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Prickly, unhappy, and bruised by the tragic deaths of her parents, Maria Latif is bustled off from Pakistan to Long Island, New York. After being bounced from relative to unfortunate relative, she is now going to stay with family friends. Still, the orphaned Maria knows this is just another temporary landing place. When she arrives, Maria is prepared to hate New York, but there is a secret about the Clayborne House on Long Island that she doesn’t understand. Something about the way an unloved, untouched, and unclaimed garden hums and thrums makes Maria think that this bit of earth can be hers. With a gardenRead More →

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Set in the early eighties, Parachute Kids by Betty C. Tang is a graphic novel that shares the challenges faced by Chinese children who were “dropped off” with friends or relatives in foreign countries while their parents stayed behind. Hoping to provide a better life for their children, these parents often missed out on the trials endured by their offspring. Without the supportive nurturing and guidance of their parents, these youth faced the challenges of a new country, culture, and language. Arriving in California from Taiwan, Ke-Gāng, Feng-Li, and Jia-X are soon “abandoned” by their parents, whose Visas require them to return to their homeRead More →

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Just in time for National Poetry Month, Good Different is a novel in verse by Meg Eden Kuyatt. In lyrical prose, Kuyatt tells the story of Selah Godfrey who feels like a dragon in a world built for people. Because others perceive Selah as “dangerous, unpredictable, and damaged,” she draws to distract herself from the rough noises and loud textures that poke at her. A seventh grader at Pebblecreek Academy, a private school that prides itself on its family atmosphere, Selah wishes to be somewhere that allows her to be fully herself, a place where she can relax “and not feel like a freak” (9).Read More →

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Fierce, determined, proud, and furious, Leto wants to be remembered as extraordinary. Instead, at seventeen years old, she becomes one of the twelve girls sacrificed to appease the raging sea and to abate Poseidon’s wrath so that others in Ithaca can prosper. Only, Leto doesn’t die. She washes up on the shores of the island Pandou where Melantho introduces her to a mission: In order to break the curse and to save other girls from the annual hanging ritual, the Prince of Ithaca—who gives the orders for the deaths—must die. However, once Leto and Melantho reach the shores of Itaca under a ruse, they discoverRead More →

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An Earl’s daughter, Lady Ela Dalvi doesn’t fall from grace; she is shoved by her former best friend, Poppy Landers who concocts a tale that sullies Ela’s reputation. Vowing to get revenge, Ela invents a new personality and becomes Miss Lyra Whitley, an enigmatic heiress who plans to infiltrate the glittering ballrooms of London, 1817. After all, “money has a way of opening the tightest, most elite circles” (10), and the recipe for high society female accomplishment in the United Kingdom during the late Regency era and later were fortune, connections, beauty, and virtue. On this defiant journey across class boundaries, Lyra’s disguise seeks position,Read More →

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Readers of I Kick and I Fly by Ruchira Gupta will be inspired by the strong female characters as well as horrified by the novel’s sex trafficking theme. Set in northern India in a town called Forbesganj located in the state of Bihar, Gupta’s book reveals the story of fourteen-year-old Heera who intimately knows both hunger and homelessness. A member of the nomadic Nat tribe, Heera and her family are members of an oppressed caste. Her people used to be wrestlers and performers, but “overnight [they] were told [they] couldn’t do those things anymore, that [their] entire way of life was illegal” (283). Seeking toRead More →

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Although the two main characters in Deborah Crossland’s newest novel, The Quiet Part Out Loud are a baseball pitcher and a cheerleader, this is not your typical “athlete gets the girl” romance. This is a book about mental, emotional, and spiritual wholeness as much as it is about how relationships involve opening worlds for one another and experiencing those worlds together. It confirms that love is an action verb. More than just feeling, love is doing; it is serving the needs of others. Set in San Francisco, the story follows the lives of Alfie Thanasis and Mia Clementine. Determined to find beauty in people andRead More →

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Wren Warren and Derek Pewter-Flores ae both sixteen-year-old members of the four founding families in Hollow’s End. Wren’s family grows wheat, and Derek’s grows melons. The the pair hopes to build on their families’ 150-year-legacy, marry, and have children someday, but Wren has overheard her parents arguing about money, so she takes measures to help increase the farm’s production. Soon after, a blight appears, one with devastating effects on the soil, crops, animals, and people—one with the power to fracture not only a family but a future. Believing herself responsible, Wren takes matters into her own hands, and what she discovers rocks her core. WhenRead More →

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Cam Cordes, Harper Jeffries, and Effie Galanos are planning to enjoy their final year of high school at Mill City High in Minnesota. As this trio of young women navigate their senior year, they realize the bitter-sweetness in so many moments—from school dances to lunches off-campus. Wondering how she will survive without her typical support systems at college, Effie especially frets for her future since she is a wheelchair user who has cerebral palsy. Determined to enroll at a university with a reputable Mass Media and Society Department, Effie wants to help minorities, specifically people who are differently abled, be more visible in mass media,Read More →