By the late 1950s, it appeared that the Holocaust was fading from the memories of all but those who had experienced it personally. The United States and other Western nations were more concerned about the Soviet threat, and neo-Nazi groups…
Author: lynmillerlachmann
“Blue Skies and Starry Nights”: A Review of Remember Dippy
Thirteen-year-old Johnny hopes to spend his summer swimming and hanging out with his friends in their Vermont town. But his mother must work in New York, and his father, who lives in Boston, has other priorities, so Johnny is sent…
Divided Loyalties: A Review of Brotherhood
In Richmond, Virginia in 1867, 14-year-old Shadrach Weaver is awakened early and violently one morning. Federal soldiers beat him and carry away his older brother, Jeremiah, wanted for murder. The victim, George Nelson, is an itinerant teacher, a white man…
Surviving Depression: A Review of Every Day After
The long recession and weak recovery have kindled interest in the Great Depression and the ways that families responded to sudden economic deprivation nearly a century ago. Laura Golden’s new middle grade novel Every Day After (Delacorte) mines the author’s…
Urban Dilemmas: A Review of Nowhere to Run and Flowers in the Sky
I’ve been reading a lot lately about growing inequality and hardening class differences in the United States. Opportunities for success seem harder to come by in what was once known around the world as the Land of Opportunity. But even…
On Meeting Temple Grandin
I regularly participate in discussions related to children’s and YA literature on the child_lit list, and the week after the American Library Conference in Chicago, our discussion turned to the high points of the conference for those of us who…
Politics Comes to Town: A Review of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano
Fifteen-year-old Evelyn Serrano sees herself as an ordinary girl living in El Barrio, Spanish Harlem in 1969. She has just started a new job in a department store and is proud of her ability to earn money for herself and…
When the Water Runs Out: A Review of Parched
This past month has gone into the record books as the rainiest June in my city’s history. Last year was one of the warmest on record, and in late October a rare East Coast hurricane devastated the New York metropolitan…
A Family in Wartime: A Review of Three Years and Eight Months
A month ago I highlighted the winners of the 2013 Skipping Stones Honor Awards, given to outstanding multicultural and nature books published in the previous year. Although published in 2013, Icy Smith and Jennifer Kindert’s Three Years and Eight Months…
Human Trafficking in Space: A Review of The Color of Rain
When people think of books for children and teens that address social justice issues, contemporary and historical fiction and nonfiction are the genres that come to mind. Rarely do we think of speculative fiction as inherently political, though dystopian novels…