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12 year old Blaise Fortune, also known as Koumail, has been fleeing west across Eastern Europe with his guardian, Gloria, since he was 7.  When the Soviet Union fell and the Caucasus states began to fight for their independence, Blaise and Gloria become two of thousands of war refugees scrabbling across a battle-scarred land in search of safety and a better life. As they’ve traveled westward towards France, Gloria has told Blaise the story of his past many times: picking fruit in her father’s vast orchards in Georgia, Gloria heard the derailment of an express train; in her rush to help the vicitms, she discovered a French womanRead More →

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15 year old Pearl lives with her recently divorced mother on her uncle’s sprawling California avocado farm.  Uncle Hoyt routinely hires migrant labor to work in the groves and until the day when Pearl notices beautiful, mysterious, quiet Amiel, she’d never thought twice about the undocumented migrant workers’ plight.  But something about shy Amiel speaks to Pearl: he’s beautiful, of course, but there’s more; he’s mute due to a tragic accident in his past, he seems vulnerable and kind, and he’s very reluctant to open up to her overtures of friendship.  Pearl finds herself drawn repeatedly to the quiet bend in the river after she discovers Amiel’s small campsite where he’s beenRead More →

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Tell Us We’re Home, a fresh new book from Marina Budhos, has an interesting plot line, making a book full of mystery, friendship, and hardship. This new novel kept me reading for hours. Jaya, Maria, and Lola are just ordinary girls living in the town of Meadowbrook, New Jersey. Ordinary, that is, until you see that the girls have two things in common; they are all the daughters of maids and nannies, and they have all emigrated from a foreign country. Besides the obvious problem that they go to school with the people their mothers work for, all three also have many issues they mustRead More →

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2 new YA titles that will release in June explore the challenges of building a new life in America after fleeing the turmoil in the country of one’s childhood.   Inspired by true refugee experiences, these two novels are interesting and thought-provoking explorations of challenge, change, and resilience. The Red Umbrella by debut novelist Christina Diaz Gonzalez is set in 1961, when Lucia’s carefree life in a small Cuban coast town is about to change. She’s 14 and dreams of her school-crush, her 15th birthday celebration, and of one day travelling to Paris.  But when Castro’s revolutionary soldiers come to her town, everything changes: people are arrested and executed; neighbors spy on neighbors; freedomsRead More →

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Dweeb: Burgers Beasts and Brainwashed Bullies by Aaron Starmer follows the tale of five boys- Denton, Wendell, Eddie, Elijah and Bijay-who are thrown together after Vice Principal Snodgrass frames them for stealing the Bake Sale money. Snodgrass’ punishment is extreme-he locks the boys in a secret room beneath the school and forces them to study for the upcoming Idaho tests- if the boys ace them, their crime will be forgiven. But there is something more going on at the school and the 5 misfits, now collectively called DWEEB, must use all of their skills to unravel the mysterious happenings at Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High. This isRead More →

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Woodson’s story is set in 1994, when the anonymous narrator is 11, and Tupac has been shot. Everyone in her Queens neighborhood is listening to his music and talking about him. Meanwhile D, a foster child, meets the narrator and her best friend, Neeka, while roaming around the city by herself. They become close and Tupac’s music becomes a soundtrack for the their friendship as they search together for their “Big Purpose.”  The story ends in 1996 with Tupac’s untimely death and the reappearance of D’s mother, who takes D with her, and out of the narrator’s and Neeka’s lives forever. After Tupac & D Foster delicately unfolds issues about race and socialRead More →

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The best stories, and the best authors, in my opinion, show you the true human experience underlying an issue, situation, or place & time.  Julia Alvarez’s latest novel for young people, Return to Sender, is just such a story by just such an author. After Tyler’s father is injured in a tractor accident, his family is forced to hire migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont dairy farm.  Tyler isn’t sure what to make of this situation and of these workers and their daughters.  The Mexican family lives in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities and sent back to the poverty theyRead More →

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 I was drawn to this book because it has CHOCOLATE in the title and on the cover. How could I resist that? At first it just seemed like an innocent, sweet story (no pun intended) about a Jewish girl, in fifth grade, living in Chicago right after WWII. The adults in the family discuss missing relatives in Europe while Dorrie looks forward to the end of the school year when she must bring in a dessert for a competition called “Sweet Semester.” I particularly enjoyed the end of the book when Victor, a 16-year-old relative, is brought to America to live with Dorrie and her family. HeRead More →

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Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis tells the story of Elijah Freeman, the first freeborn child born in the colony of Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves just over the border from Detroit.  The year is 1860 and when a conman steals the money of a family friend that was intended to buy the man’s family from slavery in the South, Elijah embarks on a dangerous journey to America in pursuit of the thief and he discovers the unimaginable horrors of the life his parents fled. As readers have come to expect from Curtis, he delivers superior historical research (the author’s notes at the endRead More →