Fact Friday: Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life by Jerry Pinkney

Image: LBYR

Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life by Jerry Pinkney. 160 p. LBYR/ Hachette Book Group, January, 2023. 9780316383851. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Mr. Pinkney finally won the Caldecott Medal for his wordless depiction of Aesop's fable, The Lion and Mouse after winning the Honor medal five times. He had been working on his memoir for ten years before his death in 2021. It is told in three parts and highlights his Black neighborhood in and around East Earlham Street in Philadelphia, his large and close-knit family and his struggles in school as a dyslexic. He always carried materials to draw with and did so whenever he could. This intimate memoir is filled with brown and white sketches of Mr. Pinkney, his family and his neighborhood. Budding artists and fans of his work will love this.

#tbt: King of the Mild Frontier: an Ill-Advised Autobiography by Chris Crutcher

Image: HarperCollins Publishers

King of the Mild Frontier: an Ill-Advised Autobiography by Chris Crutcher. 272 p. Greenwillow Books/ HarperCollins, 2003. 9780060502515. (Own)

Happy Thursday! #tbt features an autobiography written by one of my favorite YA authors, Chris Crutcher. He grew up in a small, rural community called Cascade in Idaho. He had an older brother who was a great student, but young Chris was not. He didn't even like to read, so he stole his brother's book reports and turned them in as his own. He got away with this until a book his brother hadn't been assigned was the class read. This book, To Kill a Mockingbird, turned him into a reader. His high school was so small that nearly every boy was recruited for the football team, whether or not they could or wanted to play.

The essays are often laugh-out-loud funny and fans of the author's books might recognize seeds of some of his characters.  

Fact Friday: The Boy Who Failed Dodgeball by Jordan Sonnenblick

Image: Scholastic Inc.

The Boy Who Failed Dodgeball by Jordan Sonnenblick. 246 p. Scholastic Press/ Scholastic Inc., June, 2022. 9781338749601. (Review of finished copy borrowed from public library.)

Fact Friday features The Boy Who Failed Dodgeball by Jordan Sonnenblick. Young Jordan Sonnenblick is entering middle school on Staten Island. He's attending I.S. 61, which is an arts magnet school, and he's pumped to be placed in morning band class. It's the class that performs and those students get to wear the red blazers. He's not pumped about acing all the math tests for a city-wide math competition and he refuses to join math club. Oh! And he gets off on the wrong foot with his L.A. teacher and is sent to the vice-principal's office on the first day of school!

Middle grade readers are treated to the highs and lows of Jordan's sixth grade year. Even though it takes place in the 1980s and modern tweens might not know who Evel Knievel was, they will relate to the anxiety of making new friends (and enemies), keeping old friends, having crushes and going on dates.

Amusing spot art is sprinkled throughout this episodic memoir, which is often laugh-out-loud funny. Fans of the author's books will enjoy reading this and super-fans may recognize a name or two. It sure was fun revisiting young Jordan. I hope there will be more from the boy who failed.

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.

Fact Friday: Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx by Sonia Manzano

Image: Scholastic Inc.

Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx by Sonia Manzano. 272 p. Scholastic Press/ Scholastic Inc., 2015. 9780545621847. (Own)

Happy Friday! The temperature plummeted last night to the high 40s. Brr!

Fact Friday features Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx by Sonia Manzano. After making a splash with her middle grade debut in 2013, Ms. Manzano, aka Maria from Sesame Street, wrote a memoir of her life growing up in the South Bronx, which published in 2015 for young adults. 

She grew up with immigrant parents who worked hard, but the family lived in poverty and her father was an abusive alcoholic. Her resilience paid off when she was accepted to the High School of Performing Arts and later won admission and scholarships to Carnegie-Mellon University.

This vivid memoir brims with intensity, energy and a strong sense of self and place.

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: The Eagle Huntress: The True Story of the Girl Who Soared Beyond Expectation by Aisholpan Nurgaiv

Image: LBYR

The Eagle Huntress: The True Story of the Girl Who Soared Beyond Expectation by Aisholpan Nurgaiv with Liz Welch. 208 p. Little Brown Books for Young Readers, May, 2020. 9780316522619. (Review of finished copy borrowed from public library.)

Fact Friday features The Eagle Huntress: The True Story of the Girl Who Soared Beyond Expectation by Aisholpan Nurgaiv with Liz Welch. 

In 2014, Aisholpan Nurgaiv became the first girl to win a competition of eagle hunters in Mongolia. Eagle hunting is traditionally done by men, but Aisholpan's father thought she was a natural and encouraged her interest. Her quest to compete was the subject of a documentary, released in 2016, also called The Eagle Huntress. 

Her memoir is conversational. She speaks of stories of her birth and the dream her grandmother had just prior to it. She talks of how her father trained her to handle his eagle and how she set about trapping and capturing her own eaglet. She also shares how it felt to travel to the US for the premier of the award-winning documentary featuring her. Plentiful photographs give readers a visual sense of the Steppe where her nomadic family have lived for generations. 

The Eagle Huntress is engaging and accessible to young readers - a great addition to your library's memoir collection.

Middle Grade Monday and Arc Review: The Boy Who Failed Show & Tell by Jordan Sonnenblick

Image: Scholastic Inc. 

The Boy Who Failed Show & Tell by Jordan Sonnenblick. 224 p. Scholastic Press/ Scholastic Inc., February 2, 2021. 9781338647235. (Review of e-arc courtesy of publisher.)

Middle Grade Monday wishes a happy book birthday tomorrow to Jordan Sonnenblick and his newest book, The Boy Who Failed Show & Tell. Poor fourth grade Jordan. He's an earnest, anxious, asthmatic kid who is worried about fourth grade. His tendency towards hyperactivity is exacerbated by his asthma medication. 

His teacher is Mrs. Fisher, who sets standards impossibly high standards. Not only does she think fourth graders should sit still and be mature at all times, she also thinks comic books are not real books and forbids Jordan to read them. On top of that, Brit Stone, the resident mean girl is bullying him and perfect William Feranik is always showing Jordan up. 

Jordan is convinced Mrs. Fisher hates him. Now, over the years I have heard many a student lament, "Mr. or Mrs. So and So hates me!" and I can be reasonably certain that Mr. or Mrs. So and So does not. Mrs. Fisher, however, is a different story. Her actions sure are appalling! She really made me cringe!

Fans of the author's work (Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie and After Ever After, among others) know that he leavens saddness with humor. Man, did he have it rough in fourth grade! What a nightmare! Did his sense of humor help him endure the awful teacher or did this awful teacher help to hone his sense of humor? I certainly think this experience informed his teaching, and quite possibly, his writing. I loved this. It's totally relatable and appealing. Put this on your lists and shelves. 

Fact Friday: When They Call You a Terrorist: a story of Black Lives Matter and the power to change the world by Patrice Khan-Cullors

Image: Macmillan

When They Call You a Terrorist: a story of Black Lives Matter and the power to change the world by Patrice Khan-Cullors and asha bandele [sic]. Adapted by Benee Knauer, with a forward by Angela Davis. Unabridged e-audiobook, ~7 hours. Read by the author. Macmillan Young Listeners/ Macmillan Audio, September, 2020. 9781250772077. (Review of e-audiobook borrowed from public library.)

Fact Friday features When They Call You a Terrorist: a story of Black Lives Matter and the power to change the world by Patrice Khan-Cullors. This emotionally gripping memoir is adapted from Ms. Khan-Cullors' best selling, award-winning memoir originally published for an adult audience in 2018. This book is absolutely required reading for anyone who is interested in social justice, equity and equality. 

Ms. Khan-Cullors' was a social justice advocate who, with several like-minded friends posted a hashtag that became a movement that, incredibly, branded her a terrorist. Through journal entry excerpts and photos, readers learn about circumstances and events that shaped Ms. Khan-Cullors' life. The reading isn't always easy, her life was hard, her family was economically insecure, her brother was troubled; but her resilience is impressive and her attitude is hopeful.

By choosing to read this one with my ears, ably narrated by the author, I missed out on the viewing the photos, but will remedy that when I purchase the book for my school library. This book is a first-purchase for any library seeking to provide anti-racist, social justice informational literature for patrons.

Fact Friday and E-Arc Review: The Cat I Never Named: a true story of love, war and survival by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess.

Image: Bloomsbury

The Cat I Never Named: a true story of love, war and survival by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess. 352 p. BloomsburyYA/ Bloomsbury, September 8, 2020. 9781547604555. (Review of e-arc courtesy of publisher.)

Fact Friday features an astounding memoir, The Cat I Never Named: a true story of love, war and survival by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess. The author was sixteen-years-old when war broke out in Bosnia in 1992. She lived in the multicultural city of Bihac but tension between the various ethnic groups was always high. She and her family were non-practicing Muslims and faced racial abuse every day. One night, all the Serbs in the city left and the Muslims that remained learned the city was surrounded by the Serbian Army. The author was a top student at a math and science high school with dreams of attending university. Her education was derailed and survival became her goal. 

The immediacy of Dr. Sabic-El-Rayess' writing make this memoir a gripping read. I read this arc electronically (something I detest doing.) and could not tear my eyes away. I needed to read through tears more than once and often needed to remind myself to breathe. Even though this war occurred nearly thirty years ago, the root cause - ethnic hatred - is still the cause of unrest and conflict globally. The vivid descriptions of war, the constant threat of rape and abduction and the struggle for survival make this title more suitable to a YA audience. 

The Cat I Never Named will publish on September 8 and is not to be missed.

Fact Friday: The Pocket Change Collective from Penguin Workshop

Images: Penguin Random House

Fact Friday features a new series from Penguin Workshop called Pocket Change Collective. Since the four I was given to review are all around 64 -65 pages, I will talk about them together. These are mini-memoirs/essays written by young, passionate activists covering a wide variety of timely topics.

In Imaginary Borders, Xiuhtezcatl (pronounced shoe-tex-caht) Martinez talks about his climate change activism. He started when he was six-years-old and he's not yet twenty! 

In This is What I Know about Art, Kimberly Drew relates her journey from student at Smith College where, she was not only one of few Black people on campus but one of few art history majors. She went on to curate and write about making art accessible for ALL people, not just rich, white people. 

In Beyond the Gender Binary, gender non-conforming performance artist, Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the concept of the gender binary as being a Western construct that is not only narrow and limiting but needlessly punitive to those who do not conform. 

In The New Queer Conscience, community organizer and LGBTQ+ activist Adam Eli argues for kindness and compassion not only from those outside the LGBTQ+ community but also those within it. 

I found each of these tiny books absolutely fascinating and often found myself wanting more, wishing the book were longer. But that defeats the purpose of the collection. I did Google each activist and spent some time online reading more and watching videos. And that's the point. Read with an open, curious mind and set out for more information.

Two additional titles are releasing this fall: Concrete Kids by Amira León and Taking on the Plastics Crisis by Hannah Testa. All the books are illustrated Ashley Lukashevsky. 

Leading by example, these young activists and their messages are sure to resonate with teen readers. What a terrific way to inspire. 

#tbt: Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Image: Scholastic

Smile by Raina Telgemeier. 224 p. Graphix/ Scholastic Inc. February, 2010. 9780545132053. (Own)

#tbt features Smile by Raina Telgemeier. Smile was published in 2010 and is Ms. Telgemeier's graphic novel memoir. The story starts in her sixth grade year, when she fell and smashed her mouth, requiring years of dental reconstruction that included braces and embarrassing headgear. Smile is enormously popular at TMS, as are all her books. It won the Eisner Award, which is given to graphic novels, and a Boston Globe/ Horn Book Honor for nonfiction. 

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. 

Fact Friday: Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace by Ashley Bryan

Image: Simon & Schuster

Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace by Ashley Bryan. Illustrated by Ashley Bryan. 112 p. Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/ Simon & Schuster, October 15, 2019. 9781534404908.

Fact Friday features Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace by Ashley Bryan. Beloved award-winning author/ illustrator Ashley Bryan was an art student attending Cooper Union when the United States joined the fighting in World War II. He faced discrimination while applying to art school but came face-to-face with segregation as soon as he hit boot camp. White recruits and black recruits trained and lived separately. Black recruits were also shunted into service positions and dangerous assignments. Bryan coped by drawing on whatever he could get his hands on. When the packet of drawings got too large, he would mail them home. This handsomely designed memoir uses his letters and his drawings as primary source illustrations to accompany Bryan's eloquent narrative. 

Infinite Hope belongs in every library collection and I hope it gets some nice shiny medals on Monday. It's powerful, gorgeous and important. 

Fact Friday and Audio Review: Just Mercy by Bryan Stephenson

Image: Penguin Random House

Just Mercy: a true story of the fight for justice (Adapted for Young Adults) by Bryan Stephenson. Unabridged e-audiobook. ~ 7 hours. Read by the author. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, September, 2018. 9780525635932.

Fact Friday features Just Mercy: a true story of the fight for justice by Bryan Stephenson. Stephenson adapted his best-selling memoir for a young adult audience. He was a Harvard Law student who signed on for an internship helping to defend a capital punishment case in Georgia. It was then that he realized that the criminal justice system in the United States was not a fair one - that people of color, the poor, uneducated and the most vulnerable members of society received unjust prison sentences and were often wrongly accused. Upon graduation from Harvard, Stephenson founded The Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama rather than pursue a lucrative law practice. 

He highlights several notable cases in detail and the reading is compelling, even heartbreaking. This book cogently explains the concept of mass incarceration to a young reader interested in the criminal justice system. 

I read this with my ears, which was a good thing since I was frequently moved to tears by the narrative. Stephenson narrates in a measured, thoughtful performance. There's no flash here. He's a humble man with a mission to right as many wrongs as he can. 

I was reminded of another book I read with my ears awhile back, The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater. In this book, the criminal received a harsh sentence. He did commit an unspeakable act; but his prosecution was strident despite the fact that the victim's family asked for just mercy.

The average middle school student might not gravitate toward a book such as Just Mercy, but I am going to hand-sell it like crazy. It's important. It's eye-opening. We need more people like Bryan Stephenson in the world. 

Fact Friday: I Have the Right To: a high school survivor's story of sexual assault, justice and hope by Chessy Prout with Jenn Abelson

Image: Simon & Schuster

I Have the Right To: a high school survivor's story of sexual assault, justice and hope by Chessy Prout with Jenn Abelson. Unabridged e-audiobook. ~11 hours. Read by the author. Simon & Schuster Audio, March, 2018.  9781508246046. (Review of e-audiobook borrowed from public library. Own hc.)

Fact Friday features a tough but important read for mature teens. I Have the Right to is Chessy Prout's autobiography. She recounts her happy childhood living in Japan with her loving parents and her two sisters - one older and one younger. She was thrilled to be accepted to St. Paul's School in New Hampshire. It was the boarding school her father attended when he was young. Her sister would be a senior when she arrived for her freshman year. The year went fairly well- Chessy made the volleyball team, she was managing her anxiety, she was fitting in and she was dealing with the sometimes unwanted attention of the boys on campus. There was a not-so-secret competition among the upperclassmen. In the final week of her freshman year, Chessy was assaulted by a popular senior. With the support of her family, she decided to press charges only to have school officials attempt to shame her into silence. Chessy's memoir is searing and honest. She recounts her attack in detail. She faced her attacker in court. She also endured backlash and sometimes feared for her life. 

Mature teen readers, both boys and girls, who have read Speak or SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson will want to read this and contemplate consent and boundaries. It's an uncomfortable but important conversation to have both at home and at school.

Chessy Prout narrates her work. It must have been painful to constantly revisit her attack, not only through testimony but also through the writing process. And then, to read it aloud! Her emotion is authentic. So is her resolve. She is a brave young woman.

Fact Friday: Free Lunch by Rex Ogle

Image: Norton Young Readers

Free Lunch by Rex Ogle. 208 p. Norton Young Readers/ W.W. Norton & Company, September 10, 2019. 9781324003601. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

Happy book birthday next week to Free Lunch!

Fact Friday features Free Lunch by Rex Ogle. This debut is Ogle's memoir of his sixth grade year. Eleven-year-old Rex likes school. It gets him away from his mom and her boyfriend who have explosive fights and tend to discipline Rex with their fists. He is especially looking forward to starting sixth grade. All that changes when his mother announces that Rex is now on the "free lunch" program. He can take the stares his Good Will clothing elicits, but the daily humiliation of announcing to the cafeteria cashier, who is hard of hearing, that he's getting a free lunch infuriates him. Then, his friends drift away because Rex's mom won't sign the permission slip allowing him to try out for football. They all make the team, leaving him the odd guy out. On top of all that, his language arts teacher seems to hate him. He doesn't want to act out but he's sick of being poor and he's afraid of the instability at home. 

Back matter consists of an author's note, an author Q & A, a discussion guide as well as a writing guide(!) and resources for families in crisis. 

Rex's voice is instantly relatable. His home life is horrific and yet, there are flashes of normalcy and even love. How Rex can even learn while dealing with the chaos is testament to his strength.  Moments of humor and Rex's obvious love for his baby brother ease the tension. This powerful memoir depicts a family in crisis, one resilient child and is unforgetable. Free Lunch belongs in every school, classroom and public library. 

Teen Tuesday and Arc Review: Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes

Image: Boyds Mills Press 

Ordinary Hazards: a memoir by Nikki Grimes. 325 p. Boyds Mills Press October 8, 2019. 9781629798813. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

Teen Tuesday features Ordinary Hazards: a memoir by Nikki Grimes. Resilience is a trait that gets bandied about a lot lately, especially when talking about children. Is it something we are born with or can it be cultivated? Grimes discovered the power of words, of reading them and writing them, to help her navigate the uncertainty of her childhood. She was born in Harlem to a mother who battled mental illness and alcohol and a mostly absent, though revered father. Her older sister, Carol, comforted and protected her as best she could. But there was only so much an older sister could do. There were rats, fights, cousins hooked on heroin, abusive caregivers and the gradual mental deterioration of their mother until she and her sister were removed from her home and placed in foster care. They were kept together for two years, but eventually, the girls were placed in separate homes. 

Grimes is a poet and author of such verse novels as Garvey's Choice, Words with Wings and Planet Middle School and hybrid verse/ prose novels such as Bronx Masquerade and its companion, One Last Word. She's also author of the picture book biography, Barack Obama: son of promise, child of hope. The vivid imagery of her poems takes the reader back to the early 1950s, to dresser drawer beds, to nodding heads, to locked closets, to a train to Ossining and back again. 

She found a good place with the Buchanan family though she missed her sister terribly. She found consolation in writing in notebooks. She wrote poems and bits of observations. After a few years, her mother got her life together and remarried. Nikki had to say goodbye to the Buchanans to return to her mother in Brooklyn and the hope of a new start that nine-year-old Nikki could not trust. 

This memoir in verse was unputdownable. Vivid, raw, compelling, heartbreaking and honest, I often had to remind myself to breathe. She turned out okay, I reminded myself. Improbably, she had the strength to learn and grow despite the traumas. How, when so many in similar situations fall victim? Thank goodness for Nikki Grimes' resiliency. I wish it for each person who struggles. 

Ordinary Hazards is extraordinary and not to be missed if you are a fan of the author, a fan of memoirs in verse or just a thoughtful reader with a heart. 

Fact Friday: It's Trevor Noah: born a crime: stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Image: Delacorte Press

It's Trevor Noah: born a crime: stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (Adapted for Young Readers). 295 p. Delacorte Press/ Random House Children's Books, April, 2019. 9780525582168. (Review of finished copy borrowed from public library.)

Fact Friday features It's Trevor Noah: born a crime: stories from a South African childhood by Trevor Noah. The Daily Show comedian was born in South Africa under apartheid where races were strictly segregated and consequences for crossing racial lines were brutal. Yet, Noah's black mother met and fell in love with a white man and they had Trevor, who grew up wondering where he fit in. In this memoir, he candidly discusses the ups and downs of his unique childhood and the events that would shape the entertainer he became. 

Fact Friday: Bad Boy: a memoir by Walter Dean Myers

Bad Boy: a memoir by Walter Dean Myers. 224 p. Amistad/ HarperCollins Publishers, 2001. 9780060295236. (Own)

Walter Dean Myers did not have an easy start in life. His mother died shortly after he was born. When his father remarried, his stepmother tried her best but Walter had "problems" and was hard to handle. He was sent north to live with a couple named Dean. He was bright but he also had a speech impediment that caused people to assume that he was less intelligent. He also had a temper and wasn't afraid to fight back when teased. He disliked school and would often cut in order to read all day. How did Walter grow up to be a legend in children's literature? In short chapters, Myers honestly and vividly depicts life growing up in his beloved Harlem. If you are a fan of Myers' work, this is a must read. If you enjoy memoirs, this is a must read. If you are human, this is a must read.