrant, Ada, finding what she loves independent of her family's/society's expectations of her. Body is separate in the title because Iloh writes with so much thoughtfulness and imagery about Black female bodies and bodily autonomy and who is allowed to/stripped of that autonomy and why. Ada has a fractured relationship with her mostly absent and abusive mother, and though she loves her very religious Nigerian father, she struggles with his expectations for her future that don't match her own desires for herself. So much is good here, but the story jumps around in time, which was sometimes confusing, and not all of the flashbacks served the story, as some led to unfinished narrative threads. The book also stops abruptly and jarringly. I want to see her verse on the page, because the e-galley had editor notes and I'm hoping some of the time-hopping confusion will be mitigated with a word flow edit on the pages of the book. I can already think of a few students that I will recommend this to, and will add it into my book-talk rotation.
Thrills from start to finish. Teens will root for the avenging Tina (Tiny Girl) and get an introduction to the idea of effects of constant civil war. I wish the author was native, and wonder how the story would change if she was. Easy to booktalk, and is already moving from shelves!