Middle Grade Monday: As Brave as You by Jason Reynolds

As Brave as You by Jason Reynolds. 432 p. Caitlyn Dlouhey Books/ Atheneum/ Simon & Schuster, May, 2017. 9781481415910.

Middle Grade Monday features As Brave as You by Jason Reynolds. This novel won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, was a Kirkus Prize Finalist and won the Schneider Family Book Award. It tells the story of two brothers, Genie and his older brother Ernie. They have to spend several weeks with relatives they have never met so their parents can travel to Jamaica to try and save their marriage. Brooklyn, New York is way different than the rural Virginia town their father grew up in. He barely speaks to his own father and the boys are left to puzzle through a myriad of family secrets during their time spent down south.