Saturday, February 29, 2020

What's New? Stacking the Shelves


Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Hop on over there to ogle what other bloggers got this week.

For Review:

Calm Down Zebra by Lou Kuenzler. unpgd. Faber & Faber, April 21, 2020. 9780571351701.

Publisher synopsis: Everyone’s favorite, enthusiastic Zebra is back, eager to get in on the act as Annie tries to teach her little brother about colours.
This one showed up in my mailbox at school. I have no idea why I am so lucky. It looks adorable. 


Image: Penguin Random House

The Yawns are Coming by Christopher Eliopoulos. unpgd. Dial Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Random House, April 28, 2020. 9781984816306.

Publisher synopsis: Two best friends have big plans for their sleepover. They aren’t going to go to bed at all–they’ll stay up playing all night long. But then it happens: The YAWNS show up! And as much as they try to outrun and hide from them, it’s no use: The Yawns catch them. Maybe they could keep going anyway, but then a DOZE arrives . . . followed by the dreaded SNORES. Will our heroes escape the SLEEPIES?


Image: Penguin Random House
Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer by Gillian Goerz. 224 p. Dial Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Random House, July  14, 2020. 978052555285.

Publisher synopsis: This middle-grade graphic novel for fans of Roller Girl and Smile introduces Jamila and Shirley, two unlikely friends who save each other’s summers while solving their neighborhood’s biggest mysteries.

Jamila Waheed is staring down a lonely summer in a new neighborhood–until she meets Shirley Bones. Sure, Shirley’s a little strange, but both girls need a new plan for the summer, and they might as well become friends.

Then this kid Oliver shows up begging for Shirley’s help. His pet gecko has disappeared, and he’s sure it was stolen! That’s when Jamila discovers Shirley’s secret: She’s the neighborhood’s best kid detective, and she’s on the case. When Jamila discovers she’s got some detective skills of her own, a crime-solving partnership is born.

The mystery of the missing gecko turns Shirley and Jamila’s summer upside down. And when their partnership hits a rough patch, they have to work together to solve the greatest mystery of all: what it means to be a friend.



Image: Penguin Random House
Ikenga by Nnedi Okorafor. 240 p. Viking Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Random House, August 18, 2020. 9780593113523.

Publisher synopsis: Nnedi Okorafor’s first novel for middle grade readers introduces a boy who can access super powers with the help of the magical Ikenga.

Nnamdi’s father was a good chief of police, perhaps the best Kalaria had ever had. He was determined to root out the criminals that had invaded the town. But then he was murdered, and most people believed the Chief of Chiefs, most powerful of the criminals, was responsible. Nnamdi has vowed to avenge his father, but he wonders what a twelve-year-old boy can do. Until a mysterious nighttime meeting, the gift of a magical object that enables super powers, and a charge to use those powers for good changes his life forever. How can he fulfill his mission? How will he learn to control his newfound powers?


Award-winning Nnedi Okorafor, acclaimed for her Akata novels, introduces a new and engaging hero in her first novel for middle grade readers set against a richly textured background of contemporary Nigeria. 
I am super-excited to read this MG debut. I LOVED the Akata Witch novels!



My Eyes are Up Here by Laura Zimmerman. 352 p. Dutton Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Random House, July 23, 2020. 9781984815248.

Publisher synopsis: Insightful, frank, and funny, My Eyes Are Up Here is a razor-sharp debut about a teenage girl struggling to rediscover her sense of self in the year after her body decided to change all the rules.

A “monomial” is a simple algebraic expression consisting of a single term. 30H, for example. fifteen-year-old Greer Walsh hasn’t been fazed by basic algebra since fifth grade, but for the last year, 30H has felt like an unsolvable equation–one that’s made her world a very small, very lonely place. 30H is her bra size–or it was the last time anyone checked. She stopped letting people get that close to her with a tape measure a while ago.

Ever since everything changed the summer before ninth grade, Greer has felt out of control. She can’t control her first impressions, the whispers that follow, or the stares that linger after. The best she can do is put on her faithful XXL sweatshirt and let her posture–and her expectations for other people–slump.

But people–strangers and friends–seem strangely determined to remind her that life is not supposed to be this way. Despite carefully avoiding physical contact and anything tighter than a puffy coat, Greer finds an unexpected community on the volleyball squad, the team that hugs between every point and wears a uniform “so tight it can squeeze out tears.” And then there’s Jackson Oates, newly arrived at her school and maybe actually more interested in her banter than her breasts.

Laura Zimmermann’s debut is both laugh-out-loud funny and beautifully blunt, vulnerable and witty, heartbreaking and hopeful. And it will invite readers to look carefully at a girl who just wants to be seen for all she is.



Image: Penguin Random House
Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone. 320 p. G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Random House, July 7, 2020. 9781984816436.

Publisher synopsis: In this debut middle-grade girl-power friendship story, an eighth grader starts a podcast to protest the unfair dress code enforcement at her middle school and sparks a rebellion.
Molly Frost is FED UP…

Because Olivia was yelled at for wearing a tank top.

Because Liza got dress coded and Molly didn’t, even though they were wearing the exact same outfit.

Because when Jessica was pulled over by the principal and missed a math quiz, her teacher gave her an F.

Because it’s impossible to find shorts that are longer than her fingertips.

Because girls’ bodies are not a distraction.

Because middle school is hard enough.

And so Molly starts a podcast where girls can tell their stories, and before long, her small rebellion swells into a revolution. Because now the girls are standing up for what's right and they're not backing down.


I am so ready to read this! As a middle school teacher, I have always felt conflicted about dress codes and how sexist they are. A few years ago, a group of passionate and articulate eighth grade girls got together and addressed this issue at a Board of Education meeting. Go girls!


Image: Penguin Random House
We are Not from Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez.

Publisher synopsis: A poignant novel of desperation, escape, and survival across the U.S.-Mexico border, inspired by current events.

Pulga has his dreams.
Chico has his grief.
Pequeña has her pride.

And these three teens have one another. But none of them have illusions about the town they’ve grown up in and the dangers that surround them. Even with the love of family, threats lurk around every corner. And when those threats become all too real, the trio knows they have no choice but to run: from their country, from their families, from their beloved home.

Crossing from Guatemala through Mexico, they follow the route of La Bestia, the perilous train system that might deliver them to a better life–if they are lucky enough to survive the journey. With nothing but the bags on their backs and desperation drumming through their hearts, Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña know there is no turning back, despite the unknown that awaits them. And the darkness that seems to follow wherever they go.

In this striking portrait of lives torn apart, the plight of migrants at the U.S. southern border is brought to light through poignant, vivid storytelling. An epic journey of danger, resilience, heartache, and hope.


Purchased: nothing!

If you leave a comment, leave the link to your stack. I will pop by and to check out your stack!

Friday, February 28, 2020

Fact Friday: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Image: Penguin Random House
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. 338 p. Nancy Paulson Books/ Penguin Group USA/ Penguin Random House, August, 2014. 9780399252518. (Own)

Fact Friday features Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. This memoir in verse tells the story of Woodson's life from her birth in Ohio, through her childhood where she lived in South Carolina with her maternal grandparents and later in New York City. It is a story of family, of racism, of segregation. It is the story of her finding her voice as a poet and writer. Published in 2014, Brown Girl Dreaming won the National Book Award for Literature for Young People as well as a Coretta Scott King Author Award and a Newbery Honor. Brown Girl Dreaming was Woodson's fourth Newbery Honor. 

Thursday, February 27, 2020

#tbt: Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renée Russell

Image: Simon & Schuster
Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renée Russell. 352 p. Aladdin/ Simon & Schuster, June, 2009. 9781416980063.

#tbt features Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renée Russell. This jaunty diary format book was first published in June of 2009 and is still going strong with fourteen books out. The fifteenth, as yet untitled, is due in October. The series has definite Wimp appeal and features fourteen-year-old Nikki Maxwell as she navigates being a scholarship student at a tony prep school. Her father is the school's exterminator and she lives in fear that her secret will be revealed. It doesn't help that the school's alpha mean girl's locker is right next to hers. 

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Waiting on Wednesday: Tristan Strong Destroys the World by Kwame Mbalia

Image: Disney/ Hyperion
Tristan Strong Destroys the World by Kwame Mbalia. Tristan Strong series #2. 320 p. Disney Press/ Disney, October 6, 2020. 9781368042383.

Publisher synopsis: Bestselling author Rick Riordan presents the second book in the New York Times best-selling Tristan Strong trilogy by Kwame Mbalia. Tristan Strong, just back from a victorious but exhausting adventure in Alke, the land of African American folk heroes and African gods, is suffering from PTSD. But there's no rest for the weary when his grandmother is abducted by a mysterious villain out for revenge. Tristan must return to Alke—and reunite with his loud-mouthed sidekick, Gum Baby—in order to rescue Nana and stop the culprit from creating further devastation. Anansi, now a "web developer" in Tristan's phone, is close at hand to offer advice, and several new folk heroes will aid Tristan in his quest, but he will only succeed if he can figure out a way to sew broken souls back together.

I so enjoyed Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky and can't wait for this!

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Teen Tuesday: Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri

Image: Candlewick Press
Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri. 224 p. Candlewick Press, August, 2011. 9780763649227. (Own)

Teen Tuesday features Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri. Twelve-year-old Cole is in danger of repeating seventh grade thanks to his habit of skipping school. His mom has had it, so she packs up his things and drives from Detroit to north Philadelphia to dump him with the dad he never knew. The last thing he expected was to come face-to-face with a horse. His father is a horse whisperer who owns a stable right in the middle of the city. This illustrated novel is fiction but based on a real stable in Philadelphia called The Fletcher Street Riding Club. Ghetto Cowboy was optioned for film by Idris Elba and is in production under the title, Concrete Cowboy.

Monday, February 24, 2020

Middle Grade Monday and Arc Review: Leaving Lymon by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Image: Holiday House

Leaving Lymon by Lesa Cline-Ransome. 208 p. Holiday House, January, 2020. 9780823444427. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher ALAMW)

Middle Grade Monday features Leaving Lymon by Lesa Cline-Ransome. This historical fiction is a companion to Cline-Ransome's Coretta Scott King Honor winning, Finding Langston. It is Langston's bully, Lymon's story. You need not have read Finding Langston to enjoy Leaving Lymon. The story begins in Mississippi in 1938, where Lymon lives with his paternal grandparents, Grandpops and Ma. His father is in prison and his mother lives in Chicago. Lymon misses his father but adores his Grandpops who teaches him to play blues guitar. When Grandpops dies, Lymon moves to Milwaukee with Ma to live with his aunt and her family. His father is released from prison, but unable to settle down to care for Lymon, instead chooses to pursue his dream of being a musician. Then Ma falls seriously ill and Lymon is sent to live in Chicago with his mother and her husband, who beats Lymon and keeps the money Lymon's aunt sends. 

While there is sadness and struggle in Lymon's younger life, he is surrounded by love and warmth. Unfortunately, Lymon's well-being become less secure with each complication leading readers to ache for him. Lymon's voice is matter-of-fact, almost resigned. The writing is spare and lovely. Each setting is vivid and characters are well-developed. Readers need not have read Finding Langston to enjoy Leaving Lymon but both are important works of historical fiction that are not to be missed. 

Saturday, February 22, 2020

What's New? Stacking the Shelves


Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Hop on over there to ogle what other bloggers got this week.

For Review:

Dan Unmasked by Chris Negron. 362 p. Harper/ HarperCollins Publishers, July 28, 2020. 9780062943064.

Publisher synopsis: This heartfelt middle grade debut about grief, creativity, and the healing power of friendship shows that not all heroes wear capes and is perfect for fans of John David Anderson and Ali Benjamin.

Whether they’re on the baseball field or in Nate’s basement devouring the newest issue of their favorite comic book, Dan and Nate are always talking. Until they’re not.

After an accident at baseball practice, Nate’s fallen into a coma. And if Dan ever wants to talk to Nate again, he’s got to take a page out of his hero Captain Nexus’s book, and do whatever it takes to save the day.

But heroes have powers—and without Nate, all Dan has is a closet stuffed with comics and a best-friend-shaped hole in his heart. There’s no way a regular kid can save the day all on his own. Right?


Image: Scholastic

Into the Clouds: the race to climb the world's most dangerous mountain by Tod Olson. 270 p. Scholastic Focus/ Scholastic Inc., April 21, 2020. 9781338207361.

Publisher synopsis: This fast-paced, three-part narrative takes readers on three expeditions over 15 years to K2, one of the deadliest mountains on Earth. Roped together, these teams of men face perilously high altitudes and battering storms in hopes of reaching the summit. As each expedition sets out, they carve new paths along icy slopes and unforgiving rock, creating camps on ledges so narrow they fear turning over in their sleep.

But disaster strikes — in 1939, four men never make it down the mountain. Fourteen years later, a man develops blood clots in his legs at 25,000 feet, leaving his team with no safe path off the mountain. Filled with displays of incredible strength and heart-stopping danger, Into the Clouds tells the incredible stories of the men whose quest to conquer a mountain became a battle to survive the descent.

Purchased: Used the last of a BN gift card Friday afternoon.

Image: Macmillan
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell. Illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks. Color by Sarah Stern. 224 p. First second/ Macmillan, August, 2019. 9781250312853.

Publisher synopsis: Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.

Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye every Halloween, and they’re reunited every September 1.

But this Halloween is different—Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last good-bye.

Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: What if—instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut—they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he’s been mooning over for three years . . .

What if their last shift was an adventure?


Image: HarperCollins Publishers
Cog by Greg Van Eekhout. 200 p. Harper/ HarperCollins Publishers, October, 2019. 9780062686077.

Publisher synopsis: Five robots. One unforgettable journey. Their programming will never be the same.

Wall-E meets The Wild Robot in this middle grade instant classic about five robots on a mission to rescue their inventor from the corporation that controls them all.

Cog looks like a normal twelve-year-old boy. But his name is short for “cognitive development,” and he was built to learn.

But after an accident leaves him damaged, Cog wakes up in an unknown lab—and Gina, the scientist who created and cared for him, is nowhere to be found. Surrounded by scientists who want to study him and remove his brain, Cog recruits four robot accomplices for a mission to find her.

Cog, ADA, Proto, Trashbot, and Car’s journey will likely involve much cognitive development in the form of mistakes, but Cog is willing to risk everything to find his way back to Gina.

In this charming stand-alone adventure, Greg van Eekhout breathes life and wisdom into an unforgettable character and crafts a story sure to earn its place among beloved classics like Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan.

Image: Candlewick Press
Malamander by Thomas Taylor. 294 p. Candlewick Press, September, 2019. 9781536207224.

Publisher synopsis: It’s winter in the town of Eerie-on-Sea, where the mist is thick and the salt spray is rattling the windows of the Grand Nautilus Hotel. Inside, young Herbert Lemon, Lost and Founder for the hotel, has an unexpected visitor. It seems that Violet Parma, a fearless girl around his age, lost her parents at the hotel when she was a baby, and she’s sure that the nervous Herbert is the only person who can help her find them. The trouble is, Violet is being pursued at that moment by a strange hook-handed man. And the town legend of the Malamander — a part-fish, part-human monster whose egg is said to make dreams come true — is rearing its scaly head. As various townspeople, some good-hearted, some nefarious, reveal themselves to be monster hunters on the sly, can Herbert and Violet elude them and discover what happened to Violet’s kin? This lighthearted, fantastical mystery, featuring black-and-white spot illustrations, kicks off a trilogy of fantasies set in the seaside town.

A quirky, creepy fantasy set in Eerie-on-Sea finds a colorful cast of characters in hot pursuit of a sea monster thought to convey a surprising gift.

Image: Simon & Schuster
Dork Diaries 14:Tales from Not-so-Best Friend Forever by Rachel Renée Russell. 314 p. October, 2019. 9781534427204.

Publisher synopsis:Nikki and her bandmates are looking forward to an AWESOME summer on tour as the opening act for the world famous Bad Boyz! Nikki is a little worried when her frenemy, MacKenzie Hollister, weasels her way into a social media intern position with the tour. But she has a total MELTDOWN when she learns that MacKenzie is her new roommate! Will Nikki survive her dream tour as it quickly goes from AWESOME to AWFUL?! The drama continues in Dork Diaries 14: Tales from a Not-So-Best Friend Forever!

If you leave a comment, leave the link to your stack. I will pop by and to check out your stack!

Friday, February 21, 2020

Friday Memes: All the Days Past, All the Days to Come by Mildred D. Taylor

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice.

Image: Penguin Random House
All the Days Past, All the Days to Come by Mildred D. Taylor. 484 p. Viking/ Penguin Random House, January, 2020. 9780399257308. 

Publisher synopsis: The saga of the Logan family–made famous in the Newbery Medal-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry–concludes in a long-awaited and deeply fulfilling story.

In her tenth book, Mildred Taylor completes her sweeping saga about the Logan family of Mississippi, which is also the story of the civil rights movement in America of the 20th century. Cassie Logan, first met in Song of the Trees and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, is a young woman now, searching for her place in the world, a journey that takes her from Toledo to California, to law school in Boston, and, ultimately, in the 60s, home to Mississippi
to participate in voter registration. She is witness to the now-historic events of the century: the Great Migration north, the rise of the civil rights movement, preceded and precipitated by the racist society of America, and the often violent confrontations that brought about change. Rich, compelling storytelling is Ms. Taylor’s hallmark, and she fulfills expectations as she brings to a close the stirring family story that has absorbed her for over forty years. It is a story she was born to tell.

First Line: Man and I were waiting for the bus.

Page 56: I met Stacey's eyes in the dark and knew there were no further words to say. He was right, and that's all there was to that. He was right about everything. We drove the rest of the way home in silence. Like the night, the streets were beginning to quiet, and in silence I thought about the city of Toledo without its signs, but segregated anyway. I thought about Toledo with all its opportunities, but segregated anyway. At least down home in Mississippi and throughout the South, folks were direct and honest about what was expected. Everybody knew exactly were a body stood. There was no pretense to equality. The signs were everywhere. White Only, Colored Not Allowed.

Fact Friday: This Promise of Change: one girl's story in the fight for school equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy

Image: Bloomsbury
This Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy. 320 p. Bloomsbury Children's Books, January, 2019.  9781681198521. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Fact Friday features This Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision made school segregation illegal in 1956, schools and communities did not just welcome Black students with open arms. TMS readers, many of you are probably aware of the Little Rock Nine, but do you also know about the Clinton Twelve? This Promise of Change is the verse biography/ memoir of Jo Ann Allen, one of those twelve students who integrated their local high school in Clinton, Tennessee in 1956. The reader learns historical context - the reality of school segregation in the Jim Crow south. The free and formal verse poems are augmented with bits of newspaper headlines and excerpts of legislation. Readers will be stunned by the vile hatred spewed by the crowds of whites determined to prevent desegregation. The courage and composure with which these twelve students comported themselves is admirable. Back matter includes authors' notes, an epilogue, photographs, a timeline, suggestions for further reading and source notes. 

This Promise of Change won the Boston Globe/ Horn Book Award last May. It was named a Kirkus Best Book and won an Sibert Honor in January. It belongs in every collection and truly is a must-read. 

Thursday, February 20, 2020

#tbt: The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon

Image: Simon & Schuster

The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon. 304 p. Aladdin/ Simon & Schuster, January, 2009. 9781416975823.

#tbt features The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon. This work of historical fiction is set in Chicago in 1968. Thirteen-year-old Sam is a member of a prominent Civil Rights activist family. His minister father is a trusted advisor of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. Sam admires both men and is committed to fighting for Civil Rights. His brother Steven, Stick, is becoming disillusioned with King's tenet of non-violence. Stick admires the philosophy of the Black Panther movement and this leads to arguments and a fracture in the family.

Ms. Magoon vividly brings the conflicts of the Civil Rights movement to life through her compelling characters. The Rock and the River was Kekla Magoon's debut novel. She was awarded the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Award and named to many "Best" lists including Bank Street Best Books of the Year. 

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Waiting on Wednesday: Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Image: HarperCollins Publishers

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo. 432 p. Quill Tree Books/ HarperCollins Publishers, May 5, 2020. 9780062882769.

Waiting on Wednesday features Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo. Acevedo's YA verse novel, Poet X, is a TMS favorite. It also won multiple awards and prizes, such as The National Book Award, the Printz and a Carnegie Medal. Her next novel, With Fire on High, was prose. She returns to the verse format in Clap When You Land. This is the story of two sisters, one living in New York City and one in Dominican Republic, who are unaware of each other until their Papi dies in a plane crash. Sounds intense. Clap When You Land will be published in early May. I was a lucky recipient of an arc at Midwinter and I cannot wait to dive in!

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Teen Tuesday: Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams

Image: Simon & Schuster

Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams. 384 p. Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/ Atheneum/ Simon & Schuster, January, 2019. 9781481465809. 

Teen Tuesday features Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams. Thirteen-year-old Genesis has it pretty tough. She returns home from school to find her family's belongings out on the street. They've been evicted. Again. Mostly thanks to her father's alcoholism and inability to pay the rent. He promises to do better and Genesis starts a new school. But her problems go beyond this. She has a list of 95 things she hates about herself and one of them is the darkness of her skin. She is ridiculed both at home and at school about it. This novel sensitively explores issues of colorism and self-acceptance and the power that a loving mentor, in this case Genesis' music teacher, can have in helping healing. 

Genesis Begins Again is Williams' debut. It was a Morris Award Finalist and a Newbery Honor. She also won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent, which is bestowed by the Coretta Scott King committee. The book made several "Best" lists including an NPR Favorite. Surely a first-purchase!

Monday, February 17, 2020

Middle Grade Monday: Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia


Image: HarperCollins Publishers
Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia.166 p. Amistad/ HarperCollins Publisher, May, 2017. 9780062215918. 

Happy Presidents' Day TMS Readers! I hope you are enjoying your break. Middle Grade Monday features Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Garcia-Williams. Clayton and his grandfather, Cool Papa are tight much to his mother's dismay. Cool Papa is a bluesman and Clayton's mentor about all things blues. He can't wait to be good enough to be called in to join the band when they play in Washington Square Park. Clayton's world is turned upside down when Cool Papa dies. When his mother sells or gives away most of Cool Papa's possessions, including items Cool Papa wanted Clayton to have, Clayton runs away to join the band, only he has to take the subway, go underground in order to do so. This slim novel depicts a complex, imperfect family and a boy's grief so profoundly that Clayton will remain in your heart after you close the book.

Saturday, February 15, 2020

What's New? Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Hop on over there to ogle what other bloggers got this week.

For Review:

Image: Penguin Random House

Harry versus the First 100 Days of School by Emily Jenkins. illustrated by Pete Oswald. 210p. Scwartz & Wade Books/ Random House Children's Books/ Penguin Random House, June 30, 2020. 9780525644712.

Publisher synopsis: An acclaimed author and a #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator team up to bring us a funny, warm, and utterly winning chapter book that follows, day by day, the first hundred days in one first grader’s classroom.

In just one hundred days, Harry will learn how to overcome first-day jitters, what a “family circle” is, why guinea pigs aren’t scary after all, what a silent “e” is about, how to count to 100 in tons of different ways, and much more. He’ll make great friends, celebrate lots of holidays, and learn how to use his words. In other words, he will become an expert first grader.

Made up of one hundred short chapters and accompanied by tons of energetic illustrations from bestselling illustrator of The Good Egg and The Bad Seed, this is a chapter book all first graders will relate to–one that captures all the joys and sorrows of the first hundred days of school.


Purchased: The hub and I both received BN gift cards from my brother and sis-in-law for Christmas, so we went on a BN date. This is what I bought.
Image: Holiday House
Itch by Polly Farquhar. 252 p. Holiday House, February 4, 2020. 9780823445523.

Publisher synopsis: When everything around you is going wrong, how far would you go to fit in?

Isaac's sixth grade year gets off to a rough start.

For one thing, a tornado tears the roof off the school cafeteria. His mother leaves on a two month business trip to China. And as always. . . . there's the itch. It comes out of nowhere. Idiopathic, which means no one knows what causes it. It starts small, but it spreads, and soon—it's everywhere. It's everything. It's why everyone calls him Itch—everyone except his best friend Sydney, the only one in all of Ohio who's always on his side, ever since he moved here.

At least Itch has his job at the pheasant farm, which is tough but cool. And most of the guys at school are okay to hang out with, even if they're crazy about college football, and Itch could care less. He's doing the best he can to get along—until everything goes wrong in the middle of a lunch swap. When Sydney collapses and an ambulance is called, Itch blames himself. And he's not the only one.

When you have no friends at all, wouldn't you do anything—even something you know you shouldn't—to get them back?
Drawing on her own experiences with idiopathic angioedema and food allergies, Polly Farquhar spins a tale of kids trying to balance the desire to be ordinary with the need to be authentic—allergies, itches, confusion and all.

For everyone who's ever felt out of place, this debut novel set in the Ohio heartland is a warm, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking look at middle school misfits and misadventures. Whether you root for the Buckeyes or have no clue who they are, you'll be drawn into Itch's world immediately. This engaging debut is perfect for fans of See You in the Cosmos and Fish in a Tree.

Image: Little Bee Books
Jelly by Jo Cotterill. 266 p. Yellow Jacket/ Little Bee Books, January 7, 2020. 9781499810066.

Publisher synopsis: Twelve-year-old Jelly hides her true self behind her humor and keeps her true thoughts and feelings locked away in a notebook. Can she find the courage to share who she really is?

Angelica (Jelly for short) is the queen of comedy at school. She has a personality as big as she is, and everyone loves her impressions. But Jelly isn’t as confident as she pretends to be. No one knows her deepest thoughts and feelings. She keeps those hidden away in a secret notebook.

Then her mom’s new boyfriend, Lennon, arrives. He’s kind and perceptive, and he is the first person to realize that Jelly is playing a part. Jelly shares her poetry with him and he convinces her to perform one of her poems as a song at the school talent show. Can Jelly risk letting people see the real her? What if it all goes wrong?

Image: Disney
Fowl Twins by Eoin Colfer. 354 p. Disney Hyperion, November, 2019. 9781368043755.

Publisher synopsis: One week after their eleventh birthday, the Fowl twins—scientist Myles, and Beckett, the force of nature—are left in the care of house security (NANNI) for a single night. In that time they befriend a troll who has clawed his way through the earth’s crust to the surface. Unfortunately for the troll, he is being chased by a nefarious nobleman and an interrogating nun, who both need the magical creature for their own gain, as well as a fairy-in-training who has been assigned to protect him. The boys and their new troll best friend escape and go on the run. Along the way they get shot at, kidnapped, buried, arrested, threatened, killed (temporarily), and discover that the strongest bond in the world is not the one forged by covalent electrons in adjacent atoms, but the one that exists between a pair of twins.

Image: Macmillan
A Galaxy of Sea Stars by Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo. 330 p. Farrar Straus Giroux/ Macmillan, February 4, 2020. 9780374309091.

Publisher synopsis: A Galaxy of Sea Stars is Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo’s second middle-grade novel—a heartwarming story about family, loyalty, and the hard choices we face in the name of friendship.

Sometimes, the truth isn’t easy to see. Sometimes, you have to look below the surface to find it.

Eleven-year-old Izzy feels as though her whole world is shifting, and she doesn’t like it. She wants her dad to act like he did before he was deployed to Afghanistan. She wants her mom to live with them at the marina where they’ve moved instead of spending all her time on Block Island. Most of all, she wants Piper, Zelda, and herself—the Sea Stars—to stay best friends, as they start sixth grade in a new school.

Everything changes when Izzy’s father invites his former interpreter’s family, including eleven-year-old Sitara, to move into the marina’s upstairs apartment. Izzy doesn’t know what to make of Sitara—with her hijab and refusal to eat cafeteria food—and her presence disrupts the Sea Stars. But in Sitara Izzy finds someone brave, someone daring, someone who isn’t as afraid as Izzy is to use her voice and speak up for herself. As Izzy and Sitara grow closer, Izzy must make a choice: stay in her comfort zone and risk betraying her new friend, or speak up and lose the Sea Stars forever.

If you leave a comment, leave the link to your stack. I will pop by and to check it out!

Friday, February 14, 2020

Fact Friday: Port Chicago 50: disaster, mutiny and the fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Image: Roaring Brook Press
Port Chicago 50: disaster, mutiny and the fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin. 200 p. Roaring Brook Press/ Macmillan, January, 2014. 9781596437968. (Own.)

Fact Friday features Port Chicago 50: disaster, mutiny and the fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin. If you think you dislike narrative non-fiction, you have probably not read anything by Steve Sheinkin. He has the research chops and the narrative skills to take the reader back in time in an intense, immersive reading experience. It is not surprising that he won the Edwards Award this past January for his body of work. 

In Port Chicago, he relates the story of a little-known military disaster from World War II. Port Chicago was a naval base in the San Francisco bay where mostly Black soldiers loaded bombs onto the vessels under dangerous conditions. On July 17, 1944, a huge explosion killed more than 300 people and injured hundreds more. The men were ordered to report back to duty the following day. Two hundred men refused, citing the dangerous conditions. They were charged with treason and threatened with the firing squad. Sheinkin delves into the racism that kept troops segregated and allocated the most dangerous jobs to soldiers of color. 

Thursday, February 13, 2020

#tbt: Yummy: the last days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri

Yummy: the last days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri. Illustrated by Randy DuBurke. 96 p. Lee & Low Books Inc., September, 2010. 9781584302674. (Own)

#tbt features Yummy: the last days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri. This compelling graphic novel "biography" is told from the POV of a fictional classmate, but tells the very true story of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer. It was inspired by a TIME Magazine article the author read in 1994. Eleven-year-old Yummy inadvertently killed a bystander while he was threatening a rival gang member. He went on the run from the police but his gang was also on the hunt for him. The pace is fast and suspenseful. The black and white panels also effectively build suspense. 

Back matter includes a number of articles as well as an author's note. Lee & Low's page for the book contains extra information as well and worth a look.