Spoilers, Sweetie!

Jane Addams Peace Association Winners 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Jess) — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 16:21:00 +0000

Younger Child Winner:

Steamboat School by Deborah Hopkinson

Spoiler: “I always thought being brave was for grown-up heroes doing big, daring deeds. But Mama says that sometimes courage is just an ordinary boy like me doing a small thing, as small as picking up a pencil." (page 2) James and his sister lived in the 1840s and attended a school lit only by candle light in the basement of a church. Unfortunately, it was shut down in 1847 when Missouri passed a new law forbidding African American education. Reverend John didn’t let that stop him. He built a riverboat to create a floating school and his students rowed to it early in the morning. Since the Mississippi River is considered not part of any state, the law couldn’t touch them there.
Sticky Topics: Pre-Civil Rights period-typical racism
Additional Comments from Contributor: This book is a fictional story inspired by the life of Reverend John Berry Meachum who really did start a school in the basement of a church and then moved it to the steamboat. The main character was named James in honor of James Milton Turner, who was a consul to Liberia and a prominent St. Louis educator. It is possible James did attend this school, but there are no records of it.

Contributor: Jess Bacon, 5 Minute Librarian Blogger, Twitter @5minlib

Older Child Winner:

Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story by Caren B. Stelson

Spoiler: Sachiko was ten years old when the second atomic bomb hit her city, Nagasaki. She was playing house with some friends when the explosion tossed her far into the air and then piled debris over her. Thankfully, her uncle found her and dragged her out. He wasn’t in time to save her friends. Her uncle later found her younger sister, who seemed unhurt and staring out into space. Her older brothers met up with the family. One was in the house when it came crashing down and had burns all over his body. The other was fishing and saw his buddy killed by flying debris. The youngest brother, only 2 years old, died when a stick pierced his head.
The family buried the dead and then found a rescue train to Shimbara. It took four days, with no food or water, but the family made it and went to the makeshift hospital. There wasn’t anything the doctors there could do. They didn’t have the supplies and no one knew of radiation poisoning. Both of Sachiko’s brothers ended up dying here. Her uncle later died, too.
The rest of the family spent 8 months recovering from radiation poisoning, surviving without medication and little food. They returned to Nagasaki and then moved 10 miles further to Koyagi to restart their life. The father found a job in the shipyard and Sachiko was finally able to start school. She missed all of first grade, but refused to begin any lower than 2nd grade. Through determination, she passed onto 3rd grade. School wasn’t easy though. She was struggling with the effects of radiation, which the US refused to publicize. Her classmates teased and bullied her, from the way she looked to her lack of clothes.
Sachiko’s sister lived a few more years, but she developed leukemia and never had the energy to go to school. She loved to sing and the day her sister carried her to school to participate in the chorus was her last day to live. She died at 14 years old. Sachiko’s father was later diagnosed with liver cancer and died soon afterwards. Sachiko got thyroid cancer, but they were able to remove it in time and she survived. Her mother later died from leukemia.
Sachiko drew much strength from her father, who refused to let her dwell in the past. She also studied Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Helen Keller, admiring their strength, hope and accomplishments. Every year, she was called upon to share her story with school children, but she did not feel ready to do that until after her mother passed away. She realized that if she wanted to prevent what happened to her from happening again, she had to tell her story.

Sticky Topics: None noted.
Additional Comments from Contributor: A heartbreaking and horrifying story. Historical inserts are added throughout, matching the timeline of Sachiko’s life to the key political players and their actions which lead to the bombing. Much research went into this book and cited at the end. Many pictures are included and the story is divided into 22 easy to read chapters.

Contributor: Jess Bacon, 5 Minute Librarian Blogger, Twitter @5minlib

Theodore Seuss Geisel 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 20:45:00 +0000

Winner:

We Are Growing: A Mo Willems' Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! Book by Laurie Keller

Spoiler: Several blades of grass all claim to be the best at something. One is the tallest, the curliest, the crunchiest, the dandiest. All except Walt, who has no idea what he is. As the grasses debate what Walt is the best at, along comes a lawnmower and then no one is the best of anything anymore--except Walt who cleans up and calls himself the neatest.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Honor Books:

Good Night Owl by Greg Pizzoli

Spoiler: Every time Owl tries to get to sleep, he hears a noise. He tears apart his cupboards, floorboards, roof, and walls looking for the noise until he finds it, and he and the noise go to sleep together.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Oops, Pounce, Quick, Run! by Mike Twohy

Spoiler: A mouse and a dog play a merry game of ball through the alphabet.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Go Otto Go! by David Milgrim

Spoiler: Otto the robot builds a rocket ship, going up and down, here, there, and everywhere until his rocket ship breaks and he crash lands safe at home.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

The Infamous Ratsos by Kara LaReau

Spoiler: Louie and Ralphie Ratso have been having a hard time since their mother has been gone and they want to be tough like their father, Big Lou. They come up with a series of schemes to make themselves look tough, but each time they try a new tough trick, it backfires into a random act of kindness.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

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Walter Dean Myers Award 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 20:38:00 +0000

Winner:

March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

     Spoiler: Congressman John Lewis tells of his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement from the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church to the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi to the Selma-Montgomery March, framed around the first inauguration of President Barack Obama.
     Sticky Topics: Intense racial violence/slurs and profanity
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Readlikes: Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose, any Civil Rights narratives

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Honor Books:

Watched by Marina Budhos

     Spoiler: High school senior Naeem, a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh, can never seem to follow through on anything. When he gets into trouble with the law, he agrees to become an informant for the police, spying on his fellow Muslims for signs of radicalization in exchange for his parents not finding out about his lawbreaking. Naeem then lives a double life, a devout Muslim on the surface while passing information to the police. When one of his close friends turns radical and another close friend turns out to be an undercover FBI agent, Naeem chooses to give up his informant status and decides to tell all his friends and family about what he's doing.
     Sticky Topics: Xenophobia, Islamophobia, racial/ethnic profiling
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Readalike: In the Name of God by Paula Jolin

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

     Spoiler: Amanda is starting a new school, living with her dad after a horrific hate crime at her old school. She keeps secret the fact that she used to be Andrew, a girl born in a boy's body. She develops a circle of friends and gains a boyfriend, who refuses to know about her past but then gets angry with her when he finds out about it, but they end up back together anyway.
     Sticky Topics: Mentions of a past hate-crime, gay-bashing
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Excellent description of the little details that keep a trans person from "passing" as their preferred gender. Readalikes: Freak Show by James St. James, Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Curtis

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

     Spoiler: A day in the life of Natasha and Daniel. Their first and last day together. Natasha and her family are about to be deported to Jamaica. They have been staying in the U.S. for several years after their visas expired. Her father dreams of being an actor and after years of disappointments, he gets his moment in the sun. And his celebration gets him a DUI and a deportation order. Natasha's parents give up and accept their fate. Natasha wants to fight. Her life is in New York City. She doesn't even remember Jamaica. Her younger brother has never seen it. Natasha goes to the Immigration offices everyday trying to stop their deportation.
     Daniel's parents are Korean immigrants. Daniel and his older brother were born in America. His parents want him to succeed and have the American dream. They push their sons to attend the top colleges and become doctors. Daniel is a poet but he will do what his parents want. He is on his way to an important college interview.
     A series of circumstances lead Natasha and Daniel to meet. They feel as though they have always known and loved each other. Even Natasha who doesn't believe in fate (only data and facts) feels it. And even though she tries to deny it, Natasha is as drawn to Daniel as he is to her. They spend the day together doing normal date activities and getting to know each other in between meetings. Natasha with an immigration lawyer and Daniel with an alumni (who turn out to be the same person). But all the coincidences do not save Natasha and her family from their deportation. They spend their last hours together. Daniel goes to Natasha's apartment with her as she packs. He sees her off to the airport. And they constantly forget that they only met that morning. In the end, Natasha goes to Jamaica and they say goodbye. But there is an alternate ending where they meet again several years later and once again by chance.
     Sticky Topics: None mentioned.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: A beautiful tale of love, fate, and coincidence. You can't help but root for them to stay together.

Contributor: Amanda Brandt, Hudson Area Library, The Scribblin' Bibliophile

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Sibert Medal 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 20:26:00 +0000

Winner:

March: Book Three by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

     Spoiler: Congressman John Lewis tells of his involvement in the civil rights movement from the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church to the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi to the Selma-Montgomery March, framed around the first inauguration of President Barack Obama.
     Sticky Topics: Intense racial violence/slurs and profanity
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Readalikes: Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose, any civil rights narratives

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Honor Books:

Giant Squid by Candace Fleming

Spoiler: A nonfiction picture book that explores what is known (and unknown) about the giant squid, which reaches up to 40 feet in length.
Sticky Topics: None Noted

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story by Caren Stelson

     Spoiler: Sachiko Yusei was six years old and playing house with her friends in the park when US forces dropped an atomic bomb on her hometown of Nagasaki in 1945. Her three brothers, Aki, Toshi, and Ichiro, all perished within days of the blast, as well as her uncle. Sachiko and her parents relocated, then returned to Nagasaki, where Sachiko endured ruthless bullying for the scars she carried from the bomb. Her sister, Misa, became ill and died from radiation poisoning. For more than fifty years, Sachiko searched for a way to tell her story and move forward, inspired by the nonviolent protests of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi, and the persistence of Helen Keller. Eventually, after her mother and father both died from radiation-related cancers and Sachiko herself relearned to speak following surgery for radiation-related thyroid cancer, she began speaking to student groups and peace associations to tell her story of the Nagasaki bombing. Caren Stelson records Sachiko's story in lyrical prose with sidebars about atomic bombs, radiation poisoning, the US occupation of Japan, and more.
     Sticky Topics: Graphic descriptions of injuries and radiation poisoning, factual description of censorship and the faults of US military rule during occupation.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Readalike: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience During WWII by Albert Marrin

     Spoiler: Marrin explores the history of Japan and Japanese/American political relations to lay the groundwork for the mass hysteria and racial hatred that led to the mass incarceration of innocent Japanese-American citizens after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He then delves into the dichotomy of citizens being drafted out of American concentration camps to serve in the Pacific theater, specifically chosen for their ability to speak Japanese, and the vital role that these Nisei (first-generation birthright American citizens of Japanese ancestry) played in shortening the war, what it was like for internees to return home from the camps after the war, and the attempts to make amends. In the final chapter, he points out the parallels between the attitude toward Japanese-Americans in World War II and the mass hysteria and Islamophobia that rose following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Finally, most chillingly, he points out that while Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of innocent citizens, was repealed, the Supreme Court decision that held it constitutional was never overturned, paving the way for such atrocities to be repeated if we don't learn from our history.
     Sticky Topics: Descriptions of war violence with photos, racial/ethnic profiling and slurs.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Readalikes: Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese-Americans during World War II by Martin Sandler, The Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

We Will Not Be Silent: The White Rose Student Resistance Movement that Defied Adolf Hitler by Russell Freedman

     Spoiler: Tells the story of the Scholl siblings, Hans and Sophie, who led a leaflet campaign against Hitler's regime and were caught and executed for their crimes.
     Sticky Topics: Historically accurate crimes against Jews.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Readalikes: The Plot to Kill Hitler by Patricia McCormick, The Boy Who Dared and Hitler Youth by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler by Phillip M. Hoose, any other WWII Resistance stories

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

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YALSA Nonfiction Award Winner 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Tue, 30 May 2017 19:59:00 +0000

Winner:

March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

     Spoiler: Congressman John Lewis tells of his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement from the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church to the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi to the Selma-Montgomery March, framed around the first inauguration of President Barack Obama.
     Sticky Topics: Intense racial violence/slurs and profanity
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Readlikes: Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose, any Civil Rights narratives

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

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Morris Award Winner 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 14:40:00 +0000

Winner:

The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner

Spoiler: This is the story of three best friends entering their senior year of high school in a small Tennessee town. Dill, whose father's ministry of signs (handling snakes and drinking poison to demonstrate his faith) and conviction for child pornography left his family in crushing debt, sees no future other than his job at the grocery store. Travis' father abuses him, and he hides behind his love of fantasy books. Lydia, an up-and-coming fashion blogger, has her sights set on NYU. After Travis' father kicks him out, Travis is shot to death, providing the catalyst for Dill and Lydia to finally get together, and for Dill to leave home and attend college against his parents' wishes.
Sticky Topics: Depiction of physical and emotional abuse, homophobic slurs, a shooting death, a suicide attempt, bullying, severe depression, some racial/ethnic slurs
Additional Comments from Contributor: It's probably fair to say up front that this book is a cry fest that left me shredded on the floor. At a conference. In public.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

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The Man Booker Prize 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 14:15:00 +0000

Winner:

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Spoiler: The Sellout by Paul Beatty is superficially the story of an unnamed black man living in Dickens, California, a suburb of Los Angeles that has disappeared off the maps.
Raised and homeschooled by a single father as the subject of his endless psychological experiments, the father is ultimately wrongfully killed by the police. The land he lives on is zoned as agrarian and so he runs a city farm, raising amazing fruit and marijuana.
As a child, he spent time with the last remaining Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins, who lives in town. When Hominy has a breakdown, he decides that things were better when he was a boy and so declares himself the narrator's slave. In an effort to make Hominy happy, the narrator tries to get the town of Dickens put back on the map. He does this by subtly reintroducing racism. He puts White Seating Only signs on the buses, for example, and erects a fake construction site across from the school that seems to be advertising a new, whites-only school.
Eventually there is a re-integration attempt by a group of white students. In the ensuing face off, our narrator is shot. Thinking he is shot badly, he confesses all. After some haggling over what to charge him with, his case goes to trial and eventually all the way to the Supreme Court. The book ends with everyone waiting for a verdict.
Sticky Topics: All the characters say the N-word constantly plus other swears. Not a lot of violence, but some. Why are you reading this if you don't want to read about race.
Additional Comments from the Contributor: This book is beautifully written. Beatty has a way of playing with words, of describing scenes that weave the story around you. But he also uses such creative analogies and metaphors that sometimes it is hard to tell what is an evocative description and what is not. Did he really smoke pot in the Supreme Court? Did his lawyer really wear a ball-hugging jumpsuit to argue his case? Also, there is so much commentary going on that I feel like I missed half of what he was saying. That is, I get that there was a lot of critique and highlighting of issues of race, but some of those things were things one is not going to understand on the first go 'round unless they are coming from a similar place of understanding. Let me be blunter - there is a lot of commentary that a middle-class white person like me is going to miss. That's okay. It’s a great book and deserves a second (and third) read until it all sinks in.

Contributor: Emma

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Sibert Book Medal 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 19:01:00 +0000

Winner:

Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh

     Spoiler: This is a biography of Jose Guadalupe Posada, a Mexican artist and printmaker of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Posada illustrated broadsides and newspapers and became famous for his calaveras, or drawings of skeletons, and literary calaveras, or poems about dead people in honor of the Day of the Dead. During the Mexican Revolution, Posada drew calaveras and wrote poems that made fun of those in power. Posada did not become famous until after his death in 1913, but his work influenced such famous artists as Diego Rivera. Includes instructions for making lithographs and engraving in the style of Posada.
     Sticky Topics: None.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Excellent for art lovers plus great Mexican cultural information.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Honor Books:

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose

     Spoiler: "At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation's leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not." The teen's main mission was to resist German forces through acts of sabotage. Knud and the Churchill Club fought against the German Occupation by cutting communication lines, destroying shipments and vehicles, vandalizing German property and tagging their city with their own blue symbol of resistance. They became the pride of locals who despised the Germans and despised by those who supported the Germans. For a year they spread their message of resistance, demanding that Hitler and the Danish Government take notice. They were eventually caught and imprisoned.Their imprisonment is what eventually led the Danish Government to take a stand and fight to get them back. Most made it back home from the prison camps. Years after the liberation, Winston Churchill heard the story of the boys resistance movement and the Churchill club was honored by their namesake while he was in Copenhagen accepting an unrelated award. The book ends with a brief synopsis of each teen's life after the club's works of sabotage, their eventual capture, imprisonment, escapes from prison and their lives after the war.
     Sticky Topics: The book weaves Knud's memories with Hoose's narrative of the events. Though set in a volatile time, the violence is discussed but not detailed. Some adult content - the Danish Resistance, World War II, fighting, death, Nazi Occupation, sexual reference (field mattress)
     Additional Comments from Contributor: It can be a bit confusing to read because there are three separate but related "stories" going on at the same time. 1. The author's retelling of the events. 2. Knud Pedersen's accounts of the events, and 3. historical facts from that time related to the events being remembered by Knud or retold by the author. The facts are in a different font, and the 1st person account as told by Knud is marked so it is easy to tell which of the three you are reading, but it can be hard to follow when all three are not just within a single chapter but all on the same page. All of the photos and pictures of primary documents are a great addition to the story being told. It is amazing book. This could be a great addition to a history class studying the WWII or ELA classes reading The Diary of Anne Frank.

Contributor: Nikkii, Sarah Bain Chandler Public Library

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown

     Spoiler: Graphic novel depicting Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, including the extremely disturbing breakdown of communication between the various emergency relief agencies and the government. The book graphically depicts the horrors suffered by survivors, including the filth and near starvation encountered by thousands in the Superdome shelter. A particularly disturbing image shows survivors being turned away at gunpoint from a neighboring community. The book ends on a sober but hopeful note with the efforts to rebuild the city slowly but surely. It also hails the efforts of volunteers and others who successfully rescued thousands from the wreckage and destruction.
     Sticky Topics: Images of dead bodies floating in the filthy water or lying in the streets, also depictions of lost children, desperate parents, and pets separated from their owners at gunpoint. These images are all the more disturbing because they depict actual events. This book is appropriate for young adults and adults but not for children.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Amazing, disturbing, compelling, this is an extremely powerful graphic novel. Highly recommended. Although the topic is completely different, the artwork and the powerful social and political commentary are reminiscent of March by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin. Another powerful book about Hurricane Katrina, this one geared for middle-grade students, is Another Kind of Hurricane by Tamara Ellis Smith.

Contributor: Renee Wheeler, Leominster Public Library

Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

     Spoiler: After going to jail for marching several times in the Civil Rights movement, Lynda Blackmon celebrated her fifteenth birthday by participating in the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March, despite having been savagely beaten on the Bloody Sunday two weeks prior. She witnessed more police brutality on this march (no graphic descriptions were in the text) and acknowledge racial slurs were used, but she refused to repeat them. Despite this and the rain, marchers sang hymns like "We Shall Overcome" to keep morale up, and many of them took care of Lynda because she was one of the younger marchers if not the youngest.
     Sticky Topics: Pre-Civil Rights racial violence, description of beating, implied racial slurs (not actually used)
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Excellent kids-eye view of the Civil Rights movement -- doesn't shy away from sticky topics, but doesn't discuss them gratuitously either. Readalikes: March Trilogy by John Lewis, We've Got a Job by Cynthia Levinson.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Voice of Freedom Fannie Lou Hamer Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford

     Spoiler: A collection of poetry and artwork inspired by the life of Fannie Lou Hamer. She was the youngest of twenty children born to sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta (when she was born, the plantation owner paid the family $50 for the production of a new field hand). Despite her hard life, she was doted on by the family, and was told to take pride in her heritage, and that "if you respect yourself enough, other people will have to respect you" (which did not turn out to be true - her family saved enough to buy livestock, which were poisoned by white neighbors).
   Fannie got married but was unable to have children - an illegal surgery "to remove a growth" left her sterile without her approval. When she registered to vote (after passing a "literacy test" that unfairly tested obscure material, she was fired from her job, her house shot up with guns. She was arrested and beaten for trying to order food at a "whites only" lunch counter. She ran for Congress, and lost, but became vice-chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and was active in politics. She was friends with many other Civil Rights figures, such Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and helped pass the Voting Rights Act.
     She was a powerful speaker, and a wonderful singer, and was outspoken about Civil Rights.
     Sticky Topics: Racism, violence
     Additional Comments from Contributor: The artwork is collage and can be quite stirring - varying from cheerful images of children to men being beaten by police officers.

Contributor: Kat Ealy, 5 Minute Librarian

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Caldecott Medal 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 18:27:00 +0000

Winner:

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe

Spoiler: A picture book biography of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, born in New York to Haitian and Puerto Rican parents, who used art to work through hard situations like his recovery from an accident and his mother's mental illness, then went on to make his name as a graffiti and gallery artist.
Sticky Topics: References to mental illness

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Honor Books:

Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brosgol

Spoiler: An old woman has a lot of knitting to do, but her numerous grandchildren are too curious. So she packs up her things and goes through the forest, a cave, and up a mountain to the moon in search of peace and quiet. She finally finds a quiet place to knit in a wormhole, crawling out the other side only when she has completed thirty small sweaters.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford

Spoiler: New Orleans slaves look forward all week to Sunday afternoons when they can gather in Congo Square to sing, dance, talk in their native languages, and sell goods. Congo Square is now part of Louis Armstrong Park and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sticky Topics: Slavery

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Du Iz Tak? by Carson Ellis

     Spoiler: Bugs build a tree house and have adventures.
     Sticky Topics: None.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Long wordless sections and nonsense dialogue between insects leave this wide open for the imagination!

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel

     Spoiler: A cat walks around. Stylized illustrations show how a child, a dog, a fox, a fish, a mouse, a bee, a bird, a flea, a snake, a skunk, a worm, and a bat perceive the cat until the cat goes to water and sees its own reflection.
     Sticky Topics: None.
     Additional Comments from Contributor: Rhythmic prose, beautiful illustrations, could be a discussion starter about perception/prejudice.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

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Alex Awards 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 18:03:00 +0000

Alex Award Winners:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Spoilers: Marie-Laure is a blind girl growing up in Paris with her father, a locksmith, at a museum. When Paris falls to the Nazis, Marie-Laure's father is one of the people charged with protecting the Sea of Flames, a precious artifact from the museum. He and Marie-Laure walk to Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure's reclusive uncle lives, to spend the war. Marie-Laure's father is arrested on suspicion of working with the Resistance when he is caught taking measurements for a miniature model of Saint-Malo to help Marie-Laure learn her way around, and along with her uncle, Marie-Laure becomes an important part of the Resistance.
Werner is a German orphan boy gifted at building and fixing radios, a gift that lands him a spot at a prestigious Hitler Youth school. When the war hits its peak, he is charged with tracking the Resistance through their radio signals. In Saint-Malo, he saves Marie-Laure's life but dies himself. Marie-Laure survives the war, goes on to college, and becomes an important scientist studying sea creatures.
Sticky Topics: Graphic depictions of violence and anti-Semitism. It's a WWII novel, after all.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Commerce Township, MI, Twitter @divinelibrarian

Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

Spoilers: Twins Alice and Rabbit are off to Statewide orchestra and chorus in the old and decrepit hotel of the Bellweather in upstate New York. Fifteen years ago, a bride killed her husband and then hung herself, and it turns out this is the room where Alice finds herself sleeping for the weekend (she's unaware of the room's history). Although the twins have their own important story lines, the adults in this novel are given equal time (which I suppose this is why it is classified as an adult novel, and not a YA). Statewide this year is run by a witch of a woman, who once upon a time terrorized the chaperone of the twins. Rabbit's conductor once had an affair with this witchy woman, and is now falling for the chaperone. It's all wonderfully convoluted--mix into the story the suicide (maybe?) and disappearance of the first chair flute (who is also the daughter of the witchy woman and Alice's roommate for the weekend) and the mystery is afoot.
     Rabbit, a bassoonist, is also hoping to come out to his sister this weekend, and finds himself instantly attracted to a tenor also in attendance. While Rabbit works to understand his feelings, Alice is freaking out over the suicide/disappearance of her roommate. Meanwhile, a woman who was at the hotel 15 years ago and a witness to the original murder/suicide, has come back to visit the hotel. She and Alice start "investigating" the disappearance of the flutist together and start harassing the hotel's elderly concierge for answers.
     What makes this story even more compelling is that the story is told from alternating viewpoints between the various cast of characters. As the novel progresses, we realize that one or more of the characters is an unreliable narrator (its the concierge--he's got some dementia).
     Honestly, it would take several paragraphs to summarize the whole novel. It is quite intricate masterful weaving of the story, so I will fast-forward to the spoiler--
The witchy woman attempts to kill the chaperone by pushing her out into the snow. The concierge shoots at the chaperone, but doesn't kill her - she recovers. He is under the misconception that he is responsible for his daughter's death, his daughter being the bride who shot her husband and killed herself 15 years ago. The missing flutist has been hiding out all weekend in the conductor's room. She poisons her mom/the witchy woman, but it is ruled by police as a suicide. The witchy woman, clearly a sociopath, has been responsible for at least three deaths and has made her daughter's life a living hell.
In the end, most readers will feel satisfied that justice has been served, and Alice and Rabbit have grown closer through the experience.
  Sticky Topics: sex (not detailed), murder, psychological thrills
Additional Comments: Setting is 1997--the pop culture references are awesome.

Contributor: Tina Dalton, Cuba Circulating Library, Youth Services Coordinator, @vulcangirl

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Spoilers: The story opens with the line "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." Lydia is the second child of James and Marilyn Lee and her death by drowning in the town lake is the center of this novel, although through flashbacks we also learn of the basic upbringings of both James and Marilyn, how they met, married, and the ups and downs of their marriage. They have three children, Nathan, the oldest, Lydia, and Hannah, who is 13 at the time of Lydia's death. James is Chinese American (and born in America) and when this book takes place, from the 1950s through the 1970s (Lydia died in 1977), he is teased, bullied and discriminated against because of his ethnicity. His and Marilyn's marriage also faces battles, including Marilyn's mom who disapproves and worries about their future children. The children struggle from being "mixed race." There are numerous flashbacks and one of the most significant is when Marilyn leaves the family for two months when Lydia and Nathan are small children to pursue her dream of being a doctor. She comes back when she finds out she is pregnant with Hannah. Hannah is the invisible child throughout, and the story focuses mostly on what happened to Lydia and Nathan when their mother disappeared (Nathan pushed Lydia into the lake and then saved her), and how they grew up in the shadow of their mom's disappearance, as well as the marital relationship between James and Marilyn. The mystery is how Lydia drowned, as the police rule it suicide, but Nathan thinks the neighbor boy, Jack, who he thought Lydia had been seeing, was involved. Slowly the family realizes that they didn't really know Lydia as they see that they have been putting all their hopes and dreams for being successful and "American" onto her. It turns out Lydia drowned accidentally trying to swim in the lake at night after she comes to the realization that she had been living her entire life to make other people happy and wanted to cleanse herself and be reborn to live how she wanted.
Sticky Topics: None noted
Additional Comments: More of a family drama story than an actual mystery, this book is very engaging, emotional, and well-written.

Contributor: Jessica Framson

Lock In by John Scalzi

Spoilers: On the first day of a protest against a bill slashing support to "Haden's Syndrome" (the "locked-in" survivors of a highly contagious virus that leaves a small percentage of it's victims fully aware and trapped inside a non-responsive body), Chris Shane has his first day on the job with the FBI. Paired with former "Integrator" (someone with a modified brain structure that allows victims of the Haden's Syndrome to borrow their bodies for a specific time) Leslie Vann, they are pulled into a case where it's unclear if there was a murder or a suicide, and Haden's advocate and political agitator Cassandra Bell seems to be at the center of it. But is she just being framed? Lock-Ins, Integrators, human rights, and money all seem tied together in this procedural thriller. Ultimately, they uncover a deadly and unethical game to capitalize on the slashed governmental support to the Haden's by one of the main companies currently invested in supplying technology and infrastructure, carefully framed to implicate Cassandra Bell as a "crazed" Haden's terrorist.
Sticky Topics: Discussions of ableist vs disabled culture, prejudice against disability, violence.
Additional Comments: Fast read with great characters. Sheds light on some aspects of disability culture and abelist view points.

Contributor: Tegan, Librarian & Blogger, http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/

The Martian by Andy Weir

Spoilers: Separated from his crew during a dust storm after being struck by a piece of debris, with biostats reading zero, and a storm requiring an immediate launch, Mark Watney was left behind on Mars. Unfortunately for Watney, dumb luck and circumstance meant he was still alive. Alone, with very limited supplies, on Mars. With no way to communicate with Earth, and the next mission not expected for several years, he might just stay alive long enough to starve to death, if nothing breaks first. Watney must be incredibly creative and extremely lucky to pull through as the single largest rescue mission ever starts to pull together on Earth. Science and gallows-humor contribute greatly. And despite accident, mishap, and Murphy's Law, Watney gets in touch with Earth, makes his way to the next Ares mission site, launches himself into space in a stripped down rocket, and is brought home by his crewmates.
Sticky Topics: None Noted
Additional Comments: Chris Hadfield describes the book as having "the rare combination of a good, original story, interestingly real characters, and fascinating technical accuracy." Which is a pretty good endorsement. Full review and reading guide here: https://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/2015/11/book-review-martian.html

Contributor: Tegan, Librarian & Blogger, http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com

Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta

Spoilers: When 13-year-old Jace Wilson witnesses a brutal murder, he's plunged into a new life, issued a false identity and hidden in a wilderness skills program for troubled teens. The plan is to get Jace off the grid while police find the two killers. The result is the start of a nightmare. The killers, known as the Blackwell Brothers, are slaughtering anyone who gets in their way in a methodical quest to reach him. Now all that remains between them and the boy are Ethan and Allison Serbin, who run the wilderness survival program; Hannah Faber, who occupies a lonely fire lookout tower; and endless miles of desolate Montana mountains. The clock is ticking, the mountains are burning, and those who wish Jace Wilson dead are no longer far behind. Jace, Ethan and Allison survive. The Blackwell brothers (including their secret sister, who took Jace to the survival program in the first place (!!!)) all die, and rightfully so. Ethan attacks one brother, throwing himself and the brother off the side of the mountain. They land separately and survive the fall, but barely. Ethan sneaks away and the other brother believes him dead. He finds his brother and mercy-kills him, then continues to track Jace. He encounters Jace, Allison, Hannah and his sister, but before he can kill Jace, Ethan shoots him in the head with a shotgun. While all this is happening, a fire is ravaging the mountain. The sister tries to escape on a horse, who bucks her off and into the fire to die. Hannah, a former forest firefighter, gives her shelter to Jace and Allison, sacrificing herself so they will survive.
     Sticky Topics: Torture and violence including throat slashing, burning, shooting, and a rifle shot to the head.
     Additional Comments: The book is set to be a film written by Charles Leavitt of Blood Diamond fame.

Contributor: Amanda Garrison

The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice by Zak Ebrahim with Jeff Giles

Spoilers: The Terrorist's Son is the memoir of Zak Ebrahim, whose father, El-Sayyid Nosair was imprisoned for killing the leader of the Jewish Defense League in 1990 and later helped to plan the World Trade Center bombing from prison. The book describes Zak's life before his father's arrest, and his reaction to his father's crime and the ensuing trial, as well as the eventual discovery of his father's role in the World Trade Center Bombing. Zak then discusses his experience growing up with the knowledge that his father committed terrorist acts, and his struggle to come to terms with it. Zak also writes about the bullying and alienation he underwent because of his father's actions, as well as his mother's remarriage to an abusive man. Eventually, Zak cuts off all contact with his father, becomes an atheist, and resolves to speak out and promote peace, nonviolent solutions and interfaith dialogue.
Sticky Topics: None Noted

Contributor: Alexander London, Worcester Public Library

Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle

Spoilers: Sean Phillips is the creator of a snail mail RPG called Trace Italian. Trace Italian takes place in a post-apocalyptic Midwest, where players are trying to get to the safety of a fortress called the Trace Italian. No one really does though. Like most role playing games it's about the journey, not the destination. Players receive bits of the story in the mail and respond with their choices. Sean responds back to each player personally.Sean came up with the idea for Trace Italian because of his love for survival stories, endings, and Conan the Barbarian, but he didn't actually create the game until high school. In high school, Sean attempted suicide with a rifle and failed, leaving him scarred and in need of assistance to get through life. He realizes that he won't ever have a normal life and the game is his chance to at least create an interesting interior one. The players in the game are his main contact with the outside world.Two of his players, Lance and Carrie, participate as a team. One day, they decide, unbeknownst to Sean, to take the game into real life. They head out into the Kansas winter and instead of just sending a letter, they try to survive unprepared and alone. Carrie dies of exposure and Lance ends up in long-term care. The specifics of the incident aren't entirely clear. There's a passing reference to snakes, so perhaps the cold isn't the only thing that killed Carrie.Carrie's parents bring a civil case against Sean, claiming he's liable in their daughter's death. This echoes Sean's own parents desire to sue the gun manufacturers or the man who sold Sean's father his gun. A judge finds that their is no legal case against Sean, although he has to deal with his own sense of guilt. Sean narrates the book and we see him through his eyes. He comes across as gentle, introspective, and intensely aware of how his actions affect others. The story is meandering and filled with Sean's observations on his situation. There are great lines that capture Sean't loneliness like "I can't miss shopping like you'd miss things you once had. I miss it in a different way. I miss it like you'd miss a train." Every so often, he will say something surprisingly angry or violent. It always feels so out of place coming from what seems like such a tender soul. This all comes together at the very end, where we learn the reason, partially, for Sean's suicide attempt.The night Sean shot himself, he took the gun first to his parents' room. He planned to kill them and let the police take care of him. Instead, he shoots himself. At the time he can see all the possibilities ahead of him - a family, mass murder, the mundane, the terrifying. He lays it out like options for turns in Trace Italian. He chooses what he sees as the safest path.
     Sticky Topics: Suicide, obviously. There's not a lot of violent language, but if it's a problem avoid this.
   Additional Comments: John Darnielle is the lead singer of the Mountain Goats. If you like their brand of introspective and sometimes brutal lyrics, definitely give this a try.

Contributor: April Lammers, Huntington Beach Library @april_in_autumn

Bingo’s Run by James A. Levine

     Spoilers: Bingo is from the slums of Africa. His life has not been easy. His father ran away with another woman, he witnesses his grandparents’ murder and his mother’s rape. To support the family, his mother becomes a prostitute, though Bingo likes to think of it as smelling nice for other men. But her life comes to an end when one of her clients, Wolf (a drug dealer) calls her a traitor for servicing an undercover cop and murders her.
Bingo is now an orphan and ends up working for Wolf. He becomes Nairobi’s greatest drug runner, using his street smarts and his personal 10 commandments for running to stay alive. It also helps that he has a growth impairment and looks like an innocent 10 year old to police. (Everyone calls him Midget, or Meejit, due to this.) His greatest achievement is delivering “white” to 21 people in one day for two drug dealers. Everyone assumes he ran fast, but he had collected all of the drugs and then rented a taxi. This new fame granted him the best runs with the biggest tips, worth a whole lot more than the money he used for the taxi.
     Everything changes when he secretly witnesses Wolf murdering the big boss above him. He tells Wolf that the big boss was dead and is clever enough to blame it on another gang, so Wolf sends him to an orphanage to protect his best alibi. Before Bingo leaves, he hides a case of $200,000 he found in the dead boss’s bedroom.
     At the orphanage, Bingo learns that the priest is corrupted (working with both Wolf and the Police Chief) and looking for the $200,000, but Bingo claims he didn’t see it. He is quickly adopted by an American Art Dealer, Mrs. Steele. He tells her that he is also an art dealer (referring to how he deals drugs to an artist, The Master) and shows her the Master’s artwork. She isn’t impressed, until the next morning. It turns out, the maid told Mrs. Steele that she overheard Bingo talking on the phone about how he was going to sell these famous paintings when he comes to the US and then ditch her. Bingo, however, was told by the maid that Mrs. Steele said she was going to do the same thing to him. So, for the next few days, it is back and forth competition as both of them try to secure the rights to sell the Master’s artwork.
     They finally figure out in the end that they have both been played, and ultimately decide to just become a family, leaving the art behind. However, things take a turn for the worse when they try to board a plane to the US. Bingo is set-up with a bogus drug arrest and is detained until the police and the orphanage priest could retrieve the case of money. Bingo tells them that Wolf has the money. After they leave, Bingo sneaks over to Wolf’s, gives him the case with half the money, and then hides outside. The police later arrive, collect the case, and throw Wolf and his family off the balcony. Finally, his mother’s death is avenged. Now he can start a new life with Mrs. Steele in America.
     Sticky Topics: There's murder, sex, drugs, but nothing graphic.
Contributor: Jess Bacon, 5 Minute Librarian Blogger, Twitter @5minlib

Confessions by Kanae Minato

     Spoilers: Jūko Moriguchi, a middle school teacher, tells her class on the last day of school that she’s leaving, partly because her four-year-old daughter, Manami, had recently been discovered, accidentally drowned, in a swimming pool near the school. But she wasn’t drowned, Moriguchi says, she was murdered by two boys in this very class. Moriguchi has exacted revenge on them by inoculating the milk they just drank with HIV-tainted blood.
     A few months later, Mizuki, a girl from the class, tells Moriguchi in a letter that one of the boys, Shūya, continues to come to school. His classmates have begun to hound, bully, and torture him. The other boy, Naoki, hasn’t returned to school and eventually murders his mother. Mizuki is considering murdering the new teacher whom she hates, and is collecting chemicals on the sly in hopes of building a bomb to blow up the school.
     Naoki’s mother writes in her diary about her son. He won’t go back to school. He has developed OCD, and no longer bathes or cuts his hair. He has become a shut in, a hikikomori. She refuses to believe the accusation by Moriguchi that her son had anything to do with the girl’s death. But Naoki confesses, first that he might have HIV, and second, that he had drowned Manami. Naoki’s mother confronts her own maternal failure and determines to commit suicide.
     Naoki, now jailed for the murder of his mother, tells how he and Shūya had planned the murder of Manami. Naoki feels important for Shūya having chosen him to help. They corner her at the swimming pool and offer her a gift, a pursed rigged to give a powerful electric shock. The boys think the purse has killed her, Shūya’s most fervent hope. He leaves, after telling Naoki that he was just being used, that Shūya really despises him. Naoki thinks to drop Manami’s body into the pool to make it look like she has drowned, but as he lets her go, she opens her eyes, so he knows she’s alive. He lets her drown anyway to prove he is superior to Shūya. He was the one who actually succeeded in murdering Manami.
     Shūya’s mother was a professor of electrical engineering who taught him electronics rather than read him picture books. She beats him and then comforts him. He feels only love for and devotion to her. When Shūya’s father discovers her abuse, he divorces her and sends her away, making her promise she will never again see Shūya. Shūya wants only to have her back, and begins to plot a course to notoriety through murder that will bring him his mother’s attention, and then she will come back to him. When his plan utterly fails, he goes to Tokyo, to the university where she teaches and discovers she has remarried, is pregnant, and has completely forgotten about Shūya. Shūya strangles Mizuki and steals her bomb making materials, determined to go out in a blaze of glory, destroying himself and the school at an awards ceremony. But when he is up on that stage and presses the detonation button, nothing happens. He looks down. The bomb is gone. His cellphone rings.
     It’s Moriguchi. “Haha,” she says, “I discovered your plot and removed the bomb. I have wanted all along only to take away from you something or someone that you loved, as you did to me. When you pressed the button, the bomb did actually go off. In your mother’s laboratory.”
     Sticky Topics: Homicidal children, adults attempting to murder children, the calculated murder of an innocent, matricide
     Additional Comments: Although it sounds horrific, the book has been written as the blackest of comedies. Readalikes: The Lord of the Flies, Battle Royale

Contributor: Jeffrey Pike

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ALA Rainbow List Top Ten 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Apr 2017 13:29:00 +0000

ALA Rainbow List Top Ten:

Far from You by Tess Sharpe

Spoiler: Years ago, Sophie, her girlfriend Mina, and Mina's brother were in a car accident that left Sophie with a bad back, a damaged leg, and an opiate addiction that took years to kick. After Mina is murdered, the police are sure she died in a drug deal gone bad and Sophie spends months locked up in rehab. When she's finally released, Sophie joins forces with Mina's brother, Trev, to prove that Mina was targeted because of a missing girl story she was working on for the local newspaper. Together, Sophie and Trev trace the missing girl and Mina's murder to a youth soccer coach who had raped and impregnated the missing girl.
Sticky Topics: Violence, references to sexual assault/abuse, drug use/addiction, underage drinking
Additional Comments: Readalikes: The Night She Disappeared by April Henry, mysteries by Gretchen McNeil

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

Sweet Tooth by Tim Anderson

Spoiler: Tim Anderson relates how, during the same summer he became fully aware of his homosexuality, he also became a type-1 diabetic. Initially he wonders if his homosexuality caused his diabetes or if the disease is a punishment for feelings he knows his religious upbringing does not condone. Given the timing (Anderson came of age in the late 80s/early 90s at the height of the AIDS crisis in the U.S.) the link between homosexuality and disease in his young mind is understandable. His sexuality becomes a taboo craving he can never quite master, much like his relationship with sugar. The memoir follows a series of vignettes from his youth (early flirtations, jobs, high school parties, college, his first sexual encounter) in which he attempts to manage his sugar levels, and slowly emerge from the closet and claim his identity. Most of the stories are humorous and often contain lists of sweets Anderson indulges in during low-blood sugar episodes, or the progressive/alternative bands he obsessed over as a teen. Anderson's parents and friends are supportive when he finally comes out to them. The memoir ends after Anderson meets James and the two form a long-term relationship in which James becomes a partner in the management of Anderson's diabetes. The epilogue finds the two still together 10-years later and the author's bio and acknowledgements both mention Anderson's husband, James.
Sticky Topics: Descriptions of teenage hormone-fueled fantasies. Actual sexual encounters are not explicit, but they aren't glossed over either. Some coarse language. Detailed explanations of blood sugar testing (lancets, blood, injections) and low blood sugar episodes.
Additional Comments: While it was recognized for its LGBTQIA themes, it could be a good choice for a young person dealing with diabetes or any chronic disease since that is also central to the narrative.

Contributor: Roseanne Perkins, Kutztown University

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

Spoilers: Iranian-American Leila has enough on her plate, struggling with science in the face of her parents' expectation that she will become a doctor like her father and sister. Things would only get worse if anyone knew Leila was gay. Then Leila falls for Saskia, a new girl at school. Saskia makes Leila face her sexuality, but also turns out to be a complete psycho. But through her, Leila gets into theater, where she finds a new group of accepting friends, an old friend who's ready to be something more, and the courage to leave Saskia behind and come out to her family and classmates.
Sticky Topics: Non-consensual kissing, bullying, homophobic slurs, stereotyping of gays
Additional Comments: Readalikes: Anything by David Levithan or Nina LaCour

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township (MI) Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Tumblr/Instagram @librarified2004, Snapchat @librarycommerce

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Spoilers: Spoiler: Jude and Noah are twins. Noah's chapters are in placed in middle school, where he falls in love with his next door neighbor Brian, and how his mother encourages his sister and him to apply for a fine arts high school (CSA). Jude's chapters are many years later, where she's the only one accepted to CSA and her relationship with her brother is fractured. As they both explain their sides to the story, you get closer and closer to the big events that broke them.
     Noah is the painter of the family, really motivated to go to CSA. Things are going well for him, his mom is really impressed with his art and he's starting a relationship with Brian (though Brian isn't ready to publicly show he's gay). His chapters are full of paintings he pictures in his mind, so visually rich and adding a nice layer to the story. For example,
     Meanwhile, his sister is struggling. It is apparent that their mother doesn't think her art is as impressive (her strength is in sculpting sand women, but she doesn't share this), she is hanging out with an older crowd and one of the boys, Zephyr (11th grader, while she's in 8th grade), pushes for sex despite it being physically obvious that she didn't want to it.
     Noah's relationship with Brian becomes complicated and ends. They are caught fooling around by Noah's mother (who doesn't care that he is gay but Brian freaks out and worries his sexuality will end his baseball career) and then Noah thinks that Jude is trying to steal Brian. When he sees lipstick on Brian's face, he yells that Brian is gay, officially ending their relationship.
     While all of this is going on, their parents start having marital problems and the father moves out. Things come to a head when their mother dies in a car accident. Noah tells everyone that the mother was going to reunite with their father, but she was actually going to ask for a divorce. This lie tears Noah up and he becomes fixated with jumping Devil's Drop into the ocean, not caring if he ends up drowning. Coincidentally, Jude's rape happens the same night her mother dies, Jude shuts down and swears off boys. She is the only one accepted into CSA but we later learn that was because she never mailed Noah's application. She feels very guilty over this and thinks her mother's ghost is breaking everything she creates in anger. Her only companion is the quirky ghost of Grandma Sweetwine and she frequently references Grandma's "bible" filled with superstitions to try to control her world (like sewing herbs into her brother's swim shorts to keep him safe). Noah begins high school and in order to fit in, he hides his quirkiness, gets a fake girlfriend and forgoes his art. Jude, meanwhile, is in the CSA school and ends up finding a mentor, Guillermo (an angry man, who lost the love of his life), to help her create a statue in stone, something her mother cannot damage. She meets Oscar, a drunken nude model that Noah previously met back in middle school (they met when Noah was eavesdropping on a CSA class. He later paints Oscar's portrait, which captivates Jude and she trades everything she has for it.). Oscar has cleaned up his life and is now living with Guillermo. Jude and Oscar fall for each other, despite also having a few years age difference. Noah reveals that Guillermo was their mother's lover, the person she was driving to the night she died. Jude confesses to Noah and then CSA about his application and, after seeing his art, they extend an invitation for him to join the next year. Brian returns to Noah's life again, a few years after embracing his sexuality and finding it didn't hurt his baseball career (it actually helped it since the MLB was actively recruiting gay players). Jude and Noah reconcile and become friends again.
Sticky Topics: On page 46, there's a rape. Jude never says the words "no", but her body screams it. The boy (who is 4 years older), takes her silence as consent. The same night this happened, Jude's mother died. So, she swore off boys from that point forward.
Additional Comments: This book is very descriptive, with beautiful sentences and visuals. Some people will really love this, others have called it purple prose. It isn't for everyone. Noah mind paints all the time, and names awesome portraits/self portraits he would paint (for example, when he sees his crush, he mind paints the self-portrait: Last Sighting of Boy and Balloon Blowing West Over Pacific). Jude likes to take crazy advice from her Grandma Sweetwine's "bible" to try to take control of her life and protect those around her. Both add a lovely layer of visuals and depth to the characters.

Contributor: Jess Bacon, 5 Minute Librarian Blogger, Twitter @5minlib.

Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World by Janet E. Cameron

     Spoilers: This book will break your heart repeatedly. In a small "hick" town, Stephen Shulevitz has always been an outsider. Moved to town with his unwed parents as an attempt to provide him a "normal" childhood, his intellect, odd mannerisms, and non-traditional family marked him as different from the start.
     The world has ended again and again in his life. It continues but something is always different. Now, almost free of a community that has never accepted him, Stephen's world ends again as he realizes he's in love with his best friend, a highly religious and homophobic young man with a violent temper. And in the middle of the 1980's AIDS panic, his community is not tolerant of even perceived sexual derivation from heterosexuality.
     Stephen does come out, first to his friend Lana, and then outed at a drunken party by Lana's (gay) boyfriend, and eventually comes out to Mark. His gradual outing is met with disgust, bullying, and violence, and his outing to Mark ends with broken bones. His new life at college provides some ability to discover himself and his sexuality. The ending is bittersweet, with reconciliation and hope, but pain is still there.
     Sticky Topics: Bullying, homophobia, gay bashing, self-abuse, racism

Contributor: Tegan, Librarian & Blogger, http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Spoilers: Nothing much happens in Austin's small town until a break-in at his boss' office ends in an outbreak of giant praying mantises. Although Austin has a girlfriend, he begins to question his sexuality and his feelings toward his best friend Robby. Austin, Robby, and his girlfriend must stop the outbreak and kill all the mantises. There is no happily ever after in this story. Austin, Robby, and Austin's pregnant girlfriend go live in an underground home. Five years later, it's not quite clear if Austin and his girlfriend are together or if he and Robby are together. Austin is a good father and he and Robby go out to the outside world to find food and explore the aftermath.
Sticky Topics: Language, sex

Contributor: Dawn Abron/Zion-Benton Public Library/@bangbangbooks

Secret City by Julia Watts

Spoilers: 1945 Tennessee. Government created city employs families to help with the war effort. Teenage girl. Coming of age story. Loves books, writing, school. Not interested in boys, dances, hair, celebrities. Seemingly a weirdo. Not understood by family. Makes friends. Starts babysitting for young wife and mother (beautiful). Gets a secret admirer (he's totally clueless). Goes on a date (boring). Enters essay contest. Wins regional prize. Starts spending more time with young mother (way cooler than secret admirer). Starts having feelings for young mother. Young mother kisses teenage girl. They confess their love for one another. Teenage girl wins 2nd place in state essay contest. Gets a full scholarship to a 2 year teaching college. Young mother discovers secret about what they are making in the secret city. LOTS OF TROUBLE. Teenage girl must stay away. Young mother put in hospital and child taken away. Uranium. Hiroshima. Manhattan Project. Did not see that coming.
Sticky Topics: Very mild sexual content. Kissing.
Additional Comments: This was really great and very unexpected!

Contributor: Lauren Wilcox, Facebook @ BeerandBooks

We Are the Youth: Sharing the Stories of LGBT Youth in the United States by Laurel Golio and Diana Scholl

Spoilers: This book covered 27 teens in the LGBT community. Some had came out, some had not. Some had accepting parents, others did not. They talked about when they first knew, when they first told someone, and how things are a lot better now than they were before. They came from different backgrounds and communities; one was even a boarding student from Vietnam and had chosen to hide his identity due to the cultural prejudices there. Laurel Golio took a portrait of each person (which is included in the book) and Diana Scholl interviewed the teens and wrote their words down, unedited, so it feels like teens just talking about their lives. They interviewed gays, lesbians, bi, transgender and queer youth in the United States. You can also check out the profiles on the We Are Youth website.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Jess Bacon, 5 Minute Librarian Blogger, Twitter @5minlib.

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Jane Addams Peace Association 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 03:37:00 +0000

Younger Child Winner:

New Shoes by Susan Lynn Meyer

Spoiler: Ella Mae is excited to get new shoes for the start of school, but because she's African-American, she can't try on the shoes at the local shoe store. Instead, her mother draws a picture of her feet and the man at the shoe store brings them a pair of shoes. Dissatisfied with her unequal treatment, Ella Mae and her friend Charlotte team up to recondition used shoes and make a shoe store of their own where everyone can try on as many shoes as they want.
Sticky Topics: Pre-Civil Rights period-typical racism
Additional Comments from Contributor: Excellent author's note explains Jim Crow and Civil Rights in a kid-friendly way. Readalike: A Taste of Colored Water by Matt Faulkner.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Older Child Winner:

Turning 15 in the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

Spoiler: After going to jail for marching several times in the Civil Rights movement, Lynda Blackmon celebrated her fifteenth birthday by participating in the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March, despite having been savagely beaten on Bloody Sunday two weeks prior. She witnessed more police brutality on this march (no graphic descriptions were in the text) and acknowledged racial slurs were used, but she refused to repeat them. Despite this and the rain, marchers sang hymns like "We Shall Overcome" to keep morale up, and many of them took care of Lynda because she was one of the younger marchers if not the youngest.
Sticky Topics: Pre-Civil Rights racial violence, description of beating, implied racial slurs (not actually used)
Additional Comments from Contributor: Excellent kids-eye view of the Civil Rights movement--doesn't shy away from sticky topics, but doesn't discuss them gratuitously either. Readalikes: Trilogy by John Lewis, We've Got a Job by Cynthia Levinson

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Younger Child Honor Books:

Lillian’s Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by Jonah Winter

Spoiler: Over 100 years old, Lillian takes a long, slow walk up the hill to the courthouse to vote. As she walks, she remembers her forebears: Slaves, blacks who voted and then lost their voting rights under Jim Crow, then Civil Rights marchers who took three tries to get to Montgomery, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Congressman John Lewis. She reaches the top of the hill and votes, remembering all who came before.
Sticky Topics: Vague descriptions of racial violence
Additional Comments from Contributor: Excellent explanation of black history in a kid-friendly format.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Mama’s Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation written by Edwidge Danticat

Spoiler: Saya is a young girl whose mother is detained and awaiting deportation to Haiti. Every week Saya and her Papa go to visit Mama in prison and Mama records bedtime stories for Saya on cassette tapes. Papa writes letters to try to get Mama home, and Saya is inspired to write her own letter which finally brings Mama home to be with Papa and Saya while she awaits her citizenship papers.
Sticky Topics: Immigration and separation of children from parents.
Additional Comments from Contributor: Author's note states that 70,000 parents of American children are currently detained and awaiting deportation. Staggering statistic! Readalike: In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrerro (for older teens/adults)

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Spoiler: Tells the story of the National Memorial African Bookstore in New York, which was a bookstore and gathering place for African-Americans from the 1930s through the Civil Rights movement. The owner's young son brushes elbows with such famous African Americans as Muhammad Ali and meets Malcolm X, who is a regular patron of the shop. The owner of the shop was supposed to be with Malcolm X the night he was assassinated, but wasn't sitting where he was supposed to and so was spared a violent death.
Sticky Topics: Assassination reference.
Additional Comments from Contributor: Fascinating!

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Older Child Honor Book:

Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton

Spoiler: Half-Black, half-Japanese Mimi moves from California to Vermont at the beginning of 1969 and spends the following year trying to discover herself and make her way in a town where not everyone accepts her. With the help of a couple good friends and a dedicated teacher, she challenges authority at her school (so girls can take shop and boys can take home ec) and gets into a scholarship program to learn about space before her cousins surprise the family with a New Year visit.
Sticky Topics: Period-typical xenophobia, racial violence.
Additional Comments from Contributor: This is a novel-in-verse. Readalike: Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

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Pen/Faulkner Award Winner 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 13:09:00 +0000

Winner:

Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish

Spoiler: This adult book is very gritty realistic fiction. And considering the times we live in, some might also consider this book to have a political agenda? The two main characters, Zou Lei, is an undocumented immigrant from North West communist China (also a Muslim) and Brad Skinner, a soldier who has seen three tours of duty in Iraq. Both meet in New York City trying to escape and hide, Zou Lei, from immigration, and Brad from his wartime demons and nightmares. The book portrays a New York City, not in its glitz and glamour, but one of raw ugliness whose characters are also swindlers, cutthroats and racists. We begin to admire Zou Lei, (and every illegal immigrant like her), for her perseverance and determination to survive anything that America throws at her; 14 hours a day shifts, low paying jobs, abuse from bosses, living in cheap filthy rooms, walking miles to her jobs to save money. In flashbacks we read of Zou Lei’s hard life in Communist China and understand that even the extremes she deals with in America are not as difficult compared to what she has already endured. From Skinner, we can identify with other servicemen, who probably suffer from the same PTSD symptoms, all haunted by the horrors of what they have seen and experienced in war. He settles in a basement room, on the outskirts of the city where he spends his days dealing with his demons, high on drugs, lifting weights and watching war videos instead of finding work and dealing with fitting back into a “normal” world/society. Toward the end, he contemplates going back to Iraq and serving once again because he can’t fit back in to this life. These two damaged individuals find each other and form an unusual love/friendship that you know is ultimately doomed from the beginning and eventually in the end. They discuss and investigate the possibility of marriage to each other to help Zou Lei and her illegal immigration status. Skinner and Zou Lei lose each other because of a complicated issue with the racist, former imprisoned son of the landlady where Skinner rents his apartment and neither of them knows what happens to each other. Skinner in total despair and grief, because of the loss of Zou Lei, his only love and friend, shoots himself with the gun he always carries around. Zou Lei, comes back to the trashed apartment, and in her belongings, after walking for miles, finds her prized sneakers with Skinner's bank card stuffed inside that he told her to keep. She takes the money left on the card and moves to Arizona. Life is slightly better with the extra money but she is still working hard jobs, still hoping, saying a prayer, that she will make it through this new phase of her life for the better? The book closes with no guarantees.
This book may not be everyone’s escapist, pleasure read. But it is an eye opening view of characters we rarely experience in literature who are many times invisible and whose lives are an unimaginable daily struggle. This is fiction but this author makes these characters extremely real and unforgettable.
Sticky Topics: Some violence; profanity; coercive sexuality

Contributor: A.M. Speicher, retired/teacher/librarian

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John Steptoe Award for New Talent 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 05:01:00 +0000

Winners:

Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith

   Spoiler: A supernatural coming of age story about believing in yourself and accepting help from those around you. Hoodoo works with his family to defeat the Stranger and save the day. He must solve the mystery of the Stranger and stop his black magic, but first he has to find his own magic and the truth of his family.
   Set in 1930's rural Alabama during the reign of Jim Crow laws, the protagonist, 12 year old Hoodoo, finds he is unable to practice the magic he was named for. His mother, a conjurer, died at his birth. His father, a powerful 'mojo-man', left and met a 'bad end'. (He was lynched.) Hoodoo lives with his grandmother, who can also conjure spells. While he cannot do this, he has dreams that are tied to the sinister Stranger. Hoodoo is, according to a carnival fortune-teller, the only one who can save everyone from the Stranger who is really a demon.
   The Stranger has come to town looking for a boy named Hoodoo. Hoodoo's dreams about the dead rising from their graves are not dreams at all. When Hoodoo and the stranger meet during these dreams, they are really in the spirit world together. Hoodoo learns that he and the Stranger both have the ability to travel to the spirit world. Hoodoo also meets his father in the spirit world and learns that his father tried to take over his son's body as he was being hanged. Due to this, Hoodoo's left hand is not his own and that is why he cannot do the folk magic of his family. Once he kills the demon, his father will get his missing hand back and can then rest in peace.
   Hoodoo then has visions of the Stranger pledging himself to a demon, killing a man and then being hanged. He knows that he has to defeat the evil in his town. Hoodoo wakes up to find that the people around him are under the demon's spell and have become his servants. Hoodoo remembers his father telling him during one of their soul walks to use his hand and his heart and Hoodoo realizes how he can defeat the demon. He calls the stranger by name (because names have power) and the battle between good and evil ensues. Hoodoo uses his anger over the injustices to those he loved as the strength he needed to fight back. He kills the demon and saves the day.
  Sticky Topics: Authentic language to 1930's Jim Crow Era- use of N word, segregation (colored days at the fair). Hoodoo’s father was lynched for killing a man in self-defense. Hoodoo has a detailed vision of the Stranger killing a man then being hanged for it and as he is sentenced he calls to his master, the demon Stranger gave his number as 666, the stranger performing rituals of devil worship, the group his father belonged to seems like some sort of Masonic lodge (there is a symbol of the all seeing eye)
   Additional Comments from Contributor: Eerie, spooky and almost scary, a Stephen King style horror book for a target audience of kids ages 9-12.

Contributor: Myrick from Sarah Bain Chandler Public Library

Voice of Freedom Fannie Lou Hamer Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford

Spoiler: A collection of poetry and artwork inspired by the life of Fannie Lou Hamer. She was the youngest of twenty children born to sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta (when she was born, the plantation owner paid the family $50 for the production of a new field hand). Despite her hard life, she was doted on by the family, and was told to take pride in her heritage, and that "if you respect yourself enough, other people will have to respect you" (which did not turn out to be true - her family saved enough to buy livestock, which were poisoned by white neighbors).
Fannie got married but was unable to have children - an illegal surgery "to remove a growth" left her sterile without her approval. When she registered to vote (after passing a "literacy test" that unfairly tested obscure material), she was fired from her job, her house shot up with guns. She was arrested and beaten for trying to order food at a "whites only" lunch counter. She ran for Congress, and lost, but became vice-chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and was active in politics. She was friends with many other Civil Rights figures, such Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and helped pass the Voting Rights Act.
She was a powerful speaker, and a wonderful singer, and was outspoken about Civil Rights.
Sticky Topics: Racism, violence

Contributor: Kat Ealy, 5 Minute Librarian

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Andre Norton Award for YA Sci Fi and Fantasy 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 13:32:00 +0000

Winner:

Updraft by Fran Wilde

   Spoiler: Kirit Densira can't wait to earn her wings and apprentice to be a trader like her mother, Ezarit Densira. But when she inadvertently breaks the law everything changes. Now Kirit is a target of the Singers, the strict and ultra-secret governing body of the towers.
   Wilde creates a world made of bone high up in the clouds. This world is dangerous and poorly understood. Monsters called skymouths plague the city. The Singers keep the population in check by enforcing what the "city" wants. The city is made of living, growing bone and occasionally it becomes upset. Only the Singers can hear and understand the city but are they really listening and doing what is best for both the city and its people? Is sacrificing lawbreakers the only way to appease the city?
   After her law break, Kirit and her family are subjected to punishments and Kirit is eventually forced to become a Singer. In the tower of the Singers, Kirit finds there are more secrets than she ever imagined. She discovers the reason Ezarit avoided the Singers at all costs was because Kirit's father was a Singer. And Ezarit challenged him in order to secure her trade routes while hiding Kirit from the Singers. The father of her wing-brother Nat worked for the Singers but discovered secrets the Singers did not want the city's population to know. Nat's father was killed for it while Kirit's father was kept alive. Kirit and her father both have a rare gift, they can shout down the skymouths. The more she learns the more Kirit realizes that all is not right with the Singers and the city. Eventually Kirit learns the Singers are breeding skymouths to help control the people of the city. The only way she can learn and reveal the full truth and force change in what has become a corrupt system is to challenge the Singer authority. But she must stay alive to do so. As she unravels the secrets she puts herself and everyone she loves in jeopardy.
   While Kirit is learning the secrets within the Singers, Nat is learning the secrets of the city. He has discovered there is more to the skymouths than what they have been led to believe. He also learns that more exists downtower than they have been told. Working together with allies within the Singers, Kirit takes what they have learned and challenges the Singers. During the challenge, Kirit breaks the rules and reveals the secrets she has learned and brings about the destruction of the Singers' tower.
   At the end, the city is in chaos with many Singers and others dead or injured. Where will the future take them?
Sticky Topics: Violence including mass sacrifice to appease the city

Additional Comments from Contributor: The first of a series, readers will be dying to know what happens next.

Contributor: Amanda Brandt, Hudson Area Joint Library, The Scribblin' Bibliophile

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Walter Dean Myers Award 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 04:34:00 +0000

Winner:

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

      Spoiler: All American Boys is a very timely novel about the issue of police brutality and race relations. Rashad is an African American boy who gets good grades, has a good home life, is in ROTC, but dresses in baggy jeans on a Friday night on the way to a party. He stops at the corner store to pick up a bag of chips and when he bends over to dig his phone out of his bag, a white woman accidentally trips over him. A police officer in the store assumes he is stealing, and slaps hand cuffs on him. Although Rashad is cuffed, the police officer insists he is resisting arrest and beats the crap out of him, breaking his nose and several ribs.
   Quinn, a white kid who also goes to school with Rashad, witnesses the beating. It turns out that he is close friends with the police officer, who served as a father-figure for him after his own father's death.
     The story is told in alternating viewpoints between Rashad and Quinn. This genius narrative lets readers experience both sides of the story. Even Rashad's family is torn as to whether he is guilty, and what should be done about it. This is a poignant story, hard to read, but so necessary.
     The twist comes towards the ending when Rashad learns that his father, who served as a police officer for four years, once shot a black male teen who was in a fight with a white kid. His dad assumed the black kid was attacking the white kid, but in fact the reverse was true. The black kid ended up permanently paralyzed. By taking the story to this point, the exploration of how pervasive racism runs in American society becomes so powerful.
     The ending is a peaceful march and demonstration in front of the police station. Rashad is accompanied by his friends and family, and even his father joins them in the end. Quinn finds the courage to stand up to his family and friends, and also joins in the march. The demonstration ends with the crowd holding a "die in" where they all lay down on the ground to represent the black males killed or maimed by police brutality. The names of the boys killed that year are read over a bullhorn.
   Sticky Topics: Violence, racism, language

Contributor: Tina Dalton, Cuba Circulating Library, Youth Services Coordinator @vulcangirl

Honor Books:

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz

    Spoiler: This novel was cowritten by Malcolm X’s daughter and relied heavily on family accounts, letters, and his diaries. It is a fictional account of his youth, from when he was a young boy up until his 20s, when he was jailed and joined the Nation of Islam.
    Malcolm X had a tough life. His activist father was murdered when he was six years old, and his mother struggled to bring food to the table for her seven children in the middle of the depression. Malcolm learned to steal food to survive, but welfare kept a close eye on his family and he was ultimately sent to a foster home due to these behaviors. Soon afterwards, his mother was institutionalized and the rest of his young siblings were divided into foster homes. Despite this, the family remained close, having family dinners and writing letters when Malcolm moved far away.
    Malcolm was a strong student in school, but when his teacher dashed his dreams of becoming a lawyer (“You’re just a nigger.”), he becomes embittered. He decided to quit high school and moved to Roxbury (a neighborhood in Boston), to live with his half sister, and entered the world of drugs, jazz, fancy suits, and ladies. He fell in love with a white lady, but ended up leaving it all to move to Harlem. He becomes a reefer dealer and runs numbers for gamblers, relying on his cleverness and people skills to survive. The gambling is what ultimately sends him away from Harlem. A gambler boss accused Malcolm of stealing from him, though he did not. The book opens with Malcolm running for his life, but you learn later in the middle of the book that a friend, Shorty, came for him and brought him back to Roxbury for safety.
   Back in Boston, Malcolm starts breaking into wealthy homes to steal valuables with Shorty and his white girlfriend. He is caught when he brought a stolen watch to get repaired, and the police were able to find the rest of his crew. His white girlfriend testified against him in court, lessening their court sentences and leaving Malcolm feeling betrayed.
   While in prison, Malcolm’s siblings wrote him letters and visited him. One of his brothers told him to avoid cigarettes, drugs, and pork, and he’ll show him freedom. Malcolm got clean and was eager for an escape, but his brother instead talked about the Nation of Islam and how that’ll save him. Malcolm resisted at first. His father was a devout Baptist and his parents raised him to have black pride, but he left all of that when he decided to quit high school. However, he started rereading the bible and reconnects to his roots. Ultimately, he ended up joining the Nation of Islam, accepts the name Malcolm X and finds a new calling.
   The novel ends at this point, though there is a note from his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz, explaining how she wrote this fictionalized story. It also includes a few pages of historical context and summarizes the end of Malcolm’s life.
   Sticky Topics: Language and sexual references.
   Additional Comments from Contributor: Readers who enjoyed this book may want to continue on with The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Contributor: Jess Bacon, Blogger for www.5minlib.com. Follow her on Twitter @5minlib.

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings by Margarita Engle

Spoiler: Margarita Engle uses free verse to tell of her love for her mother's homeland, Cuba, and of her life in Los Angeles during her first 14 years. She remembers summers with her mother's family reveling in the tropical beauty of the Cuban island, then the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis years when the family was unable to travel to Cuba and her mother was unable to renew her passport to travel anywhere outside of the United States. She also tells of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, of learning to love words and always feeling connected to both her Cuban and American worlds but never fully able to live in one or the other. The book concludes with her family’s visit to Europe, after her mother obtains special permission to travel abroad, and the author’s realization that Cuba will always be a part of her and that someday she will be free to travel back to that land of her childhood.
Sticky Topics: Beautifully written and highly recommended.
Additional Comments from Contributor: This would be a natural to pair with Island Treasures: Growing Up In Cuba by Alma Flor Ada.

Contributor: Renee Wheeler, Leominster Public Library

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Coretta Scott King Author Awards 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 04:11:00 +0000

Winner:

Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia

Spoiler: The third and final book in the Gaither Sisters series. It's the summer of 1969, and Delphine (12, our narrator), Vonetta (10) and Fern (8) are on their way from Brooklyn, NY, to spend the summer in Alabama with their grandmother, Big Ma (whose neighbor, Elijah Lucas, wants to marry her); great-grandmother, Ma Charles; and the girls' Uncle Darnell. In the previous book, "Uncle D" stole the girls' savings to buy drugs (they had been saving to go see the Jackson Five in concert); he has since cleaned up his act and is working long hours while going to school, but Vonetta refuses to forgive him. Fern, who feeds the animals, refuses to eat chicken or deer, and wants to keep the family from eating meat, too. Delphine refuses to iron the bedsheets, a chore her grandmother always insisted she do, because she says it makes her feel oppressed. Living close by, through the woods and across a small creek, is Ma Charles's half-sister, Miss Trotter, and her great-grandson Jimmy Trotter (age 16). Miss Trotter and Ma Charles are the same age, and refuse to speak to each other, because they both believe that their father married only their mother - though he actually had married both women and kept two separate houses. Jimmy Trotter comes over every day with milk from Miss Trotter's cows, which he trades for eggs from Ma Charles's chickens. The girls visit Miss Trotter daily, and Vonetta brings stories from one sister to the other about how the other one ruined their lives, which is how we learn about the family history; this serves only to get the sisters hating each other even more. The family comes together to watch the moon landing, which is temporarily interrupted by the KKK riding past, led by the local sheriff.
When Miss Trotter's cows stop giving milk and Uncle D forgets to bring any home from the store, Vonetta takes the bicycle the girls share and rides off to get some, before anyone else has woken up. Unfortunately, there is a sudden tornado and she was caught outside in the storm - and hasn't been found! Her disappearance prompts the girls' father (Papa) and stepmother (who they call Mrs., and who is expecting a baby) to come to Alabama. A call to California to let their mother (Cecile, aka NZila) know about it leads to a surprise visit from her, too. The search, led by the racist sheriff takes days, but eventually leads to Vonetta being found alive, with scratches and bruises and a broken arm, but no permanent damage.
The tornado also ruined the houses of Miss Trotter and Elijah Lucas, who all move in with Big Ma and Ma Charles; Big Ma agrees to marry Mr. Lucas and they have a small ceremony. Papa and NZila make peace with each other; Vonetta and Uncle D forgive each other. Ma Charles and Miss Trotter become close. Delphine irons the bedsheets. Life isn't perfect, but it is good, and the family will go on. The story ends with their return to Brooklyn, where the girls are back to being friends as well as sisters.
Sticky Topics: Racism

Contributor: Kat Ealy, 5 Minute Librarian

Honor Books:

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Spoiler: All American Boys is a very timely novel about the issue of police brutality and race relations. Rashad is an African American boy who gets good grades, has a good home life, is in ROTC, but dresses in baggy jeans on a Friday night on the way to a party. He stops at the corner store to pick up a bag of chips and when he bends over to dig his phone out of his bag, a white woman accidentally trips over him. A police officer in the store assumes he is stealing, and slaps hand cuffs on him. Although Rashad is cuffed, the police officer insists he is resisting arrest and beats the crap out of him, breaking his nose and several ribs.
Quinn, a white kid who also goes to school with Rashad, witnesses the beating. It turns out that he is close friends with the police officer, who served as a father-figure for him after his own father's death.
     The story is told in alternating viewpoints between Rashad and Quinn. This genius narrative lets readers experience both sides of the story. Even Rashad's family is torn as to whether he is guilty, and what should be done about it. This is a poignant story, hard to read, but so necessary.
     The twist comes towards the ending when Rashad learns that his father, who served as a police officer for four years, once shot a black male teen who was in a fight with a white kid. His dad assumed the black kid was attacking the white kid, but in fact the reverse was true. The black kid ended up permanently paralyzed. By taking the story to this point, the exploration of how pervasive racism runs in American society becomes so powerful.
     The ending is a peaceful march and demonstration in front of the police station. Rashad is accompanied by his friends and family, and even his father joins them in the end. Quinn finds the courage to stand up to his family and friends, and also joins in the march. The demonstration ends with the crowd holding a "die in" where they all lay down on the ground to represent the black males killed or maimed by police brutality. The names of the boys killed that year are read over a bullhorn.
Sticky Topics: Violence, racism, language

Contributor: Tina Dalton, Cuba Circulating Library, Youth Services Coordinator @vulcangirl

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

Spoiler: After Matt's mother dies, he gets a part-time job working for Mr. Ray at the local funeral parlor to help his dad pay the bills and to give him something to do other than dwell on his sadness that his mother has died. To show respect, and to be able to sit in on the funerals when his work is done, he starts wearing his black suit -- every day, even to school. He likes funerals; he likes to know he isn't the only one hurting from the loss of a family member or friend, and he appreciates seeing how other people handle their grief. While Matt is working and trying to keep busy after his loss, his father has taken to drinking. Drunk one day, he gets hit by a car and is nearly killed. He ends up in a hospital with multiple broken bones. And now Matt is left alone -- his mom is dead, his dad is in the hospital; the only thing worth waking up for in the mornings is Mr. Ray and his job at the funeral home. Then he meets Lovey, who speaks at the funeral of her grandmother. Matt is drawn to her -- not just because she is pretty, but also because she doesn't really seem sad that her grandmother is gone; in fact, she almost seems happy.
Matt and Lovey start spending time together. They go to the local homeless shelter (where Lovey's grandmother used to work) to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless, and they go to the botanical garden so Lovey can show Matt her favorite flowers -- and Matt finally has something positive in his life other than his job.
By the end of the story, Matt and Lovey are on their way to becoming a couple, Matt's dad is still in the hospital getting rehabilitation for his broken legs, and Matt is learning how to deal with his grief at the death of his mom (with a little help from Lovey, of course!). Like real life, the story is left very open-ended with no definite resolutions.
Sticky Topics: Occasional use of "asshole," "damn," "hell," and "shit"; reference made to a shooting in the hallway of an apartment/condo building; drinking & drunks.

Contributor: Emily Remer, Michael E. Smith Middle School

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz

   Spoiler: This novel was cowritten by Malcolm X’s daughter and relied heavily on family accounts, letters, and his diaries. It is a fictional account of his youth, from when he was a young boy up until his 20s, when he was jailed and joined the Nation of Islam.
   Malcolm X had a tough life. His activist father was murdered when he was six years old, and his mother struggled to bring food to the table for her seven children in the middle of the depression. Malcolm learned to steal food to survive, but welfare kept a close eye on his family and he was ultimately sent to a foster home due to these behaviors. Soon afterwards, his mother was institutionalized and the rest of his young siblings were divided into foster homes. Despite this, the family remained close, having family dinners and writing letters when Malcolm moved far away.
   Malcolm was a strong student in school, but when his teacher dashed his dreams of becoming a lawyer (“You’re just a nigger.”), he becomes embittered. He decided to quit high school and moved to Roxbury (a neighborhood in Boston), to live with his half sister, and entered the world of drugs, jazz, fancy suits, and ladies. He fell in love with a white lady, but ended up leaving it all to move to Harlem. He becomes a reefer dealer and runs numbers for gamblers, relying on his cleverness and people skills to survive. The gambling is what ultimately sends him away from Harlem. A gambler boss accused Malcolm of stealing from him, though he did not. The book opens with Malcolm running for his life, but you learn later in the middle of the book that a friend, Shorty, came for him and brought him back to Roxbury for safety.
   Back in Boston, Malcolm starts breaking into wealthy homes to steal valuables with Shorty and his white girlfriend. He is caught when he brought a stolen watch to get repaired, and the police were able to find the rest of his crew. His white girlfriend testified against him in court, lessening their court sentences and leaving Malcolm feeling betrayed.
   While in prison, Malcolm’s siblings wrote him letters and visited him. One of his brothers told him to avoid cigarettes, drugs, and pork, and he’ll show him freedom. Malcolm got clean and was eager for an escape, but his brother instead talked about the Nation of Islam and how that’ll save him. Malcolm resisted at first. His father was a devout Baptist and his parents raised him to have black pride, but he left all of that when he decided to quit high school. However, he started rereading the bible and reconnects to his roots. Ultimately, he ended up joining the Nation of Islam, accepts the name Malcolm X and finds a new calling.
   The novel ends at this point, though there is a note from his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz, explaining how she wrote this fictionalized story. It also includes a few pages of historical context and summarizes the end of Malcolm’s life.
   Sticky Topics: Language and sexual references.
   Additional Comments from Contributor: Readers who enjoyed this book may want to continue on with The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Contributor: Jess Bacon, Blogger for www.5minlib.com. Follow her on Twitter @5minlib.

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Theodore Seuss Geisel Awards 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 16:08:00 +0000

Winner:

Don't Throw It to Mo! by David A. Adler

Spoiler: Mo loves to play football, but he's very small, and sometimes he has trouble holding on to the ball that Coach Steve covers with butter for practice. But when the time comes, Mo catches the ball, runs it into the end zone, and wins the game for the Robins.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Twitter @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Honor Books:

A Pig, a Fox, and a Box by Jonathan Fenske

   Spoiler: Fox likes to play tricks on Pig, but his tricks go awry and he ends up getting squashed in a box by Pig, and then squashed under a pile of rocks as a result of his own tricks. Despite his tricks backfiring, Fox and Pig are still friends.
   Sticky Topics: None.
   Additional Comments from Contributor: Rhymes!

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, @divinelibrarian, Instagram and Tumblr @librarified2004

Supertruck by Stephen Savage

Spoiler: Garbage truck is not a very exciting truck in truck world. He doesn’t rescue stuck vehicles like tow truck, he doesn’t fix power lines like bucket truck - he just takes stinky garbage away. But then a huge snowstorm hits the city. Oh no! All the trucks are stuck. Garbage truck sneaks away and then supertruck appears. Using his special snowplow, he clears all the roads and piles of snow so the other trucks are free to drive around again. Who is that masked truck? As Garbage truck slips off his plow attachment and puts back on his glasses, he just smiles to himself.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Emma, Wellesley Free Library

Waiting by Kevin Henkes

Spoiler: Waiting by Kevin Henkes is a lovely and lyrical story about five toys who live on a windowsill. Each one is waiting for something – the rain, the moon, the snow – but each is content. Life moves on around them. Sometimes their waiting is rewarded (it rains, the moon shines), sometimes one of them leaves, but is soon brought back. Life is good. One day a new toy appears – what is she waiting for? She is a Matryoshka nesting cat and is waiting for all her little cats to come out. And now all the toys live on the windowsill, content to wait.
Sticky Topics: One of the toys breaks and cannot be fixed.

Contributor: Emma, Wellesley Free Library

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Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 15:17:00 +0000

Winner:

The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney

   Spoiler: A tale of intersecting lives in the underworld of post-crash Cork, Ireland. Gang leader Jimmy Phelan is tasked with cleanup after his mother Maureen murders an intruder. His alcoholic right-hand man's son, Ryan, dwindles away a promising future and becomes a drug dealer. The murder comes back to haunt everyone, including one of Ryan's clients, a sex worker named Georgie, who finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
   Turns out Georgie's boyfriend was the one murdered by Maureen. She's led to the Phelans by a vengeful neighbor of Ryan's father, and Jimmy orders Ryan to kill Georgie. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Ryan doesn't go through with it, and instead sends Georgie away with instructions never to return.
   Sticky Topics: Graphic violence, sex, rape (including of a teenager by an adult), drug and alcohol use/abuse, and profanity

Contributor: Erin Pronovost, South Hadley Public Library

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Printz Award 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 14:56:00 +0000

Printz Award Winner:

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

Spoiler: Bone Gap Illinois is a small town where everyone knows each other. When Roza mysteriously comes to town, everyone is affected by her. One day, Roza mysteriously disappears. When Finn says that she was abducted, the townspeople think Finn has something to do with it. Meanwhile, Finn has fallen in love with Petey, the town's beekeeper/ugly girl.
   Roza wakes up and finds herself held captive in a house. When she finds a way out, she's transported to a weird town she can't escape and only has a large dog to keep her company.
   Finn, who lives with his older brother Sean who also blames him for Roza's disappearance, finds a magical horse in his garage and he and Petey go on a magical ride on the mare. One day, the horse tramples Finn and leaves him with broken ribs. While in the hospital, Petey finds out that Finn has a facial recognition disorder and she thinks that he only likes her because he can't really see how ugly she is.
   When Finn is released from the hospital, he asks his weird neighbor Charlie to help him find Roza. Charlie gives Finn clues that lead him to a cornfield. Finn crosses a small body of water and lands in a circus of hanging dead people. He finally finds Roza but her captor won't let her go because he's captivated by her beauty. Roza slashes her face and her captor lets her return to Bone Gap with Finn. Roza reveals that the horse was sent by her grandmother in Russia and she tells Finn and Sean that she needs to go home to see her grandmother. Petey confronts Finn about his disease and her theories but he claims that he loves her regardless of how she looks. Bone Gap is magical realism and a retelling of Hades and Persephone and Cupid and Psyche and Demeter. The small body of water Finn crosses is Elysium. Charlie is Zeus and is immortal. Petey and Finn are Cupid and Psyche and Roza's grandmother is Demeter.
Sticky Topics: Oral sex
      Additional Comments from Contributor: Readalike authors would be Nova Ren Suma, Kate Karyus Quinn, Andrew Smith (Alex Crow), and Rosamund Hodge (Cruel Beauty)

Contributor: Dawn Abron-Zion Benton Public Library/ @bangbangbooks

Honor Books:

Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez

Spoiler: Naomi has recently moved to New London, Texas with her twin half-siblings, Beto and Cari. Her mother is dead and her step-father (the twins' father) has taken them in. Naomi is Mexican, her step-father is white. The boy she falls in love with, Wash, is Black. Set in the 1930s, the racism is unbearable. In fact, this book is one bad thing after another - Naomi's mother is dead; it turns out Naomi's step-father had sexually molested her as a child and now is looking to try again; she is shunned and put-down at every turn by the racist townsfolk. Even her growing relationship with Wash is hardly a bright spot, given the difficulties of racism. Mexicans don't like Blacks. Blacks don't like Mexicans. Whites hate everyone. In the end, Wash is murdered, Naomi is raped and murdered, her step-father is murdered, Cari is killed when a gas line explodes and destroys half the school, and Beto barely escapes town with Wash's family. He ends up living with his grandparents, almost catatonic from loss.
Sticky Topics: Child molestation, rape, lynching, murder
Additional Comments from Contributor: It's a well-written book, and does a great job discussing the nuances of race and racism, but you'd better have a high tolerance for sadness if you read it.

Contributor: Emma, Wellesley Free Library

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick

   Spoiler: The Ghosts in Heaven is a book of four stories that are not related except in that they all deal with the theme of spirals – spirals as mystic symbols, as signs of infinity, as emblematic of the repetition of time.
   Quarter one, Whispers in the Dark, is a story told in verse about an unnamed female protagonist during the ice age. When another tribe comes and kills her people, she escapes into a cave that has drawings of spirals in it and is trapped there.
   The second quarter, The Witch in the Water, tells of Anna Tunstall during the 1600s in England. She has taken over the family business of cures and healings from her recently deceased mother. But when Father Escrove comes to the village to root out heathens and witches, suspicion falls on Anna and she is hung. As she is dying, she sees the spirals that are everywhere.
    In The Easiest Room in Hell, the third quarter, we are introduced to a young doctor of psychology in the 1920s, who has brought his daughter and come to work at a famous clinic on Long Island. We read his story through his journal entries. The clinic features a huge spiral staircase the runs all the way through the building. His daughter befriends a patient, Dexter, who is obsessed with spirals. In the end, Dexter drowns himself and the doctor reconsiders his vocation.
   Finally, in quarter four, The Song of Destiny, Bowman is a passenger on a colony ship far in the future traveling through space. His is one of six sentinels who each awaken for 12 hours every ten years to make sure the trip is going smoothly. Except things start going wrong. The other sentinels are mysteriously killed. It seems someone else is awake on the ship. And amazingly, it seems to be Bowman himself who is causing the damage. Then it gets really weird: he seems to be seeing the people from the other three stories, he sees his ship, or a duplicate of his ship. Is he locked in a space loop, repeating over and over? His doppelganger then knocks him out and steals his ship. Bowman decides to go to the surface of the planet they are orbiting. He descends on a spiral path. While there is an author’s note stating that you can read the quarters in any order, the last two pages do refer back to the first story in the collection, so you probably do want to read that part last. And is it an end that is the beginning? Or an end that is a new beginning?
   Sticky Topics: Death
   Additional Comments from Contributor: I would put this in the category of Suspense because most of the stories are a little creepy and you’re not quite sure how creepy they will get. Only the second one ends with the protagonist’s death.
   This is perhaps less a book and more of a series of meditations on meaning. It is a book that makes you think; one will need time and reflection to let it sink in. And then you will either love it or hate it, but it will stay with you either way.

Contributor: Emma, Wellesley Free Library

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Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 17:50:00 +0000

Adult Literature Winner:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Adult Literature Winner

Spoiler: The woods around are full of dark magics that threaten the villages along the edges of the kingdom, magics held at bay by a wizard known as the Dragon who takes a young woman from the villages every 10 years as tithe. Agnieszka grew up knowing that one day she would stand with the girls for selection, but that her lovely best friend would be the one selected.
Except, it turns out that Agnieszka possesses magic, and by law the Dragon is required to ensure she learns how to use it, so takes her instead. Their personalities and magical proclivities clash as they adjust to their new situations and changing relationships, both magically and personally. Situations are further strained as the Wood itself comes calling and the political and power agendas of the royals pull the Dragon and Agnieszka away from the land they protect.
Agnieszka uncovers the history of the Wood, when the Wood Queen was sealed inside the stone burial chamber with her human husband by his xenophobic family. Driven by the betrayal and imprisionment, the remnants of the Queen reside in the heart of the forest, spreading a malignant corruption into the Wood. With her aptitude for Natural magic, unlike the Courtly magic practiced throughout the realm, she begins to heal the damage, starting with a quest to the Wood Queen herself. In the end Agnieszka follows in the footsteps of a legendary "hedge witch" known as Baba Jaga, rejecting courtly "high magic" for the powerful magics that come naturally to her.
Sticky Topics: None.
Additional Comments: Highly engrossing and fantastic read. Readalikes: The Goblin Emperor, N. K. Jemisin, Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley

Contributor: Tegan, Librarian & Blogger, http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/

Children's Literature Winner:

Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon

Children's Literature Winner

Spoiler: The Minions of Castle Hangnail need a master or their beloved home will be decommissioned by the Board of Magic! 12-year-old Molly isn't quite sure what they expected as a Wicked Witch when they sent out invitations... even if she is the wicked twin. However, she does have quite witchy boots and can turn invisible when she holds her breath. Now all that she has to do is complete the tasks for full investment as Master of Castle Hangnail.
The first tasks go well, there are certainly unpleasant people in town deserving of smiting and problems (like weeds) in need of blighting, and all of that works quickly to win the hearts of the townsfolk (even if it's not in a traditional manner like keeping their hearts in jars). But a few problems remain, like the little matter of Molly's parents thinking she's at summer camp, or the real Eudaimonia (Molly's older, bossy, magic-stealing, "friend") shows up and wants to claim the castle for herself. And unlike Molly, Eudaimonia really is a proper Evil Sorceress. But with ingenuity, dedication, and help from both minions and townsfolk, Molly wins the castle and finds a way to stay-on at Castle Hangnail.

Sticky Topics: Magical duel, cruelty and emotional abuse by Eudaimonia to Molly and the Minions.
Additional Comments from Contributor: Amazingly adorable and enjoyable read! Readalike: Phoebe and her Unicorn

Contributor: Tegan, Librarian & Blogger, http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/

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Great Graphic Novels for Teens (Top Ten) 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess Bacon) — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 17:12:00 +0000

Top Ten Winners:

Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova

Spoiler: Penelope (Peppi) is a new girl at school who instantly and embarrassingly drops all of her books and things in front of everyone. They all laugh, but one boy stops to help her. The kids laughing at her now start picking on him, because he's a "nerd" and then picking on her too by association. She pushes him down and gets away from him, instantly regretting her actions. She joins Art Club. The boy (Jaime) is in Science Club. The Clubs are huge rivals, and the principal engages them in a competition. The Art Club draws comics for the school newspaper; the Science Club builds a solar plane... but the clubs sabotage each other and no one wins. Peppi and Jaime (now friends) help the two clubs figure out that they need to work together, which makes the principal happy and therefore does not close the clubs down. Very positive graphic novel with great manga-inspired art. Another bonus - hugely diverse cast of characters that do not feel forced or cliche. Author includes notes at the end on her writing and illustration process.

Sticky Topics: Bullying

Contributor: Sarah Sullivan, Nevins Library, MA. Twitter: @SarahReads2Much

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown

Spoiler: Graphic novel depicting Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, including the extremely disturbing breakdown of communication between the various emergency relief agencies and the government. The book graphically depicts the horrors suffered by survivors, including the filth and near starvation encountered by thousands in the Superdome shelter. A particularly disturbing image shows survivors being turned away at gunpoint from a neighboring community. The book ends on a sober but hopeful note with the efforts to rebuild the city slowly but surely. It also hails the efforts of volunteers and others who successfully rescued thousands from the wreckage and destruction.

Sticky Topics: Images of dead bodies floating in the filthy water or lying in the streets, also depictions of lost children, desperate parents, and pets separated from their owners at gunpoint. These images are all the more disturbing because they depict actual events. This book is appropriate for young adults and adults but not for children.
Additional Comments from Contributor: Amazing, disturbing, compelling, this is an extremely powerful graphic novel. Highly recommended. Although the topic is completely different, the artwork and the powerful social and political commentary are reminiscent of March: Book One and Book Two by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin. Another powerful book about Hurricane Katrina geared for middle-grade students is Another Kind of Hurricane by Tamara Ellis Smith.

Contributor: Renee Wheeler, Leominster Public Library

Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson (Vol. 1-2)

Spoiler: Mal, Jo, Ripley, April, and Molly are best friends who attend summer camp together, but this isn't your average summer camp! Canoe trips are beset by river monsters, werewolves roam the woods, arts and crafts turns into saving the entire camp from monsters, and fellow scout Diana is really Artemis, and she's got an epic rivalry going on with her brother Apollo, who has the neighboring boys' camp under mind-control! Counselor Jen thinks she's working at an ordinary scout camp, but the camp director knows what's really going on.

Sticky Topics: None.
Additional Comments from Contributor: Fun series, fabulous characterization, and a good intro graphic novel for newbies.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Commerce Township, MI. Twitter: @divinelibrarian

Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson (Vol. 2 & 3)

Spoiler: Kamala Khan continues trying to be the superhero that Jersey City needs, complicated by the fact that she's still in high school. Her Valentine's Day dance gets crashed by Loki, and she inherits a giant dog from the Inhumans.
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Commerce Township, MI. Twitter: @divinelibrarian

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Spoiler: Prepare yourself for one of the most adorable super-villain stories you will ever encounter.
   Nimona is the story of the conflict between the outcast Villain Lord Ballister Blackheart, his former best friend and Hero of the Institute Ambrosius Goldenloin, and the girl who happens to be a shapeshifter that befriends Blackheart.
   It's a tale where the villains may not be so bad, and the heroes not so good, all caught up in the gears of power and roles.
   Blackheart's lost his arm and his best friend when Goldenloin set off a weapon causing the debilitating injury, a task required for him to take the mantle of Hero. With Nimona's help Blackheart attempts to prove that the people have been duped and that the Institute does not have the kingdom's best interests at heart, while the Institute's Director schemes to capture Nimona for her powers. In the end, Nimona's mythological and monstrous nature is revealed in an act of self-preservation, after which she goes into hiding to the dismay of Blackheart who misses his young friend and protege. However, the Director is overthrown and Blackheart and Goldenloin reconcile.
Sticky Topics: None.
Additional Comments from Contributor: Readalikes: Lumberjanes, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Princeless

Contributor: Tegan, Librarian & Blogger, http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

Spoiler: When Astrid's mother takes her and her best friend Nicole to a roller derby match, Astrid immediately falls in love with the sport and knows she wants to be a derby girl. She signs up for junior roller derby camp, assuming Nicole will also -- being best friends, they have always done everything together -- but Nicole signs up for dance camp with another friend instead (a girl who has always been mean to Astrid). Thus begins Astrid's summer, and it's a difficult one. It takes a lot of work to be a rough and tough derby girl, and though she works very hard to improve her skating skills and earn a place on the junior roller derby team, the emotional upset of losing Nicole and lying to her mother about it, feeling like the worst player on the derby team, and struggling to make new friends takes its toll. Her inner turmoil only increases when Astrid sees Nicole out with other friends, whom she sees as rivals; she takes her frustrations out on her new derby friends, alienating them and making herself feel even worse. By the end of the story, Astrid (still not a champion derby skater) skates in a match, makes up with her new derby friends, comes clean to her mother, and starts to mend her rift with Nicole. Astrid's life is transitioning, and though she and Nicole will never be best friends again, she can accept it while she discovers a new place for herself in the world. A story of tween struggles, friendship, resilience, trying new things, growing up, and perseverance all wrapped up in the high-energy culture of roller derby.
Sticky Topics: Occasional use of "ass-turd" as a mean nickname for "Astrid."
Additional Comments from Contributor: Similar readalikes would be Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova and Drama by Raina Telgemeier.

Contributor: Emily Remer, Michael E. Smith Middle School, South Hadley

Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia

Spoiler: Ben lives in a town where all the adults have gone off to join a religious cult. The kids still go to school, but only to socialize, a local band called the Crotchmen rock the nights away in an abandoned church, and teenagers keep ending up dead. It turns out, Ben's sister Empathy is the killer. At the end of the book, the town and the cult compound are both destroyed in a massive storm.
Sticky Topics: Drug Use, Sex, Nudity, Profanity

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Commerce Township, MI. Twitter: @divinelibrarian

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North (Vol. 1-2)

Spoiler: Doreen Green is a half-squirrel woman who spent most of her life living in the Avengers' attic, but now she's starting college and juggling making new friends with fighting crime as Squirrel Girl with the proportional speed and strength of a squirrel, plus the ability to talk to squirrels.

Sticky Topics: None.
Additional Comments from Contributor: This writer/illustrator team originally worked together on Adventure Time, and that zaniness shows through here. Also take the time to read the little mini-captions at the bottom of every page! Readalikes: Adventure Time, Ms. Marvel, Matt Fraction's Hawkeye

Contributor: Elizabeth Norton, Commerce Township Community Library, Commerce Township, MI. Twitter: @divinelibrarian

A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Oima (Vol. 1-3)

Spoiler: Shoya Ishida thinks boredom is the worst thing ever. To avoid boredom he is constantly performing reckless stunts. When the new girl in school is a deaf transfer student named Shoko Nishimiya, Shoya's lack of understanding leads to bullying. Shoya bullies Shoko relentlessly for being weird and different. The teacher does nothing. And even Shoko's mother doesn't know how to deal with her daughter. At the end of volume 1 Shoya's bullying of Shoko leads to Shoko's transfer to yet another school. He also broke several of her hearing aids which his mother then had to pay for. Now Shoya's classmates have turned on him and the bully has become the bullied. Six years later as an outcast and loner, Shoya seeks to make amends before ending his life.
   In volume 2, we see how Shoya's attempt at an apology goes. He's slapped by Shoko's mother but Shoko simply says in sign language, "See you later." This leads Shoya to contemplate what being friends means. He wonders if he and Shoko are friends now and what is the definition of friend. Shoya inadvertently makes a couple new friends and Shoko's sister is introduced. More information about Shoko's family situation and her history are given as well.
   In volume 3, Shoya continues to try to be a good friend to Shoko and makes things up to her. He wants to make Shoko happy. In order to do so he tries to reconnect with the classmates she was friendly with before she transferred. This leads to more struggles for Shoya as he tries to understand Shoko and friendship. He also continues to struggle with his desire to live and his self-worth. And the reader begins to learn about Shoko's feelings for Shoya.
   At times it can be difficult to keep track of whose thoughts and feelings you are reading.
Sticky Topics: Bullying, Suicide

Additional Comments from Contributor: The series continues for four more volumes. The explorations of bullying, love, relationships, family, and duty go even deeper and become more complex.

Contributor: Amanda Brandt, Hudson Area Library, The Scribblin' Bibliophile

Trashed by Derf Backderf

Spoiler: There really isn't a plot to this book. Instead, the author has taken events from his time working on a garbage truck to illustrate some of the interesting/dangerous/disgusting/funny things that happen in the day of the trash collector. The main point of the book is to make clear the shear volume of trash that is being thrown away, what happens to it once we put it in a dumpster or on our curb, and questions the future given this information. He describes and illustrates how a landfill is created (and how much they leak or are not monitored at all), the history of a garbage truck, etc. Statistics are used well to show things like the increase of trash volume even with recycling efforts, comparing trash volume between different countries and so on. The author's note at the end provides references for the reports used to supply the statistics given throughout the book.

Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Sarah Sullivan, Nevins Library, MA. Twitter: @SarahReads2Much

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Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess) — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:09:00 +0000

Fiction Winner:

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge

Spoiler: The Lie Tree is the story of Faith Sunderly, a fourteen year-old girl struggling against the constraints of Victorian Society. Her father was a well-respected Reverend and naturalist fleeing controversy in England. He and his family have fled to the island of Vane, where he is to participate in an archaeological dig there. Faith soon learns that they are followed by scandal and her father is not the man she thought. After his death in what looks to everyone like a suicide, Faith is determined to prove her father was murdered. What she uncovers is more than meets the eye.
By reading her father's journal, she discovers the existence of a lie tree - the very plant she helped her father hide on the night of his death. Fed by lies, this plant grows a fruit that when eaten reveals truths. Faith decides to use this plant to discover the truth about her father's murder.
As Faith feeds the tree lies and works to solve the mystery of her father's murder, she learns truths about her family and the world they live in. She has long struggled against the role she is allowed as a woman. Faith wants nothing more than to be a naturalist like her father. Even the discovery of his fraud cannot stop this dream, or stop her from wanting to break all societal constraints. And yet, Faith is still a clueless, somewhat self-absorbed fourteen year-old girl. Her desperation to be loved by her cold and distant father has made it hard for her to see other points of view. This leads her to make assumptions about the parties responsible for her father's murder, bringing her closer to danger and making it harder to see the truth.
     Faith finally discovers the identity of the killer and a harsh truth about her father. The Reverend had let a man die in order to take possession of the lie tree. That man's wife has been after revenge ever since. Faith's own ignorance and the societal constraints on women led her to overlook the woman's role in the murder. In the end, the Sunderly family narrowly escapes death and her father is finally buried in the church cemetery (now that it's clear he did not commit suicide). The family leaves the island to return to Kent.
   Sticky Topics: Murder
   Additional Comments from Contributor: A good Gothic mystery with twists and turns. It's interesting to watch Faith struggle against the approved roles for women in the late 1800's.

Contributor: Amanda Brandt, Hudson Area Library, The Scribblin' Bibliophile

Nonfiction Winner:

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vitnam War by Steve Sheinkin

Spoiler: Most Dangerous follows Daniel Ellsberg from his time in school, through his military career, to his work in the government, and his leak of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. It spans the time of several presidents in office, culminating in the Nixon administration, even touching on the beginnings of the Watergate Scandal. Ellsberg goes from being pro war and working on ways to continue the Vietnam war to changing his view completely after seeing what has occurred and will continue to occur. When the chance to leak an important document arises, he made the difficult decision to give the New York Times the paper to expose the truth about the war. When the Times is ordered to stop printing the document, other newspapers step up and begin to print the rest of the Pentagon Papers as Ellsberg secretly works to get pages out. Ellsberg is ultimately put on trial and could have faced jail time, only for the trial to be thrown out. Today Ellsberg is still a proponent of freedom of speech and making sure the public is aware of what is going on in the world.
Sticky Topics: None found
Additional Comments from Contributor: This book goes in depth and covers much more than is ever taught in school.

Contributor: Erin Michelle, Malverne Public Library

Picture Book Winner:

Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph by Roxane Orgill, illustrated by Francis Vallejo

Spoiler: This book tells the story of one morning in 1958, in which photographer Art Kane decided to gather as many jazz musicians as he could find and take a photograph that would be in Esquire magazine for an article about "The Golden Age of Jazz." Once the location (a brownstone building) and the date were chosen, the invitations were sent and the word was spread, though Kane wasn't sure anyone would show up. The story of that photograph is told in a series of poems, each written in freestyle (which could be seen as a "jazzy" writing style). Most of the big names in jazz music showed up, and laughed and talked together before the photo was taken, as well as newer musicians who were excited to meet their musical idols. There were also lots of neighborhood children around - some interested, some not.
Musicians were asked to be in "some kind of formation, please." The photograph itself is a large crowd of people standing on the steps of, and in front of, a building. Neighborhood children can be seen sitting on the curb in front of the musicians, and in the building's windows. The back of the book includes a diagram of the photo showing the names of each participant, and a short biography of each.
Sticky Topics: None found.
Additional Comments from Contributor: An interesting slice of musical history.

Contributor: Kat Ealy, 5 Minute Librarian

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Nebula Award 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Jess) — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 18:48:00 +0000

Winner:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Spoiler: The woods around are full of dark magics that threaten the villages along the edges of the kingdom, magics held at bay by a wizard known as the Dragon who takes a young woman from the villages every 10 years as tithe. Agnieszka grew up knowing that one day she would stand with the girls for selection, but that her lovely best friend would be the one selected.
Except, it turns out that Agnieszka possesses magic, and by law the Dragon is required to ensure she learns how to use it, so takes her instead. Their personalities and magical proclivities clash as they adjust to their new situations and changing relationships, both magically and personally. Situations are further strained as the Wood itself comes calling and the political and power agendas of the royals pull the Dragon and Agnieszka away from the land they protect.
Agnieszka uncovers the history of the Wood, when the Wood Queen was sealed inside the stone burial chamber with her human husband by his xenophobic family. Driven by the betrayal and imprisionment, the remnants of the Queen reside in the heart of the forest, spreading a malignant corruption into the Wood. With her aptitude for Natural magic, unlike the Courtly magic practiced throughout the realm, she begins to heal the damage, starting with a quest to the Wood Queen herself. In the end Agnieszka follows in the footsteps of a legendary "hedge witch" known as Baba Jaga, rejecting courtly "high magic" for the powerful magics that come naturally to her.
Sticky Topics: None.
Additional Comments: Highly engrossing and fantastic read. Readalikes: The Goblin Emperor, N. K. Jemisin, Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley

Contributor: Tegan, Librarian & Blogger, http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/

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Coretta Scott King Author Award 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 00:53:00 +0000

Winner:

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Spoiler: Woodson creates small vignettes to tell the story of finding her own place in the world, about discovering poetry and writing and growing up in a time of change. She shares her memories as a child growing up in the 60s & 70s in "a country caught between black and white" A childhood happening in the remnants of Jim Crow Laws," and the growing Civil Rights Movement- MLK, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, and Freedom Singers. Beginning with her birth in 1963, the reader follows Jacquline's journey - being named after her father, her life in New York, visits to South Carolina, her parents fighting and divorce, moving to the south, trying to understand the animosity she feels in the south, moving back to New York, discovering the a role model in Angela Davis of the Black Panther Movement without really understanding the revolution. This is a beautiful memoir of a volatile time in history told as an adult looking back through the eyes and emotions of a young girl.
Additional Comments: It is listed as intended for grades 5 and up- I can see some upper elementary and middle graders reading this, but I feel that older readers (7th grade and up) who have a better understanding of that time in history would enjoy it more. Readers of Sharon Creech or Karen Heese (Out of the Dust) would enjoy this book.

Contributor: Sarah Bain, Chandler Library

Honor Books:

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Spoiler: This story in verse is told in the point of view of Josh, AKA Filthy McNasty. The plot revolves around his love for basketball, his twin brother JB who now has a girlfriend (Alexis/"Miss Sweet Tea"), and his retired pro-basketball player father, whose health is deteriorating but he refuses to see a doctor (his own father died in the hospital, so he doesn't trust them). Filthy struggles with the changing relationship with his brother, who now spends all his free time with his girlfriend. Their tension comes to a head at a basketball game, which Filthy nearly breaks JB's nose with a hard basketball pass. With his brother keeping an angry distance (and Filthy now suspended from the basketball team), their father's health gets worse. While playing one-on-one basketball with Filthy, he collapses, falls into a coma, and they learn that part of his heart had clogged and was damaged. Filthy struggles with this -- he was supposed to be off suspension and could play again. Life should be good, but he's furious. His father wakes on Christmas Eve but later has another heart attack right before their big Championship game. Flithy decides to play, dedicating his game to his dad. He looks over at the bleachers, sees his brother crying, and knows that his dad died. After the funeral, his brother gives him their dad's championship ring, which their dad had said to give to him. "I guess you Da Man now, Filthy," JB said. "Hey, we Da Man," Filthy corrects and let's JB take the last shot.
Sticky Topics: The father dies!
Additional Comments: Great rhythm in this book. At points, the font is larger and smaller and spaced creatively to give a fun feel to the text.

Contributor: Jessica Bacon, 5 Minute Librarian. Twitter: @5minlib

How it Went Down By Kekla Magoon

Spoilers: Tariq Johnson, a young black boy from Underhill, is gunned down by a white bystander, Jack Franklin, as he comes out of a convenience store. Told in multiple perspectives, each paragraph a different character effected by Tariq's death, Kekla highlights the sensationalism of media portrayal of the recent string of white-on-black shootings. Tariq's friends each have a different perspective, but it turns out... Tariq was just getting some milk for home, and some candy for his disabled sister, Tina. And the shopkeeper that was shouting after him wasn't shouting "Stop, Thief!"... he was shouting "Hey, Tariq!" And... it turns out there wasn't a gun, he was just being hassled by his gang members friends and he wanted to shrug them off to get home to his sister. It's slowly revealed that Tariq received the knife from the Kings, and it's up to the reader to decide whether he was going to join the gang after all. But the reader has already seen that it was not Jack, the shooter, that was really put on trial-- but Tariq, who was examined thoroughly for everyone to see and judge.
Sticky Topics: Strong themes on gang violence, and criticism of the establishment
Additional Comments: A must read.

Contributor: Ricci Yuhico, @heylibrariangal, Teen Librarian at the Main Library of Broward County Library

How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson

Spoilers: "How I Discovered Poetry" is described by the author as a late-career retrospective, a personal memoir, a "portrait of the artist as a young American Negro Girl." However, it is important to note that while the girl's life is very similar to the author's, many of the incidents are not entirely or exactly the author's "memories"; they were enhanced by research and imagination. Regardless, the whole book (fifty unrhymed sonnets) is a great retrospection into the decade of the 1950s, through the eyes of a child (ages 4-14). Nelson intended each poem to have a "hole" or "gap" in the speaker's understanding, allowing her to grow and mature, and leaving the text rich for thought and discussion.
The speaker senses the tension and racism, and is even called a few racist names (in one instance, she responds by forcing a see-saw to crash down and ends up breaking the offending girl's arm). However, her innocence comes through, like when she's at a camp in Maine with white girls and no one understands why integrating schools is a big deal. When her mother comments that some of the greatest wrongs are being righted for their people, she wonders "Who is not my people?". Her father is an air force pilot, so her family moves a lot due to his transfers. They move between many areas of the country and experience varying degrees of racism. Almost every time they move, they give up the family dog. Death is only mentioned once in the book, when her cousin dies due to an illness. She only has one black friend, Helene, who is a year older. As the speaker lives her life, she listens to the radio and hears about Sputnik, Little Rock, and the other big events of that time period. The only time she shows anger is toward her annoying little sister, Jennifer, when she tosses Jennifer's paper dolls into the fire. As the speaker gets older, she sees more racism. Her 7th grade class votes down a class party to the local theater because "negroes are only allowed to sit in the balcony". Her mother is very proud of all the progress America is making in accepting blacks, and talks a lot about "Negro Firsts," as in the first African American to get this job, or win a trophy, or to attend the school in their town. They are making history, she says.
In 1959, Miss Jackson loans her poetry books that sends her head whirling with words. But it wasn't until a year later that she realizes she wants to be a poet when she listens to her teacher read a poem. "It was like soul-kissing, the way the words filled my mouth as Mrs. Purdy read from her desk." Her teacher, unfortunately, sees the tears in her eyes and the next day, makes her read a racist poem filled with "banjo-playing darkies, pickaninnies, disses and dats." It is horrifying (she hopes there is a hell for people like Mrs. Purdy) but it also leaves her in awe of the power of words. In the last sonnet of the book, she looks in the mirror and sees a poet, and is "overcome with a feeling of awe and responsibility when wielding the power of words."
Sticky Topics: None.

Contributor: Jessica Bacon, 5 Minute Librarian. Twitter: @5minlib