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Eloise Parrish is the picture of sunshine and optimism while her sister Oli is “shadows and hesitation, with a hard shell” (3). The duo are avid birders, and their favorite place is the Braided Woods in Connecticut.  Because their parents died when the girls were quite young, they live with their grandmother Ida Gibson who is faced with the challenge of Alzheimer’s. The pair jokingly call themselves The Sisters With Too Much Responsibility. In September, Oli will be a junior, and Eloise would have been one year behind, but she shockingly is found dead in a shallow grave in the Braided Woods. Although the caseRead More →

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With her novel When We Flew Away, Alice Hoffman writes an emotionally stirring prequel to The Diary of Anne Frank. In this poignant piece, Hoffman reminds readers of the power of hope even when evil walks in the world. Even when it seems impossible to have hope, Anne Frank shows us that it is possible to be brave, to have dreams, and to live on in the words we have written or the record we leave behind. Set in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from 1940-1942, Hoffman’s book begins with Otto and Edith Frank wondering if their escape from Germany to the Netherlands with their two girls wasRead More →

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With their graphic novel Pearl, Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie bring readers a historical fiction account of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent response from the United States. In this version, Amy Hakata lives in Hawaii in 1941. However, when a family member in Japan grows ill and her parents are unable to travel, Amy flies to a country she has never visited. Once in Hiroshima, she sits with her sick Sōsobo. Here, only the food tastes familiar, but as Amy gets to know her grandmother, she learns of Grandma’s legacy as a pearl diver. However, everything changes in an instant, andRead More →

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In her novel Kareem Between, Shifa Saltagi Safadi shares a story about the experiences of seventh grader Kareem, who loves football and dreams of being the first Syrian American NFL player. Seeing his name on an American jersey would spell perfection for him, but first he has to earn a position on the middle school team. Set in Indiana from 2016-2017, Kareem feels invisible since he doesn’t make the football roster and his best friend Adam has moved away. To find comfort, Kareem escapes to the library where the smell of paper and ink and books surrounds him. A lover of words, Kareem uses NFLRead More →