Here are all the books I managed to read in the last few days of March, those days after the 28th but before April started.
Thankfully, this Alan Gratz novel worked a lot better for me than the last one that I read, Two Degrees. This one still had to contend with the over-saturation of WWII related books which diminished my enjoyment of the reading experience just a little bit. Gratz still managed, though, to tell a compelling story that dealt with hard issues that some in this category may glass over. The main character lives on Pearl Harbor Naval Base along with
his best friend who is half-Japanese. Both of their dads fly military plans in the Navy. (At this time, the Air Force did not exist as a separate branch of the military.) He wishes that he weren’t so afraid of everything, likely a trauma response to an incident that occurred at a previous base. When faced with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the events of which take up the majority of the narrative, the main character must confront his often immobilizing fear to survive and to help those around him, to become a “hero.” He also sees – and is disgusted by – the immediate distrust of his mixed race friend and his Japanese mother and starts to learn how to be an ally rather than fall into the “white savior” trap. Overall though, Gratz did a really good job with this narrative.
The author wrote this story with her own daughter, who also has crohn’s disease which brings authenticity to this story about a young girl trying to recover from previous trauma (the death of her father) while also navigating what she calls “the Knife.” She thinks that this is possibly a response to all of her complex emotions but it turns out to be crohn’s disease. The authors told the story well, not shying away from the deep difficult
responses that arise in the main character as she tries to navigate this life in a new town (they moved to her new stepdad’s home), her love of baking and participating in a contest that her dad supported her in the first time, and trying to make new friends, all while her gut constantly betrays her.
I can see why this book won the Newberry award. The majority of the narrative takes place in late summer 1999, a time I remember well since at that time I was only a year or so older than the main character. (That makes it historical fiction for the target age range; yes, I feel old saying that.) The other, much smaller portions, take place approximately 200 years in the future, written in transcript format which is the only
downside to the audiobook. (The narrator ends up reading out the names of the speaking character each time someone new speaks.) The main character (say it with me … whose name I have forgotten) spends the summer worrying about the possible impending Y2K crisis, stockpiling shoplifted canned goods, making sure to have some of his mom’s favorites. He also worries about, and feels responsible for their lack of money, blaming himself for his mom’s firing from her former job because she stayed home to take care of him when he had the flue; she now works three jobs to make ends meet. Enter into the picture a new character who should not be there, a character who came from the other timeline on a dare, and because he wanted to see a real mall. Together, along with the main character’s only slightly older babysitter/crush, they try to fulfill the time traveler’s wish and to help him return home. This story was beautiful and brilliant. I love how Entrada Kelly wove all of this together.
Korman has a knack for telling slightly absurd, school based ensemble stories. He does it again here and does it well. Thanks to a new state law stating that unless a student passes 8th grade PE, they cannot advance to high school, a whole bunch of kids find themselves in summer school for PE that one would not expect to be there, like Yash, the standout ball player of the entire town whose schedule was tailor-made with PE at the end
of the day so he could travel over to the high school and play on the JV team. I loved watching how Korman developed each character and their arc, bringing them together in a highly satisfying way. Korman did such a good job with this that I was able to put aside the part of my brain that fixates on what schools would actually do. That’s significant.
This book is heavy. In this novel, the main character, Kyra, lives with her mom, a recovering alcoholic five years sober. She also participates in a support group for other teens and pre-teens like herself along with her best friend who’s father continues to struggle with his sobriety and is not actively in her life. Her friend’s mom has remarried Kyra’s mom’s childhood best friend so the two families do a lot together. Kyra constantly
worries that her mom may relapse and worries when she starts to see subtle signs. The novel walks through this tough time with Kyra and her support system showing the good, the bad, and the ugly. Though this is definitely a tough read, I still recommend it not only because Zarr writes incredibly well but also because the representation is desperately needed.
This book is a collection of short stories, most of them contemporary although it does include a handful of fantastical or magical realist entries. I do not read many collections like this so I do not have a reference point. However, I really enjoyed the vast majority of the entires in this collection written by some incredibly talented authors, only a handful of whom I had not read from before but hope to rectify that soon. I loved how each author
created these diverse, strong girls, powerful in their own unique ways. I highly recommend this collection.
This book blew my expectations out of the water. I did not expect much when I saw the premise of a post-apocalyptic survival story. The novel told the story of two step-siblings carrying for their mutual half-brother after a massive solar flare plunged the planet into the apocalypse. The book opens with them burying the father/stepfather, aka the only adult left in their life. The two kids are incredibly different and often clash but they
end up working together to care for their one year old brother while trying to find the grandmother of one of the kids. If the narrative had remained a scrappy, fairly solitary survival story, I probably would not have cared for it. Thankfully, Edgmon uses on of my favorite tropes, found family, to transform the story which fully sucked me in and made me care for all these characters far more than I expected.
For most of this narrative, I mildly enjoyed this quirky story with fairly anthropomorphic cats (made that way through magic) and probably would have ended up rating the book a low 4 stars. However, the way that the author chose to characterize the villain and at least one of the cats did not really make much sense. The author also chose to skyrocket the stakes quite unexpectedly at the end of the novel with some clear deus ex
machina brought in to save the day which, unfortunately soured my reading experience.
This book deals with some incredibly difficult topics, topics which will make this book way too difficult for many adults and kids to read, namely harm to animals. Huge trigger warning for this. Reno told the story masterfully though. She created an authentic 12 year old dealing with a mother missing for five years at this point. She, her grandmother, and her father, have to deal with accusations that the mom just ran off while also holding
their breath every time remains of a Native American woman in that age range are found. The main character also feels additional pressure because she has not found her mom even though she seems to have the ability to find everything else. This novel starts with her searching for a small dog that tends to run away but this time something far more serious happens and even more occurs to other small animals and pets. I think this is an excellently written book. I would simply make sure to make clear trigger warnings.
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