Aftershocks, by Marisa Reichardt

Ruby can't deal with her mother starting to date her water polo coach.  She can't deal with her best friend Mila, whose life is going off the rails and into the bottle.  Even her boyfriend Leo is too much for her these days.  How much worse can it get?

Her answer comes at the laundromat, where she's in the process of getting a cute guy to go next door and buy her beer when the the walls start to shake and the world around her collapses.  It's an earthquake  (not so unusual in SoCal) and it's unlike anything Ruby's ever seen before.  With the foresight to shelter under a table as the building collapses, Ruby survives but finds herself trapped under the rubble.  Charlie, the guy she with whom was just talking, is similarly pinned down nearby.  Suddenly none of her problems seem that big of a deal.  Now she needs to stay alive.

Reichardt's story of survival after the Big One paints a fairly realistic portrayal of the disaster and its accompanying chaos.  As a story of Ruby's struggle for survival and reunion with her family and friends, it makes for an entertaining adventure.  It does less well at trying to address Ruby's life reprioritizations and how the trauma of living through the earthquake changes her life.  That it changes Ruby is very clear in the end, but Reichardt struggles with how to show that evolution and ends up simply making it so.  It is the process of that evolution that is so important to the success of the story and quite a cheat to simply skip ahead to the result.  There's some attempt through flashback to show the precedents for her growth, but without the growth itself, these segments seem wasted and distracting.  Similarly wasted is Ruby's boyfriend Leo, of whom she spends far less attention than she does over Charlie.

The Year of the Witching, by Alexis Henderson

Thanks to Hulu, the true political subtlety of Margaret Attwood's Handmaid's Tale was long ago lost to the spectacle of exaggerated misogyny.  On its face, Henderson's debut novel seems to want to travel down that same blunt force approach to politics by creating a religious dystopia where women suffer for no other reason than because men can get away with making them do so.  With the blurbs on the back of the book, that's certainly the way the publisher is marketing this novel.  But Attwood's condemnation of Reagan's neoconservatism and reborn American exceptionalism was always more than a dystopian fantasy novel and Henderson's subtle and engrossing book is similarly more than the sum of its parts.  They are similar works, but not for the reasons that are immediately apparent.

In Bethel, the Prophet's interpretation of the Father's Will and the Holy Scriptures is law.  Along with his trusted Apostles, these men rule over the people, keeping order and surrounding them with fear of the outside and of the encroaching Darkwood forest.  No one dares to enter the forest, which is still teeming with the witches that Bethel's founder beat into submission ages ago.  Certainly, shepherdess Immanuelle would never venture there on her own free will.  But one day, chasing after a runaway ram, she is forced to enter it and is accosted by two witches who hand her a gift -- a journal belonging to her mother Miriam (who died in childbirth).  The book is full of forbidden writings and Immanuelle devours the book for glimpses of her mother's life.  Miriam, who had enjoyed the trust and love of the Prophet fell from grace due to infidelity.  For her actions, Miriam was persecuted, but not before setting up a terrible retribution of four plagues that now Immanuelle has unwittingly unleashed.

The plagues though are really the natural consequence of the betrayals, jealousies, fears, and hatreds that underpin the dangerous and ultimately unsustainable status quo.  As Bethel itself unravels, Immanuelle becomes the only one who can make it right, but doing so will require knowledge that she doesn't have, the assistance of people who refused to help, and mercy from people unaccustomed to granting it.  Can she succeed where no one else wants her to?

Dark and complex, there's a lot to chew on in this book.  I found it too gory and bloody for my tastes, so I wouldn't recommend it if copious descriptions of bodily fluids are not your thing, but it is a compelling story.  There is a complex back story that supports the twisted and overlapping contemporary alliances that drive the story and make it interesting (and difficult to fairly summarize).  This isn't a great book for developing sympathetic characters, but it is definitely good for creating really detestable villains.  Immanuelle herself becomes ultimately a dark anti-hero, but in the more ambiguous background of Trumpian politics, this works surprisingly well.

What We Found in the Corn Maze and How It Saved a Dragon, by Henry Best

Ever since the DavyTron (which can convert tomato juice into any delicious vegetable you want) came out, the family farm stands of the world have been going out of business.  Cal's family is one of those threatened with foreclosure if they can't make enough money on their corn maze (although some of their troubles date back to Cal's unfortunate accident with the family's Fireball 50 harvester that left it a charred wreck).  Cal could really use a miracle or at least a bit of magic.

And magic is what literally rolls by his astonished eyes when he and his friend Drew witness spare change rolling uphill on the ground in front of them.  They follow the errant coins to their neighbor Modesty, who has learned how to cast a spell that retrieves lost change.  It's one of many spells in a notebook that Modesty discovered in her locker, none of which seem terribly useful.  The spells can only be cast at certain times of day and have limited functions like opening a stuck jar lid or picking something up without having to bend over.  

Be that what it may, soon enough the three children find themselves on an adventure to a parallel world called Congroo, which is full of magic.  All is not well there.  A strange force is draining Congroo of magic, leading to global cooling, and it all points back to an evil magician named Oöm Lout.  The DavyTrons back in our world are part of this plan and the kids set out to save Congroo and coincidentally save the family farm by shutting down the DavyTrons.

A wild rollicking adventure that touches on themes of bullying and climate change, but it ultimately just good plain lighthearted romp with magic and dragons.  The story is full of puns and inside jokes for all ages.  So when you've had enough dystopian stories about abused children and just want to have a smart funny adventure, pick this one off the new releases shelf!

He Must Like You, by Danielle Younge-Ullman

Perry Ackerman is a known pest.  All of the waitresses at The Goat know that he'll try to get his hands all over them given the opportunity.  So, Libby knows what she's up against when she has to wait his table.  But he's a good tipper and Libby can usually handle him.  However, things haven't really been normal for her.  Her college fund has disappeared and her parents are going to unceremoniously eject her from the house so they can rent her bedroom out for an Airbnb.  So, she needs the job and she needs the tip, but not enough to put up with the creep's pawing.  When he goes too far, she shocks everyone by dumping his drink over his head.  The repercussions of her action have even more surprising consequences.

Like the middle grade book Maybe He Just Likes You, this novel explores the social intricacies of sexual harassment.  Aimed at teenagers, the approach is far more complex and the author brings up a wide range of issues from family violence to workplace harassment (especially in the service sector) to racial violence.  As it turns out, Perry Ackerman is hardly the first male with whom Libby has had to negotiate matters of consent and the novel serves as a useful primer on a wide variety of issues revolving around consent in general.  Libby's toxic family and the story around them seems initially unrelated and distracting, but gets neatly tied into the story by the time we reach a gratifying conclusion.  It's a lightning fast and entertaining read about a serious subject and all ages can benefit from it.

Across the Pond, by Joy McCullough

By an unusual chain of events, Callie's family find themselves heirs to a castle in Scotland.  While renovating it will present quite a few challenges, the family decides to leave San Diego and move in.  For Callie, this is far more than a change of scenery, it's chance for a restart.  Her friends have abandoned her and no one will talk to her, ever since she got blamed for getting them all in trouble.  There's nothing she'll miss when she goes and everything to gain by going someplace where no one knows her or her past.

While living in a castle sounds very exotic and exciting, it's really just a dilapidated and very drafty old building.  And not terribly comfortable to boot!  Also, while she hopes that being an exotic American will give her special cachet, she realizes quickly that kids are basically the same and that nothing will fix her fear of going through the same trauma all over again. Her parents, concerned that she's not making friends, deliver an ultimatum that she needs to join a club.  She doesn't play sports or a musical instrument and the idea of being around strangers terrifies her.  In desperation, she tries the local birdwatchers club, but the sexism of the group's leader drives her away.  Still, when she learns that Lady Philippa (the old woman who lived in the castle before them) was an avid birder all of her life, Callie is inspired to follow in her footsteps.  Along with the granddaughter of her groundskeeper and a helpful local librarian, they compete in a Big Day contest against the established club.

There are lots of great ideas in this book, but it's terribly busy.  Is the book about Callie confronting her fears of standing up for what is right ever again?  Is it about the ways that her life mirrors the life of the Lady Philippa (whose story is told in the pages of a diary that Callie finds)?  Is it about helping the gardener's granddaughter come out of her shell?  Is it about girls taking charge and defeating the boys in the contest?  And that's not even covering the inclusion of some trauma involving a cat or the dangerous and forbidden castle keep -- both of which are underutilized as plot devices.  There is, in sum, plenty to talk about here but a plethora of ideas doesn't make a story.  Charming but rudderless.

Poisoned, by Jennifer Donnelly

Sophie is a good princess, but she won't make a good queen, so says her stepmother and anyone else who dares to speak of the matter aloud.  She's none too bright and far too timid and soft to be a leader.  She lacks the will to make difficult decisions and punish the people who could hurt her.  Proving her stepmother's point, Sophie is led by her huntsman into the woods and he cuts out her heart.  And so she dies.

"Mirror mirror on the wall!  Who will be the source of my downfall?" the Queen commands.  But despite the fact that Sophie has been disposed of, the mirror insists that it is the princess who is to be the cause of the Queen's demise.  But how can this be?

You'll have to read the novel to find out.

Donnelly's Stepsister was a clever, witty, and ultimately poignant reinterpretation of Cinderella. Here, she takes on Snow White.  But while the formula is intoxicating, the result is less impressive this time out.  Part of the reason for this failure is that the point of the story is a mixture of messages (the importance of confronting fear, the strength of kindness, and the value of ignoring naysayers) that never really gels.  Nor is the revelation that a Grimms tale can be told this way all that revelatory.  Sophie is nice, but she makes an uncompelling heroine.  She goes through a number of transformations, but is a slow learner.  Her most common response is the wail that her friends are dead (people die often and repeatedly in this story).  And having set up a very convoluted plot with at least two enemies to vanquish, Connelly has to rush the ending to accomplish it all.  The last fifty pages are mere sketches of a story.

The Sea in Winter, by Christine Day

Maisie's plans of becoming a ballerina are sidetracked when she sustains a knee injury in class.  While there is some optimistic news from her physical therapist that she still might be able to practice again, Maisie struggles with depression.  All of her friends were in ballet class and now that she can't participate, they seem to have deserted her.  By no small irony. the girl who talked her into trying the dangerous pose that injured her is now headed off to New York for a summer program.  She will realize her dreams, while Maisie is stuck in Tacoma.  When a later tragic setback cements the fact that Maisie's career is probably finished, she falls back on a counselor, her family, and her rich Indigenous American traditions for support.

A promising book full of fine ingredients but that fails to deliver.  The story of dealing with injury and the struggle for a comeback is great dramatic material but is undeveloped and unexplored.  The injury happened, but without any sort of special note.  The fact that her friends have moved on and that Maisie is having trouble dealing is noted, but not used in the story in any particular way.  And while she mopes a little when it seems her career is over, the author simply skips over her counseling.  She simply doesn't find the story worth telling.

Moreover, Maisie seems largely secondary to the story.  There are long digressions about the mother's life story and various elements of recent Native American history.  All of which is actually fascinating, but is never tied in to the story.  It's as of the author really wanted to write a story about the mother or a non-fiction book about the Makah tribe in the Olympic Peninsula, which makes you wonder why she chose this half-hearted attempt at a story about recovery.

Goodbye from Nowhere, by Sara Zarr

Kyle has has an idealized notion of his family as a perfect gathering of different people united by love, best illustrated by the noisy messy gatherings of his extended tribe at his grandparents' farmhouse.  It's such a warm place and Kyle proudly shows it off to his girlfriend (as well as proudly showing her off to them) at Thanksgiving.

But then his father drops a bombshell on him; his mother is having an affair with another man.  Kyle responds by cutting off his friends,  ghosting his girlfriend, and quitting baseball.  Unable to tell anyone or confide in his friends, he turns to his cousin and eventually his siblings.  While his parents try to keep the affair a secret and fail miserably to keep their marriage together, the whole thing tears Kyle apart.  To put the icing on Kyle's miserable cake, his grandparents have decided to sell the farm.  And so now the whole family -- some in the know but most not -- are converging for a final family gathering.

An emotionally complicated story of family with some impressive nods to Russian literature.  The overall message is not so much a Tolstoyan tale of unhappy families, as it is about how families are really webs of imperfect people behaving imperfectly.  Kyle's idealism may take a hit, but in the end he comes out with a healthier understanding of what is reasonable and unreasonable to expect from family.  At the same time, the novel really does have a Russian feel to it -- an enormous cast of diverse characters who each deal with each other in unique ways.  I always have trouble keeping up with large casts, but in this case, it's really the dynamic of that large family that is the point.  Zarr does a superior job making the whole thing work.

Amelia Unabridged, by Ashley Schumacher

Amelia and Jenna are obsessed with N. E. Endsley's Orman Chronicles.  For Amelia, the books are a source of comfort since her father left and her mother withdrew.  For Jenna, who has the loving parents and wealth that Amelia lacks, the books are simply something to bond them together.  She enjoys bossing Amelia around and Amelia, happy to be pleasing, does what her friend tells her to do.

When it is announced that Endsley will be appearing at a local book festival, the girls have to go.  Jenna's parents get them VIP passes so their be able to meet the author and get their books signed.  But things at the festival don't go well.  Endsley cancels and Jenna betrays Ashley in a way that leaves them broken apart.  And then, before they can mend their relationship, Jenna is killed in a car accident.  Reeling from the tragedy, Amelia withdraws.  Despite Jenna's parents' attempt to draw Amelia out, eh loses her interest in reading or pretty much anything else.  

A mysterious package arrives for Amelia with something in it that should not exist.  Following clues left on the package, Amelia impulsively travels to a bookstore across the country.  There, she finds out what happened for real at that ill-fated book festival and a lot more.  By the end of a week-long stay, she comes to an important crossroads where she'll have to decide whose life she wants to live.

A creative and complex romance and coming of age story.  The writing is beautiful, the characters deep, and the story well-developed and fresh.  But I still found myself unmoved.  I enjoyed reading the book, but the subject matter didn't engage me.  I love reading, but I don't swoon over bookstores or book authors and Schumacher presumes that her readers will.  The book's epilogue, with its hypothetical suggestions of what is to come, nicely encapsulates the gauzy vision that the author seems to like.  It's a pretty style but it doesn't make commitments.

Four Days of You and Me, by Miranda Kenneally

Lulu and Alex have a way of coming together and breaking apart, but whenever they are apart, they ache to get back together.  In a story that traverses four years of high school, but which focuses on four class trips, we track the ebbs and flows of that relationship.  The class trips start modest (local science museum and amusement part) and grow increasingly elaborate (New York City and London).  The relationship grows correspondingly complex.

Lulu and Alex try to manage their fleeting interests in others and the competing claims of their career aspirations (he wants to play baseball and she wants to become an author of graphic novels).  If their career goals seem unrealistic, their relationship seems even more so.  Mostly, they don't seem to be able to keep their hands off of each other (which has an embarrassing habit of making them late for all of their class outings) but they are too emotionally immature to really mean the earnest commitments they make to each other.  Thankfully, the story ends before they do anything stupid.

It's a brisk and easy read, but the lack of an honest spark between Lulu and Alex and the sheer annoying quality of their self-centered personalities makes this a hard romance to swoon over.  The story's timeline ebbs and flows backways and forwards.  Sometimes that works, other times it gets distracting.  Kenneally packs in lots of amusing anecdotes which she has collected, but they feel exactly like that (i.e., anecdotes stuffed in to fill out the story and provide some amusement).  The  moments don't really fit in the story.  Some elements (like the student group from Italy) seem largely thrown away.  In sum, a readable but largely disposable romance.

The Poetry of Secrets, by Cambria Gordon

Isabel loves literature and runs risks sneaking out to listen to poetry recitals.  But for her family, recently converted to Christianity to protect themselves from anti-Semitism, life is far too dangerous to run risks.  For while life for the Jews is hard, the conversos are distrusted  even more and subject to much of the same violence.

Isabel has been betrothed to a lawman, who will be powerful enough to protect her, but she doesn't love him.  Instead, her heart belongs in secret to the son of the tax collector.  If that betrayal should ever become known, her fiancé could easily destroy her family -- all the more so when the Grand Inquisitor shows up in their town.

The second historical novel set in 15th century Spain at the time of the expulsion of the Jews that I have read this month. Unfortunately, that makes it hard not to draw comparisons between this one and Larson's (reviewed on April 25th).  Larson's book, while it had a number of anachronisms, makes more of an attempt to recount history and is mor of a survival story.  Here, the focus is on the romance between Isabel and her forbidden love and less on family.  This adds some heat to Gordon's story, but I think I prefer the suspense of Larson's novel.  Either book will give you a good feel for the basics of the historical context, so it's really a matter of your preference for romance or adventure.

Sparrow, by Mary Cecilia Jackson

Sparrow is a gifted dancer about to achieve her dream of starring in Swan Lake.  And she's caught the eye of rich and handsome Tristan King, who's become her first boyfriend.  But within a few months, things are going to hell.  Tristan treats her badly and when she tries to break up with him, he brutalizes her and leaves her for dead in the woods.  Her dance partner Lucas, wracked with guilt for not intervening forcefully enough before the assault, throws his own career into a tailspin by trying to administer vigilante justice.  Both of them hit rock bottom and have to learn how to put together their own lives, instead of trying to fix others.

In short, a grueling and ultimately unfulfilling story about rebirth and rebuilding.  Jackson knows how to stage out a traumatic scene and create characters that are deeply hurt, but she doesn't know how to tell the story about how they got there.  Rather than show the descent into hell or the healing to recovery, she simply jumps ahead (a few days, weeks, or months) until we are at the desired result.  Thus, we go from Sparrow and Tristan's first kiss directly to him smacking her around, with no transition and no explanation for why Sparrow stuck around.  The recovery is just as abrupt.  I don't mind reading traumatic stories, but that's because I want to see the process of recovery.  Simply being recovered at the end of the novel is not enough.

The other issue are the characters.  Both Sparrow and Lucas ought to be sympathetic protagonists, given the amount of suffering that they have endured, but they really are not.  Lucas, in particular, has an uncontrolled temper that goes way beyond a fleeting rush of anger.  He's downright pathological (and scary).  Sparrow's grief eventually gets explained, but it's frustrating and hardly as heroic as all the other characters profess it to be.  Perhaps this is realistic, but it's not inspirational.  In order to have a story about horrible things happening to nice people they have to be nice in the first place.

Deepfake, by Sarah Darer Littman

At Greenpoint High, nobody knows more about who is doing whom or who got in trouble than the anonymous poster of Rumor Has It.  For years, the blog has been posting the juiciest gossip.  And while no one wants to be a subject of the blog, everyone likes to read it.  All the more so when the gossip involves the two smartest seniors in the school.

Dara and Will have been neck and neck for the valedictorian spot and, for at least the past couple of months, they have also been secretly dating.  When their secret is blown by Rumor Has It, no one is more surprised (and hurt) than Will's best friend MJ.  She can't believe that Will wouldn't confide in her.  Coupled with her recent rejection by her first choice school, life really seems to be going downhill fast for MJ!

But even MJ's issue pale in comparison to the trouble caused when Rumor Has It posts a video that shows Dara accusing Will of cheating on his SATs.  Will's spectacularly improved SAT scores come under scrutiny and he finds his own college chances now in jeopardy as he struggles to clear his name.  Given that she's his girlfriend, why would Dara even make such an accusation? She claims she never said the words, even though everyone can see from the video that she did.

A clever story that takes the controversy around deepfake technology and places it in a high school milieu.  Some elements of the story are a bit of a stretch, but Littman has crafted a fun mystery that starts off with a bang.  The middle drags, but the story picks up again at the end as the blogger behind Rumor Has It falls into their sights.  This isn't classical literature and it will age very poorly, but it is an entertaining quick read and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

A Ceiling Made of Eggshells, by Gail Carson Levine

Loma loves little children.  Living in a big family, Loma has plenty of younger siblings and nieces and nephews to take care of.  While she is young, she dreams of getting married and having many of her own.  When she asks Belo, her grandfather, he always demurs.  She's his favorite granddaughter and an indispensable traveling companion on his trips. She takes care of him during their travels and he refuses to let her leave him.  And he, in turn, has become an essential player in protecting the Jews of Spain, which makes her just as indispensible.

It's the fifteenth century and Jews live uneasily alongside the gentiles on the Iberian Peninsula, but that is about to change.  For little Loma, there is her longing to keep her family together and one day start one of her own, but the bigger existential concerns are overtaking such fragile dreams.

An exciting historical novel that is more entertainment than history.  It gives readers a sense of the key features of the period (the ever-present fear of anti-Semitic violence, the role of social status, and some elements of everyday life), but Levine isn't terribly attached to the need to achieve painstaking accuracy.  She has a story to tell with a strong and independent heroine who is quick on her feet and sharp witted.  With a large cast of characters and a timeline that lurches forward in service of keeping up the pace, Levine doesn't put much into any one of them.  Even Loma and her grandfather, who are the central players, never really develop their relationship.  Loma is devoted to Belo and while she occasionally expresses resentment, those feelings are not explored.  That keeps the pace going, but makes the book unremarkable.

When You Know What I Know, by Sonja K. Solter

After Tori's uncle touches her in a bad way, she wants to be a good girl and tell an adult, but she has trouble getting the words out.  Her mother initially doubts her story and her grandmother steadfastly refuses to believe that Uncle Andy would ever do something like that! Surely, she has misunderstood!

Thankfully, Tori's mother does see the truth and does the right things in the end, but none of it really addresses the mixture of pain, guilt, and anger that Tori feels.  Telling is hard and more so since Tori doesn't feel that anyone is really listening.  Even her best friend misinterprets Tori's withdrawal as an attack.  And when her father reaches out and offers to take her away, she realizes that he is only using the incident as an excuse to try to regain custody and hurt her mother.

Heartbreaking and poignant, the story is insightful and grasps many of the nuances of childhood sexual abuse.  However, it suffers from the author's decision to tell the story in verse.  As I never tire of mentioning, verse novels can be very powerful but they face a steep challenge in trying to convey complexity in sparse exposition.  The text is pretty, but that isn't really the message that is needed here.  We struggle to really get inside the heads of the characters who wax poetic but never really get the opportunity to bare their souls.

It's Kind of a Cheesy Love Story, by Lauren Morrill

Beck has spent the first sixteen years of her life trying to live down her notoriety as the girl who was born in the bathroom of the local pizza joint.  Sure, being the "Hot n' Crusty Baby" earned her free pizza for life, but it's not exactly something she wants to be known for.  She's trying to fit in and play down the embarrassing facts about her life and this hardly helps!  But she needs work and, in addition to the free pizzas, the boss of the restaurant promised her a job when she turned sixteen.  So, here she is answering phones and greeting customers at the site of her birth!

Afraid of what her cooler friends will think, she tries to hide the fact that she's working at Hot n' Crusty.  That gets hard as her long hours interfere with her ability to hang out and as she finds that she likes her co-workers (and the dark and distant delivery driver Tristan in particular).  She has fun at work and with her new friends, but she remains worried about what each group will think of the other and so she holds the two worlds apart.

Inevitably, she finds that she can't really separate them and, faced with losing both sets of friends, she has to stand up for who she is and stop trying to be what others think she should be.  The shocking realization that she was the only one who really cared about her image is an eye opener and everything ends up just fine.

It's sweet and entertaining, but light on substance.  The characters are largely stock and the situations recycled from other teen romances.  It is striking that everyone's pretty nice to each other.  You won't find any mean girls in this book! That makes for gentle reading but also very little drama.  Harmless, but also pointless.

When Life Gives You Mangos, by Kereen Getten

Ever since the last hurricane hit, Clara has had trouble remembering what happened last summer, but she senses it must be a bad thing because of the way other people in the village look at her.  Even her best friend Gaynah doesn't seem to want to be her best friend anymore.  About the only person getting as many sidewise looks as she is getting is her uncle, who lives alone up the hill and who Pastor Brown calls "the devil."

Her coastal village in Jamaica is a quiet and boring place.  The tourists who come to surf it consider it exotic, but nothing ever happens here.  So, when a new girl shows up from America, Clara is excited to show off the sights to her.  She just hopes that she can do so before Gaynah interferes and wins over the girl for herself.

Packed full of culture and local flavor, this debut novel creates a vivid image of life in a poor Jamaican coastal community.  The story it tells is terribly complicated however, involving historical animosities and suppressed regrets, and it compounds it all with a major twist towards the end that reframes most of the story.  That complexity makes this short book worthy of a re-reading or two to get full enjoyment and appreciation.  I did not find it compelling enough to return to, but I did enjoy the insight into Jamaican life.

American as Paneer Pie, by Supriya Kelkar

Being the only South Asian in her school has always been difficult.  Lekha has managed it by keeping a low profile -- ignore the teasing, smile when someone asks an offensive question, and play down the differences.  So what if the other kids don't understand the importance of Diwali?  Or if they make fun of the food you eat?  But even though Lekha thinks she manages pretty well to fit in, it's hard to say that she's happy, but she consoles herself with the idea that it's a decent way to get by.

When a new Indian girl named Avantika moves in nearby and she turns out to be Indian herself, Lekha is excited to no longer be alone.  And she is determined to help Avantika keep a low profile as well and help her fit in.  But to her surprise the girl has totally different ideas.  She isn't afraid to stand up for herself and confronts their classmates' prejudices head on.  With a bravado that Lekha has never been able to manage, Avantika puts her appeasement to shame.  Hurt and embarrassed, Lekha betrays the girl.

Then a series of racially-motivated attacks (one involving family friends far away and the other incident very close to home) open Lekha's eyes to the importance of standing up for yourself and not allowing people to shame you into pretending to be someone that you are not.  Lekha feels compelled to act and finds her voice.

While at times preachy, Kelkar's story of a young woman's search for identity and for self-confidence is a natural heart-warmer.  One hopes that its descriptions of a nativist race-baiting politician will become dated, but the overall story about being proud of who you are and the importance of standing up for yourself will never grow old.  You don't have to be a South Asian kid to relate to the story:  Anyone who has ever been reluctant to defend yourself for fear of "offending" others knows very well the pain that Lekha goes through and how difficult it is to overcome that fear.

How to Be a Girl in the World, by Caela Carter

It may be hot outside, but the only way that Lydia is going to be comfortable is by covering every inch of exposed skin.  She's roasting, of course, but ever since boys started teasing her about her body in sixth grade, she's been unable to be in the presence of boys or men without being wrapped up like a mummy.  Her cousin Emma (who lives with them) and her Mom keep demanding an explanation, but Lydia can't actually say what she is feeling out loud.  Whether it's the boys and their jokes or the way that grown men look at her on the subway, she feels overwhelmingly self-conscious.  Worst of all is Mom's boyfriend Jeremy, whose hugs last too long and who always seems to find an excuse to touch her.  Lydia would say something, but Mom likes him a lot and he's good to the family, so Lydia doesn't want to do anything that would make her Mom angry.

That same summer, Mom surprises Emma and Lydia by buying a fixer-upper.  While the house is badly neglected, Mom assures the girl that it can be rehabilitated.  But first of all, the house needs to be cleaned out.  The former tenants left it full of abandoned possessions and the three of them work hard over the summer to clean it out.  While cleaning, Lydia finds a secret room full of vials and dried herbs.  A leather-bound book left behind claims to explain how to use them to cast spells for love, fortune, and (most important of all) protection.  Convinced that the only way that she will be able to ever go outside uncovered and looking like a normal person is to enlist some supernatural help, Lydia tries to concoct a magical talisman.  In the end, she finds that the way to protect yourself is much more straightforward.

An extremely fast 300-page read (I had intended to only start it this afternoon, but ended up finishing it instead).  Lydia's inability to speak up throughout most of the book drove me nuts, but given the sensitive nature of the subject, I can accept it.  And, in showing us how even a shy girl can find the strength to say what needs to be said to protect herself, Carter is providing a roadmap for young readers who may feel themselves in a similar situation.  It's no easy journey as Lydia discovers that not every grownup is going to help her or that she will always be understood even when she finds her voice.  But in the end, the right people do the right things.

The story gently and age-appropriately clearly conveys the message that only you get to decide how your body will be touched.  I can't think of a more important message. While there are actually a fair number of good books for middle school readers about privacy, body positivity, and the importance of boundaries, sadly there really cannot ever be too many.

How to Disappear Completely, by Ali Standish

Life could always be lonely for Emma, so she cherished the time she spent with her grandmother.  Gram filled Emma's world with stories of fairies, gnomes, and forest spirits.  They even had a special place in the forest that they would visit -- the Spinney -- where Gram's stories took place.  And they shared Gram's favorite children's book, the R. M. Wildsmith's The World at the End of the Tunnel.  So when Gram dies, Emma is devastated.  All the magic she once felt all around her has vanished and she is inconsolably lonely.

Without friends of her own, starting seventh grade would be hard enough.  But it is made more difficult when Emma discovers white patches developing on her dark skin.  She is developing vitiligo, an autoimmune disorder that causes a loss of pigmentation in the skin.  Self-conscious about how the blotches on her skin makes her look to others, Emma wishes now more than ever that Gram was still around.  She would know how to deal with this!  But working with what she has left (a supportive family and some classmates who want to be friends regardless of what she looks like), Emma learns how to make her own magic.  Along the way, she also makes an important discovery about her family history which helps her come to terms with her grandmother's passing.

A subtle, slowly paced, but ultimately immensely satisfying book about the bonds of family, the rewards of trusting others, the importance of kindness, and the healing magic of a creative mind.  It is a hard book to start (I nearly tossed it during the first hundred pages because I found it dull), but I had a sense that the book would reward me in the end and it did!  It's hard to pin that success on any one factor.  Emma is a sweet and clever protagonist with a kind heart.  The story introduces important lessons about friendships (both good and toxic).  Emma's ability to resist the desire to strike back, while setting limits for what she will accept is great modeling for young readers navigating their own relationships.  Emma also has a similarly keen ability to sort out the fascinating mystery that unfolds.  But in the end, what makes this book enjoyable is the overall positive message that everyone has problems with which they are dealing and that the best approach is always sympathy.

The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly, by Jamie Pacton

Kit's loves her job at the Castle as a serving wench.  She loves the excitement and adventure at this medieval-themed dinner theater (heavily based upon Schaumberg's Medieval Times), but she hates the sexism of the routine.  The idea that woman did nothing more useful than serve food in the Middle Ages is a stinking pile of horse manure!  She wants to be a knight and ride out and fight the other knights!  She's been training herself for years and learned a lot from her brother who is the troupe's Red Knight.  But corporate policy states that only men can be knights (and incidentally make the better-paying salaries associated with the job).

In response, Kit starts a campaign to force the restaurant to let her become a knight and rallies her girlfriends to the cause by training them to fight with her.  She creates a social media campaign and publicly confronts the company over their policy.  But at the end of it all, does she have all of the skill necessary to truly bring about justice and carry the day?

A bit corny, but it's a romantic comedy with its heart in the right place.  Treat the book as a rollicking adventure, with Kit front and center suffering through an endless series of amusing misfortunes.  The characters are not terribly deep and the story itself is poorly researched, but Pacton can keep the pace up and creates a lively story that gives Kit a chance not only to exercise prowess on the field but also demonstrate the skills of humility, wisdom, and charity that make one a true Peer of the Realm.

Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf, by Hayley Krischer

My wife never asks me why I read children's books, but she does ask me why I read the depressing and distressing ones.  Complete with a book title that sounds like an After School Special, Hayley Krischer's novel covers some extremely intense subjects (rape, sexual exploitation, and drug abuse) in explicit detail, but it does so with great sensitivity and insight.

Ali has a serious crush on Sean.  She's been obsessively scrapbooking about him. While she'd be too shy to act on her feelings, she's over the moon when he invites her to a party.  At the party, when he invites her upstairs and plies her with alcohol, she apprehensive but eager to please.  When he goes too far and brutally rapes her, she is devastated, but afraid to say anything.  Everyone saw her go upstairs willingly.  Sean is a known player.  There were plenty of drugs and alcohol around.  What did she expect?  But even Sean knows that things did not quite go down right (the blood may have been a clue!) and he tearfully  turns to his friend Blythe to help him.  Will she befriend Ali and talk her out of getting him in trouble?  Blythe, desperately in love with Sean herself, will do anything to please him and doesn't hesitate to seek out Ali's friendship.  As one of the "Core Four," Blythe can offer Ali social status and a better life at High School.  All Ali needs to do is forgive Sean or just let the matter quietly go.  What poor wallflower (like Ali) wouldn't jump at the opportunity?

But Blythe's plans start to go seriously off the rails from the start.  The two girls share a common background of maternal abandonment, a similarity that Blythe attempts to exploit, but Blythe finds herself more dependent on Ari than vice versa.  Blythe may be one of the Queen Bees but she got there through a brutal (sexual) initiation she and the other Core Four went through three years ago.  The trauma of that experience and the expectation that she is soon expected to perpetuate it herself has left Blythe more fragile than she expected in the face of Ari's recent experience.  While Blythe thought she was the strong one, it would seem that Ari is actually more together than Blythe.  Ari decides to stand up for herself and ignore Blythe's attempts to get her to forgive Sean, Blythe lashes out ferociously.

While rape culture plays a key role as a catalyst, the story is about how young women respond to that culture as both resisters and participants. My synopsis makes the book sounds exploitative, but it really is not.  Instead of tracking a police investigation and court case, the novel dives in to the psyche of Ari and Blythe -- what makes one girl endure her trauma and come out on top while another who seemingly copes well succumbs in the end?  Neither girl really plays her part. While Ari is the obvious heroine to this story, she is hardly a strong one.  She makes ample mistakes and sometimes simply stumbles.  Blythe is the girl you want to hate for the pure evil of her plot to seduce Ari with a promise of popularity, but in the end her love for Ari is undeniable and the cause of her downfall.  If one doesn't see something to redeem in Blythe, at least there is a lot to pity.  In sum, these are complicated characters with a fascinating codependency.

If it makes any difference to you, the story ends on an optimistic note, but if you don't have the stomach for real dark character studies, this is not a book for you!

Dress Coded, by Carrie Firestone

As if middle school, with all of its emotional drama and body changes, were not stressful enough, Molly is tired of the way the school's dress code.  Everyone knows that the rules are only applied to the girls (and the ones that are more developed at that!).  This is hardly a minor annoyance.  Beyond the emotional trauma of having attention drawn to their bodies by (male) adults, the girls who are called out miss classes (and even exams) that they are not allowed to make up.

Molly and her friends are near graduation, but when Molly's friend Olivia is humiliated by the principal for trying to cover up an embarrassing stain and then blamed for the cancellation of an end-of-school camping trip, Molly decides to take action.  She starts a series of podcasts interviewing other students who have been victimized by the policy and discovers that the impact of the code is further ranging than even she imagined.  Eventually, the podcasts trigger a social protest that draws notice from the community.

A great topic for a middle grade read.  It's handled a bit clumsily here in two ways:  First, by making the school administrators particularly incompetent, which makes defeating them far too easy.  This makes the story satisfying, but doesn't really give fair time to other points of view that could have made this topic more interesting.  For example, a fleeting reference to school uniforms would have made a powerful counterpoint that Molly and her friends could have addressed.  The second weakness of the story is the plethora of sub-plots.  Middle school is a busy time so naturally Molly and her friends have plenty of other things on their mind.  That's fine, but I'm not sure what particular value the struggles of Molly's older brother with addiction added to the story?  I kept waiting for that to get tied in, but it was basically a separate story altogether.

The book is a fast entertaining read about an important and relevant topic, but it could have been better with more exploration of dress codes and their pros and cons, and fewer distractions.

Watch Over Me, by Nina Lacour

When Mila ages out of foster care, she is offered the opportunity to be an intern at a remote farm on the coast that takes in foster kids.  It's a way to give back and also a supportive place for young people who share an understanding of what it is like to be left behind.  There she bonds with a young boy named Lee who shares her background and the two of them confront the ghosts in their past.  Complicating matters, the farm is actually haunted and the kids and the counselors interact with these ghosts as well.

A strange and peculiar novel that I couldn't connect with.  The narrative structure is complicated and the story itself is short.  I'd find myself just starting to understand something and then get thrown into another alien situation.  The figurative and the "real" ghosts interact in peculair ways and the timeline is split as Mila shifts between present and past (often unsure herself of where she is)  I think that Lacour tied everything up at the end, but I'd be hard pressed to explain how it was done or what it meant.  I know some people enjoy working a bit harder to understand what they are reading, but I don't feel the need to be challenged when I'm relaxing.  By far, this is Lacour's most challenging and ambitious book to date and my least favorite as well.

My Eyes Are Up Here, by Laura Zimmermann

Having a large chest presents all sorts of problems, ranging from finding a dress that fits to participating in sports comfortably to enduring unwanted attention from boys at school.  For Greer, who would be happiest just disappearing unnoticed into her oversized sweatshirts, her breasts bring her unwanted attention and prevent her from doing the things she wants, not to mention the physically discomfort and back pains!  But Greer is determined to join the school's volleyball team, go to the formal, and maybe even catch the attention of Jackson, a new boy at school.

In a story that is both hilarious and heartbreaking (but ultimately just inspiring), she deals with her anxieties and fears and overcomes them.  Whether it's basic practical actions (e.g., finding a decent sports bra or altering her team jersey to fit her), finding the strength to confront bullies in her class, or coming to understand what she loses from hiding herself away, Greer shows us how to accept what nature gave us and make the most of it.

While I obviously have no shared point of reference for Greer's particular struggle, the story and its message of body positivity was fun to read. I appreciated the fact that the characters were overwhelmingly supportive.  Greer, with her combination for snark and sudden vulnerability, was very likeable.  Her growth from shy isolation to confidence is predictable but satisfying.  All of which wraps up into a good book.

The Blackbird Girls, by Anne Blankman

Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko can't stand each other.  To Valentina, Oksana is a bully who wants only to taunt her at school and is always getting her into trouble.  As a Jew in Russia, her mother has instilled in her the importance of keeping a low profile. For Oksana, it is more complicated:  her abusive father is jealous of Valentina's father because he is obsessed that Valentina's father "stole" his promotion.  It's the sort of thing that dirty cheating Jews do all the time, he insists.  Oksana is convinced that she can win back her father's love and stop her father's physical abuse by humiliating Valentina.

But this middle school drama is upstaged when the nuclear reactor near their little town of Pripyat experiences "an unsatisfactory radioactive situation." Valentina first notices that she no longer can find any birds or small animals, the air is full of blue smoke that tastes metallic, and the streets are filling up with policemen wearing gas masks. But life goes on and both girls go to school.  They can see the burning building, but they have faith that everything is under control.  Valentina and Oksana's fathers (who both work at the Chernobyl plant) have not returned home, but surely that means that they are simply busy doing their jobs?  Only after a day do they find out that they are being evacuated with their mothers.  In the chaos of that move, the girls are forced to separate from their family and are sent together to live with Valentina's estranged grandmother.  Once enemies divided by age-old prejudice, the two girls have only each other to rely on in their brave new world, set in the last years of the Soviet Union.

At the time depicted in this novel, I was studying Russian children and young adults for my senior thesis (and made a number of trips to the Soviet Union) so I know it well.  The chaotic response to the Chernobyl disaster is well-documented and makes for compelling drama (as shown by the recent mini-series) but I don't believe there has been a children's story set there before.  I have small quibbles about inaccuracies that don't detract from the story so much as distract me as a knowledgeable reader: an incorrect depiction of school uniforms or the odd age of Valentina's grandmother (while it is critical to the story that the grandmother was a young girl during the Great Patriotic War, it doesn't seem likely that she could have been as it sets the timeline off by at least ten years).  

This story struggles to find its target audience:  the protagonists are too young for YA, but the graphic child abuse scenes and threatening situations make it too intense for most middle grade readers.  The story's bigger flaw is its very busy little plot.  Two children escaping Chernobyl would be compelling enough reading, but the subplot about Valentina's grandmother fleeing Kiev during the German invasion is a bit much.  It gets tied in, but there really are two separate (and excellent) stories here to tell.  Attempting to tackle anti-Semitism and domestic violence at the same time on top of all this is just too much and neither topic is handled particularly well.  Lots of good stuff, but it is in desperate need of trimming and focusing.

The Space Between Lost and Found, by Sandy Stark-McGinnis

Cassie's mother used to be a bigger-than-life person. But since she started forgetting things, that energy seems to be slipping away.  She's been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's and her life is becoming ever more challenging.  Cassie and her father try to care for Mom but it is only a matter of time before they will be compelled to institutionalize her.

There are so many things they planned together and few (if any) of them are still possible.  Cassie knows one thing on Mom's bucket list that she and Mom can still do -- swim with the dolphins -- but Cassie's father is worried that Mom could get hurt.  Cassie pushes back, knowing that this may be their last chance before Mom is too far gone to do anything.

Meanwhile, Cassie struggles to find any sort of balance in her life.  Dealing with her mother's declining health has caused her to neglect her best friend.  At school, she buries herself in math and art classes, which are the other things that make sense to her anymore.  How can she sort out a world her mother cannot even reemember her name anymore?

A touching middle-grade reader about dealing with memory loss.  There are no solutions or happy endings here, but the book does a good job of showing a young family coping with an old person's disease.  The book doesn't offer many surprises (although the inevitable stealing-Mom-away-to-take-her-on-her-last-hurrah episode does provide predictable tension), but the tale is well told.  Cassie herself gets to make some brave choices about the extent to which she can accept the changes her mother is going through.

Letters from Cuba, by Ruth Behar

By the late 1930s, thanks to economic pressures and the rise of anti-Semitism, it was becoming clear that Esther's family could not stay much longer in Poland.  But where to go?   The United States was a dream, but Jews were generally not welcome.  So, Esther's father decides that they should go to Cuba and heads out in advance to establish a foothold there for the family.  The plan was that he would then bring over his eldest son to help him, but when he contacts them, Esther convinces him to allow her to come next instead. Missing her family (and her sister Malka most of all), Esther starts a series of letters to Malka that recount her difficult journey across Europe and the Atlantic, and the process of settling in her new homeland. While Esther and her father manage well enough, they are under pressure to earn the money the need to buy tickets and bring the rest of the family over before the doors close.

Cuba is a delightful place, but complicated and so very different from Poland!  There are so many different cultures, ranging from the wealthy descendants of Spanish landowners to the people whose ancestors were brought as slaves.  And there are also immigrants from all over the world, like Esther, trying to build new homes.  Cuba is a place where the nearby shop is owned by Chinese who sell her Polish tea!  Even in the small town where they live, there are a dizzying array of traditions ranging from the Catholics to the Afro-Caribbean tribal beliefs brought by the slaves.  But as friendly and kind as their welcoming is, the forces of anti-Semitism are present even here.

In general, Esther and her father have incredible luck and good fortune generally follows them.  The story is soft and kind and mostly stress-free.  That can make things dull.  Esther herself is nearly perfect in every way, from her ability to sew beautiful well-fitted dresses with no assistance to her talent with befriending just about anyone, it is hard to see her as an eleven year-old girl.  A few minor flaws would have fleshed out her character and humanized her.

The real charm of the book is its subject matter.  Having never realized that pre-Revolutionary Cuba had a sizable Jewish contingent, I found this book utterly fascinating.

Time Travel for Love and Profit, by Sarah Lariviere

When Nephele enters ninth grade, she discovers that her obsession with math is no longer cute.  In fact, it's decidedly un-cool.  Her best friend deserts her for dance and the rest of her class turns against her and treats her like some sort of freak.  Looking back, she wants to figure out a way to have a do-over.  So, it seems like destiny when, in the stacks of her parent's book store, amidst the steamy romance novels she likes to read, she finds the solution:  a self-published guide called Time Travel for Love & Profit.  Promising that time travel is the ultimate way to improve one's life, Nephele is convinced. While the book is a bit thin on details, Nephele is confident that she can work on the quantum theory (it's only math, after all!)  So, she spends the summer building a time travel device in her smartphone, with only the company of an old photograph that Nephele believes can talk.  Just before the first day of school, she sends herself back to the start of Ninth grade so she can set everything right.

But things don't go so well.  She sends herself back, but the rest of the world continues forward.  Yes, she's a ninth grader again, but her former classmates are now in tenth grade.  In meddling with the timeline, she has disrupted events and created paradoxes that interfere with reality.  So focused on fixing her life, she has changed more than she expected.  So, after a year of redesigning her "timeship," she has to go back again to fix things.  And when that makes the situation even worse, she's stuck doing it again and again....  By the time she's tweaked her calculations ten times (reliving her first year of high school each time), space time has grown so warped and distorted by paradoxes that life itself is threatened.  And that is when she meets a strange and peculiar boy named JJ who will change her life.

Time Travel for Love and Profit is hands down the weirdest book of the year. It lacks the cuteness of the film Groundhog Day or Wendy Mass's novel 11 Birthdays, and instead probes the creepy side of time travel (think the 2004 math geek film, Primer).  Time travel makes less sense the more you think about it so the most entertaining stories in the genre have succeeded by thinking about the math as little as possible.  Lariviere, on the other hand, goes the other direction:  thinking so hard about the causes, effects, and ramifications of distorting the progression of time that just about everything (ranging from people's memories of Nephele to the progress of humanity) breaks down.  The outer manifestation of this is the disintegration of the narrative itself.  By the end of the book, the story itself has pretty much lost its coherency.  On one hand, that's pretty effective story telling, but for me, a self-destructive novel isn't really entertaining.

Echo Mountain, by Lauren Wolk

When the Great Depression came, Ellie's family lost everything and were forced to move out of town and into the woods, to live on the side of Echo Mountain.  It's a hard transition for Ellie's older sister and mother, but for Ellie and her little brother, life in the woods comes naturally.  Ellie's mother worries that Ellie is growing "wild," which is her way of noting that Ellie is braver and more assertive than Mom and her sister.  But after her father is injured and falls into a coma for months, these are useful traits to have as everyone has to step forward.  Because Ellie is blamed for her father's injury, she feels a particular obligation to bear the burdens of taking care of things and she rises humbly to the challenge.  It's a hard life but Ellie finds small joys in helping her neighbors and taking care of a puppy.

One day in the woods she encounters an old dog she doesn't recognize who leads her up the mountain, where she has never been (although her father always said that there was a "hag" up there).  Instead of a witch, Ellie finds an old lady who needs her help.  Helping her, in turn, opens up Ellie's world, revealing a talent for healing, an intuitive sense of how to fix what is broken, and insight to recognize what physical and psychic ailments people carry with them but are reluctant to share.

In this beautifully written novel, Lauren Wolk creates a story of a girl rescuing her neighbor, her family, and ultimately herself.  I read so many dystopian novels full of suffering, issue books about people with creepy problems, and message books exposing the hypocrisies of the adult world, that I forget that there are children's books like this:  about people living amidst each other, doing normal things, and making their small part of the world a better place.  The book comes with lots of adventure, a resourceful and humble-to-a-fault heroine, and a feel-good message about how neighbors can help neighbors.  While set in the Great Depression amongst rural poor people without a penny to their name, the story itself is timeless.  A deceptively simple story of a girl growing up (just a little) that illustrates the true power of children's literature to entertain and enlighten.  Obviously recommended!

The Assignment, by Liza Wiemer

Cade and Logan are shocked when their World History teacher assigns the class the opportunity to debate the Nazi's Final Solution.  The assignment, which the teacher argues is a chance to get inside the head of the men who made the decision to exterminate millions of people's lives, seems to Cade and Logan misguided at best and downright immoral.  More shocking than the assignment, though, are the reactions of their fellow classmates, ranging from treating it like a joke to exposing deep seated racism.  Cade and Logan want the teacher to cancel the project, but when he refuses to do so, they go to the media, which leads to greater ramifications than anyone ever imagined.

A tense, fast-reading novel that tackles an all-too-real issue in contemporary society.  Stories of similarly ill-thought-out classroom activities hit the news seemingly every month (and many more go unreported), making the premise particularly relevant.  Wiemer does a particularly nice job of slowly unfolding the nature of the threat.  As the story begins, I did entertain my doubts.  The teacher seemed pretty reasonable and the assignment (as he explained it) had pedagogical merit (although it was quickly subverted by racist students).  The administrative ambivalence felt realistic and it was a bit easy to eye the kids as hot heads.  The gradual crystallization of the fundamental problem with the assignment, combined with the way the community got sucked in by its poison is what really makes the novel effective.  And by the end, any ambiguity is lost:  the danger as clear as day.  Wiemer throws in a bit extra in the end, which in my mind is not really necessary, but it works.  The message that hate ultimately corrupts and destroys itself is realized.  It's probably fodder for an assigned reading in a classroom, but that should not detract from the fact that I  enjoyed the book and found that it gave me things to think about.

B*Witch, by Paige McKenzie and Nancy Ohlin

What if all those spell books and guides to witchcraft you checked out of the library and studied had actually worked?  Where lighting candles with your besties and doing incantations could keep your little sister from barging in or get your parents to forget a bad grade?  How would your life be different practicing magic in middle school?

Not that one would do so out in the open.  Technically, practicing witchcraft is against the law in this alt reality, but until the arrival of the current populist president and his "antima" (anti-magic) goons, it was something which you could get away with.  But his movement to crack down on witches has gained a lot of attention nationally and violence against witches is on the uptick so you can't be too careful.

There are two covens surreptitiously operating at school.  Greta's group has three members who use their magic to help each other, whereas the rival coven (headed by Greta's ex-bestie Div) use their magic for less nice things.  When two new girls show up who both show a knack for witchcraft, the two covens compete with each other to try to recruit them.  But when a series of threats surface, they realize that they have bigger issues to deal with and it is time to band together.

A fun romp that imagines how magic would change middle school.  Populated with well-drawn characters, the authors do a fine job of capturing young adolescents in a way that will make them imminently relatable to readers.  It's chock full of clever ideas and packed with satire.  But ultimately the book is burdened by trying to do too much.  One of the girls is on the spectrum.  One of them is trans (and uses her magic to pass as a CIS girl).  Racial and ethnic diversity is represented.  Criticism of MAGA is made.  All boxes are checked.  But in trying to do so much (and throwing in a large number of fed herrings along the way), the literally anti-climactic resolution is underwhelming.

Dear Universe, by Florence Gonsalves

Senior year and a life of avoiding life's questions has left Cham (short for Chamomile) with anger issues and a serious case of writer's block on her college essay.  Her father is dying of Parkinson's but Cham would rather think about Prom and graduation.  The problem is that neither of those goals address her growing sense of ennui.  With a tongue-in-cheek nod to Camus and a lot of sass, Cham ponders the many questions she wants to ask the universe, ranging from why her father has to do to whether her dress makes her boobs look big?

There are some great moments of humor and no small number of lovely insights here, but it takes a bit to extract them out of an aimless novel.  Cham's cynical and vulgar humor makes her entertaining as a protagonist and brings an edgy (and raunchy) quality to the novel that I normally associate with male protagonists.  But once you move beyond the things that make her funny, she comes off initially as shallow.  It really is not until two hundred pages have gone by that I started to warm to her when I realized that the shallowness was really just denial.  By that point, I was almost too far gone to care.

For a book about dying, it's strange that dealing with grief and coming to terms with death (the two usual themes for a dying-person book) are barely addressed at all.  In fact, resolution is largely lacking from the story.  By the end of the story, Cham hasn't exactly found any answers to her questions and she is pretty much as paralyzed by her ennui as she was at the beginning.  Clever and funny, but ultimately without resolution or conclusion, existential dread for adolescents does not make much of a story.

A Place at the Table, by Saadia Faruqi & Laura Shovan

Now that they are in middle school, Elizabeth worries that her best friend Maddie is drifting apart from her.  Maddie no longer seems to enjoy Dr. Who marathons and is always hanging out with snooty Stephanie instead of her.  And even though they signed up for cooking class together, Maddie just sits around and makes fun of the teacher Mrs. Hameed, her spicy cooking, and her Pakistani funny accent.  However, Elizabeth has to agree with Maddie that the teacher's daughter, Sara (who just transferred in this year) really is weird.

Sara, meanwhile, isn't thrilled to be dragged to her mother's new job teaching cooking.  Being shown off isn't going to help her fit in or make new friends.  In any case, she gets more than her fill of cooking at home, where her mother runs a catering business out of their kitchen.  The kids are rude and disrespectful. She'd rather be working on her drawing.

So, when the two girls end up getting paired together in the class, they aren't thrilled.  Yet, as they get to know each other, they find that they have a lot in common.  Elizabeth's mother is English and, like Sara's mother, studying for her citizenship test.  Both mothers are struggling, a fact of which both daughters are aware.  Elizabeth's grandmother has recently died and her mother struggles with depression.  Sara's mother is trying to keep the catering business afloat.  Racism and xenophobia are a big factor for Sara's family, but Elizabeth's mother faces discrimination as a foreigner and as a converted Jew.  Both girl's deal with the sense of belonging in two different worlds:  the homeland and their home.

What brings everyone together in the end is food and a love for cooking.  The cooking class and an international food fair at the end of the story serve as a catalyst for exploring differences and similarities.  And while the writing can get heavy handed and the premise sounds saccharine, it is deftly handled.  If nothing else, reading will give you serious craving for a curry!  

There's some obligatory effort made to explore xenophobia and racism.  That's probably the clunkiest part of the story, as Elizabeth's friend Maddie says some pretty extreme things that get quickly shut down by both adults and children in a bit of wishful thinking.  Far more effective is the portrayal of the Home Ec teacher's prejudice and micro aggressions from children and teachers that Sara and Elizabeth call out.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the cooking of course, but also the way that the girls got to talk about their mixed feelings about their heritage in an unforced way. Given the title, the obvious focus is about how everyone will come together in the end and they do, marveling over the differences and similarities in world cuisine and people.  The symbolism of the fusion dish that the two girl's concoct cements this message.

Tune It Out, by Jamie Sumner

Lou has a great singing voice, which her mother likes to put out front and center when they are busking.  It brings in better tips and, heavens knows, living out of their truck that they can use all the money they can get.  But performing in front of people is hard for Lou.  Loud noises hurt, being touched by strangers is painful, and crowds freak her out.  Lou has tried to explain that it's much worse than stage fright, but Mom won't listen to her.  And there really is no choice since they need the money to get by.

But when a snowstorm and an auto accident brings Lou's living situation to the attention of Child Protective Services, Lou gets sent to live with an aunt and uncle she barely knows.  They turn out to be quite well off and generous and, for the first time in years, she is able to go to school (which is both a blessing and a curse since schools are noisy places).  There, a counselor helps Lou explore the possibility that she may struggle with Sensory Perception Disorder, which would explain why public performance is so hard for her.

Lou is a strong (albeit stubborn) character and I liked her.  She's bright and the conversations she has and the questions she asks are insightful (to the point that they sometimes seem uncharacteristically mature for the alleged age).  In the context of a middle reader, that just makes thing simpler, the questions to be answered more direct, and the story ultimately more satisfying.

Ostensibly, there is very little new and original in this book.  Neglectful parenting, living out of cars, and skirting the law (usually combined with a fortuitous wealthy bailout) is a popular genre.  We certainly have plenty of books these days about children on the Autism Spectrum.  That said, this is a competent rendering of the familiar story.

If These Wings Could Fly, by Kyrie McCauley

The town of Auburn is struggling under a freak migration of crows.  Thousands and thousands of the birds have arrived and cover everything.  With their penchant for stealing things and getting into mischief, the residents see them as a tremendous nuisance.  But Leighton has bigger problems to deal with:  a desire to graduate and move away, a reluctance to open her heart to others, and a lack of safety at home.

Bearing the festering emotional wound of being the boy who lost the town's last chance at a football championship nineteen years ago, her father has grown from a hurt young man into a violent and abusive father.  In her younger years, his outbursts were infrequent but now they happen nearly constantly.  In her last year at home before she hopefully goes away for college, Leighton tries to encourage her mother to stand up to him.  But when Mom refuses to do so, Leighton has to focus on keeping her younger sisters safe from their father's rampages.  

In this bleak environment, Leighton cannot count on adults for help.  The grownups of Auburn largely turn their backs and ignore the problem.  Instead, she finds comfort in her boyfriend Liam and from two stranger sources:  her home itself (a house with walls that repair themselves and protect the girls) and the birds.  Crows are intelligent creatures with the capacity to remember slights and the ability to understand reciprocity.  Somehow, these birds seem to understand what is happening and help Leighton and her family but stealing things from Dad or leaving useful gifts.  So, while the town sees the crows as a nuisance, Leighton comes to understand that they are crucial for her survival.

A well-written, albeit terribly grim and depressing, story of domestic abuse.  McCauley's foray into magical realism, through the birds and the house is ambitious and fraught with creative tension.  On one hand, she wants to create a manifesto against domestic violence and the text occasionally digresses into policy.  But on the other, McCauley is taken in by the literary majesty of the crows and the house as extended metaphors and even crucial plot devices.  This conflict of purpose is most pronounced in the ending, where a literal reading of the resolution is almost impossible.  Does the house itself rid Leighton of her father's abuse?  Do the birds really physically interfere?  Or is it all metaphor for the family rising up and standing up against the father?  There's no way to really know and that leaves the otherwise fairly sober analysis of the causes for domestic violence and the societal forces that allow it to flourish subject to a literary whimsy -- poetic and beautiful but perhaps off-message?