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With By Any Other Name, Erin Cotter writes a historical fiction novel about William Shakespeare’s London, sharing ample allusions to his work and plays. The story opens in 1593 London at the Rose Theater, where young Will Hughes is aging out of the theater because his voice is changing and he will no longer be able to play the female parts. To further complicate his life, the plague is making its way through the city, and theaters will close until it passes. As a result, his patron, Christopher Marlowe (Kit) encourages him to find another home. Home. The word makes Will’s breath catch. At eightRead More →

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On par with The Inheritance Games series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis is a thrilling page-turner with all the ingredients of a good spy novel. Although Rosalyn (Ross) Quest is only seventeen years old, she is a master thief, having acquired her experience through her family-run business of thieving. Living on the remote island of the Bahamas, Ross seeks social contact with people beyond her family. In fact, she seeks escape. While the heists provide their own brand of exhilaration, Ross feels isolated. She sees her options as staying locked up in the family industry where trusting people outside the familyRead More →

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Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim is a fantasy blended with elements of both English and Asian folklore. While Lim tells a tale of two sisters and their unbreakable bond, she also relates key truths about human nature—those that regard greed, treachery, and trust. The only time Channari Jin’aiti feels truly alive, truly free, and truly awake is when she is in the jungle. Since her sister Vanna was born, Channi has hunted the Demon Witch who has taken the body of a tiger as her vessel and searches for the dragon pearl. “The Channi of the jungle and the Channi who lives in herRead More →

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With This Indian Kid, Eddie Chuculate writes what he subtitles A Native American Memoir. Recounting events from his life during the years 1976-1984, Chuculate conveys how living in Oklahoma—where the races grew up together—the library was his second home. The days of his youth and adolescence were filled with playing sports, gardening, fishing, writing, and listening to music. A addict of sorts, Eddie “lived and breathed sports.” He was “an all-star in summer baseball, shot hoops in the backyard goal year-round ‘til midnight, and was a safety, running back, and kickoff returner in football” (124). His only problem at school came in basketball because CoachRead More →

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Through his novel The Broke Hearts, Matt Mendez shares a story that spans generations and blurs genres. A sequel to Barely Missing Everything, the style of this follow-up is unique in that multiple stories are being conveyed within its pages. Told from various view points and with screen play scripts, flashbacks, and Lotería cards interwoven in the prose, The Broke Hearts illustrates how the past never leaves us and how “being a warrior is about doing the hard thing every time” (4). Mendez also shares insight about having hopes and dreams but how life gets in the way with moments of heart break. JD SanchezRead More →

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Kin: Rooted in Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford is a powerful textual tribute to “the ancestors who carried us through” accented by scratchboard-like illustrations by Jeffery Boston Weatherford. In this verse novel, the Weatherfords conjure the voices of their ancestors and speak to them and through them with their art. Seeking answers to key questions: “At what age is hope born, when does resistance first rise up, and when do dreams wither” (22-23), the mother/son pair tells a moving story of their family tree. Their goal is to give voice to their African-American ancestors who were “marginalized, muted, or muzzled” as they tilled fields intoRead More →

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All You Have to Do by Autumn Allen invites readers to consider some important issues and to answer some key questions. Allen follows the lives of two black men: Kevin, an activist in 1968, and his nephew Gibran Wilson, a high school senior in 1995 attending Lakeside Academy in New York. Allen’s intergenerational story is about “Black people taking care of business—the business of and for Black people” (37). It shares the similarities in the fights both young men have in exercising control over their lives, politically, economically, and psychically. Through her two protagonists, Allen asks: Do we join the world with all its imperfectionsRead More →

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Jamie Jo Hoang writes about intergenerational trauma in her book My Father, the Panda Killer. Her focus is on the perilous journeys out of conflict that many took during the Vietnam War Era. Hoang tells her story with alternating perspectives—that of Phúc, who was born into wartime during the Vietnam War and that of Jane, Phúc’s daughter. As Jane struggles to understand her father’s anger and abuse, she searches for the source in memories, in family stories, and in history. Readers learn that Phúc’s soul lives in the rings of the Banyan tree where he escapes to play his bamboo flute. When he is 11,Read More →

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The plot of Sabina Khan’s recent book, What a Desi Girl Wants, revolves around the life of Mehar Rabbani, a mixed race girl who lives in Newton, Kansas. Speaking her mind is Mehar’s brand, which doesn’t always work in her favor. Prone to whining, Mehar hates being reasonable—a trait that backfires on her when she makes a trip to India to reconnect with her family on her father’s side. Hoping to salvage her relationship with her father, Mehar is intent on apologizing to him and mending their fractured bond. She also wishes to reconnect with her judgy grandma while in India for her father’s wedding.Read More →