For me, one of the biggest surprises of the ALA Youth Media Awards was the selection of Beverley Brenna’s The White Bicycle as a Printz Honor Book (for outstanding YA literature). In the past, few Printz honors have gone to…
Category: Out of the Mainstream: Gender, Ethnicity, and Disability
I Am #6: Harriet Tubman
Normally I wouldn’t select a series book for review, I could not put this one down. It’s a Scholastic primer for kids, but it refreshed my memory and taught me things I hadn’t known about the great emancipator. For…
Maxie’s Turn: A Review of Fire in the Streets
When it appeared in 2009, Kekla Magoon’s The Rock and the River took historical fiction about the African-American experience out of the “safe” terrain of the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement to an armed revolutionary organization that confronted…
When the President Looks Like Me
One of the treats of last month’s inauguration was listening to Richard Blanco read the poem he wrote especially for that day. Blanco, a gay Cuban American, is the youngest person to present a poem at a Presidential inauguration, and…
No Crystal Stair: an interview with Vaunda Nelson
To kick off Black History Month, I interviewed Vaunda Nelson, author of the Coretta Scott King honor book No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem. No Crystal Stair by Vaunda Nelson…
Dogs at Work: A Review of Adalyn’s Clare
Adalyn is a bright student but has trouble fitting into her fourth grade class. Friendless and prone to tantrums, she frequently has to take refuge in a small tent in the school counselor’s office. One day, a yellow Labrador retriever…
Mystery, History, and Just Plain Fun: A Review of You Don’t Have a Clue
A year ago my friend René Saldaña, Jr. published an article in The ALAN Review about the need for more genre fiction for young readers, particularly mysteries, featuring Latino characters and settings. Given the long and lively tradition of detective…
Mestizo Heritage and Magic Realism: A Review of Summer of the Mariposas
For the final two weeks in November, The Pirate Tree will feature reviews and interviews that focus on Native American cultures. In the United States and Canada, we rarely speak of Native American cultures as including those of the rest…
Remembering Matthew Shepherd: A Review of October Mourning
Several years ago, the Albany High School Drama Club chose to perform The Laramie Project as their fall play. For those not familiar with the play, it explores the final days in the life of Matthew Shepherd, the 21-year-old gay…
What’s “Legitimate” About Rape? A Review of Rape Girl
Not long ago, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Todd Akin, made a medically ludicrous and morally objectionable statement about “legitimate” rape and the chances of a woman becoming pregnant afterward. His remarks and the controversy afterward make the…