Middle Grade Monday: Absent by Rex Ogle

Image: WW Norton

Absent by Rex Ogle. Illustrated by L-J Baptiste. 304 p. Norton Young Readers, September 1, 2026. 9781324124894. (Review of arc courtesy of author giveaway.)

Three boys are given three weeks detention for skipping class, and they couldn't be more different. Manny lives with grandparents since his father was incarcerated and doesn't see the point of attending class when his teachers don't care. Calvin is given a lot of responsibility at home, which includes getting his unruly brothers to school before getting to his, a prospect made worse when his bike is stolen. To make matters even worse, art, his favorite class is first period. Liam is a straight A student, but his encounters with his bully are escalating, and he prefers to spend his school days studying in the library storage closet.

When the three eye each other on the first afternoon of detention, they assume that they have nothing in common, so Manny writes his rap lyrics, Calvin draws and Liam studies under the jaundiced eye of Coach, who is strict and no-nonsense, and whom the boys soon learn, farts. A lot. 

Hybrid novels are not new, but this one grabbed me from the start. It has heart, authenticity and humor. The three voices and format weave together seamlessly and readers will grow to care about each boy. 

I am a huge fan of the author's Free Lunch, Punching Bag,  and Abuela Don't Forget Me. They were quite popular with my students. So were his graphic novels, which I, unfortunately  never got around to reading. I loved Absent, and am slightly sorry that I'm retired and won't be at school to press this gem into students' hands. I left the library in good hands though, and  my replacement also won an arc because giveaway entrants were required to tag someone. We are two lucky school librarians. 

Absent will have broad appeal to a variety of readers. Make sure to put it on your shelf.

Waiting on Wednesday: Absent by Rex Ogle

Image: WW Norton

Absent by Rex Ogle. Illustrated by L-J Baptiste. 304 p. Norton Young Readers, September 1, 2026. 9781324124894.

Rex Ogle posted a giveaway for this on Monday and I signed up for a chance. I just love his books and this one sounds great.

Publisher synopsis: 

From award-winning author Rex Ogle, a mixed-format middle grade novel about three boys who skip school, told in verse, prose, and comics.

With a dad in jail and a lack of teachers interested in helping him learn, Manny doesn’t see the point in anything besides skateboarding and writing lyrics. Calvin has so many responsibilities to his father and little brothers that when his bike is stolen, he can’t make it to school on time. And while Liam is studious and wants to become a doctor, he is tormented by bullies and hides out in an unused janitor’s closet instead of going to class. When the boys are thrown together in detention, they realize that they might still have a lot to learn—not just from their teachers, but from each other.

Absent tells the boys’ stories in three distinct voices: Manny’s in verse, Calvin’s as a comic, and Liam’s as a prose journal. Printz Award Honoree and YALSA Nonfiction Award winner Rex Ogle explores school absenteeism in a compelling, entertaining, and utterly distinct novel.

Happy reading!

Waiting on Wednesday: When We Ride by Rex Ogle

Image: Norton

When We Ride by Rex Ogle. 334 p. Norton Young Readers, March 25, 2025. 

Waiting on Wednesday features. When We Ride by Rex Ogle. I've been a huge fan ever since I read his debut, Free Lunch. HIs latest releases on March 25. Here's the publisher synopsis:

Rex Ogle explores bonds of loyalty and friendship and how they’re tested by drugs and violence in this propulsive novel-in-verse.

Diego Benevides works hard. His single mother encourages him to stay focused on school, on getting into college, on getting out of their crumbling neighborhood. That’s why she gave him her car.

Diego’s best friend, Lawson, needs a ride—because Lawson is dealing. As long as Diego’s not carrying, not selling, it’s cool. It’s just weed.

But when Lawson starts carrying powder and pills and worse, their friendship is tested and their lives are threatened. As the lines between dealer and driver blur, everything Diego has worked for is jeopardized, and he faces a deadly reckoning with the choices he and his best friend have made.

Award-winning memoirist and poet Rex Ogle’s searing first novel-in-verse is an unforgettable story of the power and price of loyalty.

Middle Grade Monday: White House Clubhouse by Sean O'Brien

Image: W.W. Norton

White House Clubhouse by Sean O'Brien. 240 p. Norton Young Readers/ W.W. Norton & Company. October 3, 2023. 9781324152920. (Review of arc courtesy of publicist.)

Happy Labor Day Monday! I hope you are enjoying the long holiday weekend. We teachers were back on Friday and will be in school tomorrow preparing to welcome students back on Wednesday. The summer sure did fly by!

Middle Grade Monday features Whilte House Clubhouse by Sean O'Brien. It's hard enough to move house and start a new school, but when your mom has been elected president and your new house is the White House, it's even harder. Fifth grader Marissa feels self-conscious about her Secret Service guard and third grader Clara takes every opportunity to give her's a run for the money, including running to climb a tree on the grounds of the White House, where she discovers an old carving. Meanwhile, Marissa kicks a soccer ball in frustration, finds a secret passageway and gets stuck. 

Clara, ever the adventurer, pushes Marissa down the passageway and joins her. They find a secret room filled with antique toys and clothing and a document inviting them to join the White House Clubhouse. Once they sign the document, the lights go out and they find themselves transported back to 1903, when Teddy Roosevelt was president and his five children and their many pets ran roughshod over the place. President Roosevelt is about to embark on a train journey across the United States and two of his children want to come along, so they stow away along with Clara and Marissa. What ensues is a mad-cap adventure filled with hijinks, hilarity and history. It seems some greedy industrialists are intent on chopping down the redwood forests in the name of progress and the children will do everything in their power to save the redwood.

Readers who love a good adventure with cheeky characters and a bit of history will love this book. The art, which was not final is a nice addition. Young readers may not be aware that Theodore Roosevelt instituted the National Parks system one hundred and twenty years ago this year. They should find relevant parallels to present-day conservation efforts and perhaps be inspired to "dare greatly." 

About the author:

Sean O’Brien served as director of speechwriting to Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden, special assistant to President Barack Obama, and senior advisor to the Secretary of the Navy. He performed comedy with Chicago’s Second City and Annoyance theaters as well as DC’s Capital Fringe Festival while serving as a chief of staff in the US House of Representatives. He earned a BA with Honors in American Culture from Northwestern University and an MS in National Security and Strategic Studies from the US Naval War College. Sean teaches at Georgetown University in Washington DC, where he lives with his family. 

White House Clubhouse is Mr. O'Brien's debut. Many thanks to MBeatie Communications for the opportunity to review this arc. I can't wait to share it with my students. 

Please visit him online at seanobrienbooks.com

Instagram: @seanobrienbooks

Facebook: @seanobrienbooks

Twitter: @SeanOBrienBooks

Fact Friday: Victory, Stand: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith and Derick Barnes. Illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile

Image: Norton Young Readers

Victory, Stand: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith and Derick Barnes. Illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile. 208 p. Norton Young Readers, September, 2022. 9781324052159. (Review of finished, purchased copy.)

Happy Friday! Fact Friday features Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith and Derick Barnes and illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile. This graphic novel memoir opens dramatically, depicting Mr. Smith preparing to run the 200 meter race in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Then, flashes back to the author's youth. He was the seventh of twelve children and his parents were sharecroppers in Acworth, Texas. The family were poor, but hard-working and all the children worked the farm from an early age. His parents valued education as well and young Tommie was a good student. He was also a natural athlete, excelling in multiple sports.

He won an athletic scholarship to college to play football, basketball and to run track. But obtaining an education was the goal. Though he encountered racism his entire life, he was one of the few Black students on campus and student athletes who were Black encountered racism from spectators as well as opposing teams. Additionally, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum and some Black student athletes thought they should also be making a stand.

This dynamic memoir with its gorgeous black and white illustrations and effect paneling, will keep readers riveted. The author provides insight into his own motivations as well as important historical context. Both he and his teammate, John Carlos were stripped of their Olympic medals when they protested during the playing of the National Anthem.

Victory. Stand! was a National Book Award Finalist, a finalist for the 2023 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award, and a Horn Book Fanfare. It made many year-end Best Books lists as well. Highly recommended for your graphic novel fans as well as sports history buffs and budding activists. 

Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith and Derrick Barnes. Illustrated by Dawn Anybwile

Image: Norton Young Readers

Waiting on Wednesday features a graphic novel memoir called Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith and Derrick Barnes. Illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile. Mr. Anyabwile is fast becoming one of my favorite graphic novel artists. He illustrated Kwame Alexander's The Crossover. Mr. Barnes won a Newbery Honor for his debut picture book, Crown: Ode to a Fresh Cut. He collaborated with Mr. Smith on this memoir. It will be published on September 27 (my birthday!). 

Here's the publisher synopsis: A groundbreaking and timely graphic memoir from one of the most iconic figures in American sports—and a tribute to his fight for civil rights.

On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony at the Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith, the gold medal winner in the 200-meter sprint, and John Carlos, the bronze medal winner, stood on the podium in black socks and raised their black-gloved fists to protest racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans. Both men were forced to leave the Olympics, received death threats, and faced ostracism and continuing economic hardships.

In his first-ever memoir for young readers, Tommie Smith looks back on his childhood growing up in rural Texas through to his stellar athletic career, culminating in his historic victory and Olympic podium protest. Cowritten with Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Honor recipient Derrick Barnes and illustrated with bold and muscular artwork from Emmy Award–winning illustrator Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand! paints a stirring portrait of an iconic moment in Olympic history that still resonates today.

I can't wait to add this to my school library's collection. And, isn't that cover amazing? Happy reading!

Fact Friday and Arc Review: Accused: My Story of Injustice by Adama Bah

Image: Norton Young Readers

Accused: My Story of Injustice by Adama Bah, . 112 p. I, Witness series #1. Norton Young Readers, August 3, 2021. 9781324016632. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

Happy penultimate Friday of the 2020 - 2021 school year! Fact Friday features Accused: My Story of Injustice by Adama Bah. This memoir is the first book of a new nonfiction series called I, Witness, aimed at a middle school audience. 

Ms. Bah was sixteen-year-old in 2005, when the Department of Homeland Security raided her apartment in Harlem. She and her father were handcuffed and arrested. They were separated and she was interrogated and eventually held for months, accused of terrorism. Eventually, she learned that an acquaintance named her as a potential suicide bomber, only to later find out that that young lady was told that Ms. Bah named her. When she was released, with a curfew and an ankle monitor, she discovered that her father had been deported and her family was starving, so she quit high school and worked five jobs to support them, but continued to suffer from the trauma as well as the fallout of being accused of terrorism. She learned she was on a "No Fly" list as she tried to board a plane with the family she was working for.

This memoir is short and simply told but really packs a punch as readers learn about the reality of Islamophobia in painful detail.

Accused will publish on August 3 along with book 2 of the series, Hurricane: My Story of Resilience by Salvadore Gomez-Colon.

Fact Friday and Arc Review: Women Win the Vote! 19 for the 19th Amendment by Nancy B. Kennedy

Image: W.W. Norton & Company

Women Win the Vote! 19 for the 19th Amendment by Nancy B. Kennedy. 120 p. Norton Young Readers/ W.W. Norton & Company. 9781324004141. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

Fact Friday features Women Win the Vote! 19 for the 19th Amendment by Nancy B. Kennedy. This is a timely book to read as we approach the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment on August 20th. This collective biography devotes four pages each to nineteen well- and lesser-known figures in women's history plus eleven thumbnail bios of additional suffragists that includes three men. One of those four pages is devoted to illustration (unfinished in my arc) that features a quote from the subject, an archival photo and drawn art. 

Readers learn in the Epilogue that though women achieved the right to vote, many were still denied access to polling places along with African Americans, Native Americans and Asian with illegal fees, literacy tests or other "requirements." The back matter includes a Timeline, where readers learn that eight states took their sweet time to formally ratify the Nineteenth Amendment, with Mississippi being the latest at 1984! The plentiful back matter also includes two pages of black and white photos featuring banners; two pages of places to visit; seven pages of notes; four and a half pages of sources and an index. 

This attractively designed collective biography is a nice introduction to a complicated story. Just like our founding fathers, the white leaders of the movement had biases, a fact that the author discusses. Pair this with Evette Dionne's Lifting as We Climb: Black Women's Battle for the Ballot Box for a well-rounded introduction to the subject. Women Win the Vote! 19 for the 19th Amendment is an important addition to any library in these times when voter suppression is alive and well.