#tbt: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Image: Penguin Random House

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. 464 p. Ember in the Ashes series #1. Crown Books/ Penguin Random House, April, 2015. 9781595148032.

#tbt features An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. This thrilling dystopian grabs the reader from page one and doesn't let go. It is told in alternating viewpoints by Laia, a Scholar in the Marital Empire whose brother was imprisoned and who is reluctantly acting as a spy for the resistance, and Elias, an elite soldier, who is training to become an assassin in the notorious Blackcliff Academy. 

An Ember in the Ashes was Ms. Tahir's debut in 2015. It was named a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults as well as a Goodreads People's Choice and quite a few state book award lists. It has three sequels, A Torch against the Night in 2016, A Reaper at the Gates in 2018, and A Sky Beyond the Storm in 2020. 

Happy reading!

Waiting on Wednesday: Dear Manny by Nic Stone

Image: Penguin Random House

Dear Manny by Nic Stone. 244 p. Crown Books for Young Readers/ Random House Children's Books/ Penguin Random House, March 4, 2025. 9780593308011.

Waiting on Wednesday features Dear Manny by Nic Stone. Fans of the author's Dear Martin and Dear Justyce will be happy to learn of this sequel that is due out on March 4.

Here's the publisher's synopsis: From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin comes the thrilling final installment of the series, set in college. Jared (white, Justyce's roommate, woke) is running for Junior class president. With his antiracism platform, he's a shoo-in. But he's up against the new girl, Dylan. Will Jared have to choose between his head and his heart?

Jared Peter Christensen is running for president (of the Junior Class Council at his university, but still). His platform is solid—built on increased equity and inclusion in all sectors of campus life—and he’s got a good chance of beating the deeply conservative business major he’s running against.

But then a transfer student enters the race and calls Jared out for his big-talk/little-action way of moving. But what’s the right way to bring about change? As the campaign heats up, feelings are caught, and juicy secrets come to light, and Jared writes letters to his deceased friend Manny, hoping to make sense of his confusion. What’s a white boy to do when love and politics collide?

New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone writes from a new perspective in this exciting final chapter of the Dear Martin series that examines privilege, love, and our political climate.

Waiting on Wednesday: Chaos Theory by Nic Stone

Image: Penguin Random House

Happy Wednesday! Nic Stone has another YA book coming! Waiting on Wednesday features Chaos Theory. This is being released on February 23, 2023 and here's the publisher synopsis: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin delivers a gripping romance about two teens: a certified genius living with a diagnosed mental illness and a politician's son who is running from his own addiction and grief. Don't miss this gut punch of a novel about mental illness, loss, and discovering you are worthy of love.

Scars exist to remind us of what we’ve survived.

DETACHED
Since Shelbi enrolled at Windward Academy as a senior and won’t be there very long, she hasn’t bothered making friends. What her classmates don’t know about her can’t be used to hurt her—you know, like it did at her last school.

WASTED
Andy Criddle is not okay. At all.
He’s had far too much to drink.
Again. Which is bad.
And things are about to get worse.

When Shelbi sees Andy at his lowest, she can relate. So she doesn’t resist reaching out. And there’s no doubt their connection has them both seeing stars . . . but the closer they get, the more the past threatens to pull their universes apart.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone delivers a tour de force about living with grief, prioritizing mental health, and finding love amid the chaos.

Fact Friday: Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South by Wade Hudson

Image: Penguin Random House

Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South by Wade Hudson. 272 p. Crown Books/ Random House Children's Books, October, 2021. 9780593126356. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Happy Friday TMS! We made it! February break starts in a few short hours. I hope you have your reading planned. I do. Fact Friday features Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South by Wade Hudson. Mr. Hudson is author of more than thirty books and is co-founder, along with his wife, Cheryl Willis Hudson, of Just Us Books. His conversational memoir begins with him contemplating the prison cell he was placed in after his arrest as a college student. He was a vocal activist on campus and he and others were charged with plotting murder. The next chapter rewinds to the author's childhood, growing up in a large family in a small town, where folks looked out for one another, but Black folks couldn't try on clothes in the department store. He grew up loving school and baseball and the church. 

Back matter contains notes and a time line to help young readers understand the history of Civil Rights in the U.S. Defiant is a first-purchase for all kinds of libraries-compelling and important.

Waiting on Wednesday: Fast Pitch by Nic Stone

Image: Penguin Random House

Fast Pitch by Nic Stone. 192 p. Crown Books for Young Readers/ Random House Children's Books, August 31, 2021. 9781984893017.

Happy Wednesday TMS Readers! Waiting on Wednesday features Fast Pitch by Nic Stone. Ms. Stone's YA books are quite popular at TMS and recently, she made her MG debut with Clean Getaway. In just a few weeks, Fast Pitch will be released! Look for it in book stores and libraries on August 31. Here's the publisher synopsis: 

Shenice Lockwood, captain of the Fulton Firebirds, is hyper-focused when she steps up to the plate. Nothing can stop her from leading her team to the U12 fast-pitch softball regional championship. But life has thrown some curveballs her way.
Strike one: As the sole team of all-brown faces, Shenice and the Firebirds have to work twice as hard to prove that Black girls belong at bat.

Strike two: Shenice’s focus gets shaken when her great-uncle Jack reveals that a career-ending—and family-name-ruining—crime may have been a setup.

Strike three: Broken focus means mistakes on the field. And Shenice’s teammates are beginning to wonder if she’s captain-qualified.

It’s up to Shenice to discover the truth about her family’s past—and fast—before secrets take the Firebirds out of the game forever.

Fact Friday: How We Got to the Moon by John Rocco

Image: Penguin Random House

How We Got to the Moon: the people, technology, and daring feats of science behind humanity's greatest adventure written and illustrated by John Rocco. 264 p. Crown Books for Young Readers, October, 2020. 9780525647416. (Review of finished copy borrowed from public library.)

Happy Friday! Fact Friday features How We Got to the Moon: the people, technology, and daring feats of science behind humanity's greatest adventure written and illustrated by John Rocco. Now, if you are a Percy Jackson fan, you know Mr. Rocco's work, as he has illustrated all the covers for that series and its spin-offs.

This hefty, oversized, gorgeous volume begins in October of 1957, when people all over the world learned that Russia had launched a satellite called Sputnik. Panic ensued. Were we being spied upon? Could a satellite drop an atomic bomb? The U.S. scrambled to catch up. 

The subtitle really says it all. That's how wide-ranging the text is. Each spread brims with text that explains the history, science, engineering and gives biographical background on some of the many thousands of individuals who worked tirelessly to put a man on the moon. Illustrations vie with the text on each page and just beg to be pored over. There are technical drawings, cutaways, and portraits. This is a book that ought to be read more than once. There's just too much to take in. The back matter is superb. It gives the reader a glimpse into all the research Mr. Rocco did for both the writing and the art, source notes, sources, and suggestions for further reading.

Fact hounds and space geeks will adore this book, but so will the average curious reader. How We Got to the Moon was long-listed for the National Book Award and is a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. Who knows what other awards it might garner next Monday? A Sibert? A Newbery? This book needs to be in every library's collection.

Teen Tuesday: Dear Justyce by Nic Stone

Image: Penguin Random House

Dear Justyce: a novel by Nic Stone. 266 p. Crown Books for Young Readers/ Random House/ Penguin Random House, September, 2020. 9781984829665. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Happy Tuesday! Teen Tuesday features Dear Justyce: a novel by Nic Stone. In this sequel to Ms. Stone's critically acclaimed debut, Dear Martin, seventeen-year-old Vernell LaQuan Banks, Jr. (You better call him Quan) is awaiting trial for the murder of a police officer. It's a crime he did not commit, but he was at the scene. He has an arrest record, an overworked, possibly incompetent public defender and knows he's looking at hard time in prison.

He writes a series of letters to his friend, Justyce. The two met on a playground one night while trying to escape difficult times at home. The two boys were bright, loved school and loved to read. Quan had an aptitude for math and hopes for the future despite experiencing the trauma of witnessing the violent arrest of this father when he was eleven. Justyce had a mother who expected him to excel and supported him; Quan's mother sided with the teacher who accused him of cheating on an algebra exam. As Quan began to lose hope, the school-to-prison pipeline became an increasing reality.

Dear Justyce is a difficult read. It's raw. It's sad. It's intense. It's important. You don't really need to read Dear Martin before reading Dear Justyce, but you should. Both books belong on every kind of library shelf. 

Teen Tuesday: We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Hudson

Image: Penguin Random House

We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson. 96 p. Crown Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Random House, September, 2018.9780525580423. (Own.)

Teen Tuesday features We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson. Wade Hudson and his wife, Cheryl Willis Hudson know a thing or two about rising, resisting and raising voices. They founded Just Us books to promote and cultivate #ownvoices and diverse voices. This collection of short stories, poems and art showcases the talent of both well-known and new-to-me artists of color. This collection is inspiring, reassuring and provocative, you can read these straight through or jump around. If you'd like to awaken the activist, the ally or the anti-racist in you, read and ponder this collection.

Middle Grade Monday and Arc Review: We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey

Image: Random House

We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey. 250 p. Crown Books for Young Readers/ Random House Children's Books, March, 2019. 9781524773052. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

One doesn't usually utter the words post-apocalypse and humorous in the same sentence. If anyone can make the end of the world funny, it's Geoff Rodkey. He has a knack for infusing even the most slapstick humor with a dry irony that serves as a one-two punch. We laugh and then, we think. I haven't laughed this hard at sci/fi since Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series. 

Humans have managed to destroy planet Earth and are in search of a new home. They tried Mars but found it inhospitable. Planet Choom has agreed to take in what is left of humankind but in the twenty years it took for the group to arrive, the government changed its mind - the government changed leadership. Humans are not civilized and cannot be peaceful, they argue. The problem is, there's no going back - not enough fuel and nowhere to go. So, they agree to allow one family entry to assimilate and prove that humans can be peaceful. 

The Mufune family is chosen. Lan, our narrator, describes the efforts of their (Lan's gender is never revealed) mother, who is on the governing committee of the ship, to negotiate with the Zhuris. They are insect-like creatures who rule Choom and dislike emotion. Nothing can be funny and music is outlawed as well. Lan and their friend, Naya, host a popular internet channel where they upload content meant to amuse their shipmates. Lan's sister, Ila, was a popular vocal artist on Earth. These two talents do not endear the family to the Zhuris in charge, but individual Zhuris are intrigued. Unfortunately, the government uses media to present humans in the worst possible light (fake news) and manipulates the masses into a mob mentality that "proves" the danger.

This timely story will entertain but also nudge the reader, or a thoughtful one at any rate, into a bit of reflection about the human condition. Heady stuff for the average middle school student but we want to teach them to think critically, do we not? 

Middle Grade Monday: Max and the Midknights by Lincoln Peirce

Image: Penguin Random House

Max and the Midknights by Lincoln Peirce. 282 p. Crown Books for Young Readers/ Random House Children's Books, January, 2019. 9781101931080. (Review of purchased copy.)

Max is apprenticed to an uncle who is an untalented bard. Max would rather be apprenticed to a knight but this is the Middle Ages (presumably) and children are destined to follow in the family line of work. When Uncle Budrick is captured by an evil king, Max gathers a posse of helpers interested in doing good and plans a rescue.

This humorous adventure moves apace and has a few cool surprises in store for readers. Fans of the author/ cartoonist won't be disappointed. 

Just last week, as I surveyed my collection of nearly destroyed Big Nate books, I wondered if Peirce had anything new. Low and behold, I missed this January release. More and more of my students are asking for graphic novel hybrids, so it's great to have something new to add to the shelf. If it's the beginning of a series, even better. Max and the Midknights should have wide appeal. Definitely worth adding to any school, public and classroom library.

Fact Friday: Made for Each Other: why dogs and people are perfect partners by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent

Made for Each Other: why dogs and people are perfect partners by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent. 61 p. Crown Books for Young Readers/ Random House Children's Books, January, 2018. 9781101931042. (Review of purchased copy)

This book amps up the "aw" factor with copious full-color photos of a variety of dogs and the humans who love, care and work with them on the front cover, the back cover and at least one on every single page. There are words too, but the photos really command attention. 

The author explains the history of how dogs may have been domesticated; the differences between wolves and dogs; and how dogs learn simply and accessibly. There's a section devoted to explaining a dog's devotion and apparent intelligence and a section explaining how they share our lives. The pages are attractively designed with colorful edging and fonts as well as the many photos, most of which are well-captioned. 

Backmatter includes suggested books, websites and videos as well as source notes for each chapter, additional sources, photo credits and an index.

This won't sit on the shelf, especially if it is displayed prominently. It should be useful for tween research whether for school or for trying to convince parents that it's time to add a furry family member.