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…
Tag: YA literature
Children in the Spanish Civil War: A Review of A Thunderous Whisper
In her debut novel, The Red Umbrella (Knopf, 2010), Christina Díaz González mined her rich family history to tell the story of a 14-year-old girl sent with her younger brother to a refugee camp and then to a foster family…
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…
Caring Adults in the Lives of Boys: A Review of Cadillac Chronicles
Although he seems to be a child of privilege, 16-year-old Alex Riley has lost his way. Friendless at school and constantly fighting with his single mother, a rising star in Albany politics, Alex hears from his therapist (a man of…
Letters to a Girl at War: Dear Blue Sky
With the spread of the internet, an increasing number of young people in war zones have been able to tell their own stories, and to be heard by a wider world. One of the most famous blogs of this kind…
Abandoned Children Nobody Knows
In 2004 the Japanese filmmaker Hirozaku Kore-eda released Nobody Knows, a feature film based on the story of five children in Tokyo, abandoned by their mother and forced to fend for themselves. The film gained widespread attention for its depiction…
The Many Facets of Bullying: A Review of Cornered
Last December I reviewed A.S. King’s excellent young adult novel Everybody Sees the Ants for my local newspaper and interviewed the author on the novel’s central theme of bullying. Since then, several more books have come out on the subject,…