Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors
The ALA Youth Media Awards were announced last week and Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley was honored in a number of categories (very deservedly so!).
2022 Awards and Honors:
AILA American Indian Youth Literature Award, Young Adult Honor
William C Morris YA Debut Award Winner
Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature Winner
The American Library Association (ALA) announced the top books, video and audio books for children and young adults, including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery and Printz awards at LibLearnX: The Library Learning Experience today.
A list of 2022 award winners follows:
In the Young Adult book world, there are many new, fresh voices being represented as well as more titles from favorite YA authors. Here are some YA books that have left an impression on me this past year. They made me stay up way too late or were a treat to listen to as I mowed the lawn or drove around town.
Yes, Mona is a wizard, but her specialty is bread. Which is wonderful for keeping muffins from burning or convincing biscuits that they are not overworked, but significantly less so for defending the her city from an internal coupe and foreign invaders. Mona is a reluctant hero, who very rightly points out that she wouldn't have needed to BE a hero if the people in charge had just done what they were supposed to.
Although Miles and Rhys attend the same school, they don't know each other in real life, but in the online game Mecha Melee they are triumphant besties known as Gryphon and Backslash. The action in the book switches back and forth between in-game action and real-life family and middle school drama. The students at their school make up a diverse cast of background characters. Miles and his family are Black, and Rhys and his family have light brown skin and straight, dark hair.
This middle grade graphic novel set in Indonesia will pull at your heart strings. Jordan (named after Michael Jordan) shoots hoops like no one else at Kahawaii Multicultural School. A former star player on the basketball team, she's now the Captain after an accident leaves her paralyzed and unable to play on the team as before. Jordan misses playing basketball but remains upbeat and runs practices, attends games, and remains an integral part of the team.
If you heard that someone got stuck when trying to cross the border, would you think of San Ysidro, El Paso or maybe Laredo? I admit, I did. But this story takes place at the Canadian-American border. This graphic novel, illustrated by Natasha Donovan, is an adaptation of Thomas King's 1993 short story. A Blackfoot boy in Alberta tells how when he was about twelve years old, his seventeen year old sister moved to Salt Lake City. The tension between Laetitia and her mother feels very real.
To this day there is argument about what happened at Kent State on May 4, 1970. What's certain is that tensions were high. America was at war in Vietnam, the nation was divided in their support of President Nixon, young men were living in fear of the draft, and students were protesting the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces. Many students at Kent State thought the bombing escalated a war that the United States was supposedly withdrawing from and were peacefully protesting on Friday, May 1 on the Commons, a large grassy area in the middle of campus.
I've been waiting to tell you about John Scalzi's forthcoming title for a while now as it was just the antidote I needed for a reading slump. At the time most things I'd been reading were eliciting a tepid, 'ah it was fine' response. And then came the Kaiju. Not only were they a saving grace for me, but based on the author note included in the book, were one for Scalzi as well. He'd been struggling with another book as the pandemic worsened and just couldn't make progress when the idea for this story popped into his head.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’d like to have Mary Roach in our high school science classes. Her ‘can-you-believe-this’ odd factoid interjections would likely liven up most classrooms while making those facts that teacher presents stick all the better.
Recently the National Book Foundation announced the 2021 Finalists for the National Book Awards. According to their website "the mission of the National Book Foundation is to celebrate the best literature in America, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in American culture." The categories include Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, Young People's Literature.
October and the spooky season are just around the corner and I have the book for you. Elly Griffiths' (best known for her Ruth Galloway series of mysteries) Stranger Diaries is suspenseful and even spooky at times (there's even a ghost) and is a gothic book about a gothic story that is being written about for a book. Okay that sounds like nonsense, I know.
Thirty award-winning authors and illustrators share stories and discussions about "the talk" - the conversations they have with their children about race and racism, identity, and self-esteem. For some parents it's a way to prepare their kids, for others it's a way to protect them, for still others it's a way to explain. All of the talks and the reasons for the talk are varied, just like humans are varied.
In their summer reading poll this year NPR decided to focus on the past decade of science fiction and fantasy writing. They first elicited votes from readers and then had a panel of expert judges curate the final list of 50 titles. The result is about as good as it gets if you're looking for "recommended" reads in these genres.
The other night I was reading on my tablet and realized it needed charging. But I still wanted to be reading. So I picked Linesman from my pile of library books and thought 'I'll just read it for a while and then head to bed'. Best laid plans. A few hours later (at 4:30 in the morning!) I turned the last page and immediately went to the LINKcat app on my phone to put book two in the series (Alliance) on hold. I love when that happens with a book, especially one I had no expectations of going in.
Have you ever taken a haunted history tour of the Wisconsin Dells? Options include a haunted trolley, haunted canyon, haunted mansion and ghost boat tours to get you started. Now imagine that the Dells is also home to a family of ghost whisperers whose job it is to help spirits with unfinished business cross over.
Cici's family moves from Taiwan to Seattle when she's twelve and it's a shocking adjustment. They leave her A-má (grandmother) and many traditions behind. Cici is determined to bridge the gap by exploring more American customs and cuisine and by vowing to bring her A-má to Seattle in time for her 70th birthday.
Moira is a senior in high school when her best friend, Nathan, dies of cancer. Nathan was not only her best friend, he was Moira’s only friend, the only person she thought she needed or wanted in her life. Before Nathan got sick, Moira spent more time with him and his family than her own. After he was diagnosed with cancer, she started skipping classes and meals to spend every minute she could with him. Moira’s world crashes when Nathan dies, and her parents are at a loss as to how to help her. They decide to send her to Castle School, far from home, deep in the woods of Maine.
Mystery devotees could long argue over what period represented the peak era of American noir/mystery writing, but it’s likely all would agree that the 1940s would be high on everyone’s list. With such luminaries as Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, and Dorothy Hughes established and up and comers Mickey Spillane and Jim Thompson making their mark in the pulp magazines, the culture of World War II America was ripe for literary inspiration.
This little guide starts out as the career story of a young black art history major from private liberal arts women's college Smith. Kimberly Drew navigates academic coursework with part-time jobs, internships and gallery opportunities while also creating, curating and providing content for a contemporary black art blog on Tumblr. She was at work at a new job as an assistant at a privately owned art gallery for ten days when Eric Garner was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island and when about three weeks later Michael Brown was fatally shot in Ferguson, Missouri.
