As a college student in 1958, John Lewis read a comic-book account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the activism of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. By that point, Lewis had come to question the Jim Crow measures that limited…
Tag: YA literature
“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…
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…
CODA: A novel of Revolution against addiction and control
Coda (Running Press Kids) by Emma Trevayne $9.95 In her debut novel, Emma Trevayne has painted a punk and rock world in which addictive music controls a future society. The encoded music heals pain and sickness, and controls the…
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…
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…
Unplug & Read Week Special: A Review of Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl
Unplug & Read Week is an annual event to encourage children and teenagers to back away from the “screens”—computers, tablets, smartphones, and television—and do something in the real world. This year’s event runs from April 29 to May 5, 2013.…
Confronting Stereotypes of Teens with Schizophrenia: A Review of Freaks Like Us
Earlier this month, I was asked by the Children’s Book Council to contribute a post to the CBC Diversity 101 blog, which helps editors, librarians, teachers, reviewers, and authors identify basic misconceptions and problems in writing about diverse populations. My…
Surprise Winner: The White Bicycle
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…