Review: Mascot

Mascot, by Charles Waters and Traci Sorell (Charlesbridge, expected Sept. 5, 2023)

In a town just outside Washington, D.C., six 8th grade students at a local middle school are assigned to debate whether Rye High and Middle School should keep or retire their school mascot, The Braves. Callie, new to school, and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is assigned to argue to keep the mascot, something she is staunchly, morally, and emotionally against. The assignment creates controversy for the students in the class, but when one student is fully swayed from his original point of view, he bands with Callie and several other students to make it a larger community issue.

I thought Waters and Sorell did a wonderful job of capturing the passion of middle school students, as well as their tendencies toward black and white thinking and the groupthink mentality. They accomplished the difficult task of excellently explaining both sides of an ongoing prominent issue in our country that is entangled with a lot of feelings, while also having a clear point of view (that racist mascots should be disbanded). Written in verse, this novel captures the voices of these six diverse students and their teacher really well, and I think this would make an excellent choice for classroom use to encourage discussion. Highly recommend.

Many thanks to Charlesbridge and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Review: Whiteout

Whiteout, by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Angie Thomas, Nicola Yoon, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nic Stone (Quill Tree Books 2022)

First line: “There are infinite ways that terrible night could have turned out differently.”

Well, what a delight.

Following up their successful interconnected short story collection, Blackout, set in a New York summer heatwave, the six powerhouses of YA fiction are back with another collection of interconnected short stories, this time set in an Atlanta blizzard in the lead up to Christmas, and I liked this one even more.

Centered on Stevie, as she attempts to save her relationship with Sola via the grandest of grand gestures before a midnight deadline, this collection follows five other pairs of teens as they attempt to help Stevie. While I often have a favorite story or two in any given collection, it’s impossible to pick a favorite couple from these six romance stories because they are all so varied and charming. The diversity was a dream, with characters of different gender identities, sexualities, religions, and cultures featured, and each is presented with love and affection. It’s no surprise that from six bestselling authors we have truly great writing, too, with hilarious dialogue, tender emotional moments, and great plotting. And although they don’t come out and say which author wrote which section, they do give some hints in the back matter, if, like me, you desperately try to figure out who wrote what.

Having been a part of an Atlanta blizzard myself, I found this book to be incredibly nostalgic and heartwarming, and anyone familiar with Atlanta will be treated to lots of great ATL details — including a lot of time spent at the fabulous Georgia Aquarium (with a very swoony scene in front of the moon jelly tank!). If you’re looking to squeeze in another holiday romance before December’s over, I’d highly recommend this one! And even though it is set just before Christmas, I think it can be equally enjoyed at any time throughout the winter.

Review: The Marvellers

The Marvellers (#1), by Dhonielle Clayton (Henry Holt and Co. 2022)

First line: “Marvelous. The lucky kids got called that.”

Readers looking for a more diverse fantastical world than granted us by JKR, look no further. In the first book in the Marvellerverse series, author Dhonielle Clayton built a truly magical cinematic universe, complete with a delightfully interesting magical school and layered details to keep you wondering. As seems to be the inaugural year at all magical schools, Ella Durand is eleven when she enrolls at The Arcanum Institute for Marvelous and Uncanny Endeavors, but unlike her fellow enrollees, she is the first Conjurer to be allowed entrance. Conjurers practice a different type of magic than Marvellers, and until this year has been seen as a lesser or even dangerous magic that Marvellers shouldn’t associate with. In fact, many still feel this way, despite the Arcanum’s attempts to rectify its discriminatory practices.

Ella is thrilled to join the Arcanum, in spite of her mother’s concerns and the suspicious glares of her fellow students. Amidst the animosity, she becomes very close to her mentor Masterji Thakur, her roommate Brigit – an orphan who hates magic – and Jason, who has a devotion to all magical creatures. But strange things start happening in the Marvellers’ world, including the escape of a villainous convict, the disappearance of Ella’s mentor, and bizarre accusations, and Ella’s place at the Arcanum is up for debate.

I thought Clayton did a beautiful job setting up this world, full of intricate and novel details that leave lots of room for further development. I loved her integration of the “real” world with the Conjurer and Marveller worlds, as well as her very poignant portrayal of integration and discrimination struggles, despite the very racially and nationally diverse universe. There were a few aspects that left me a bit confused, such as the villain’s motivations and some of the side characters’ roles in that, but I hope that those are things that will be explored more in future installments! Ella is an easy character to fall in love with and root for, and I can’t wait to get back to her world and find out what will become of her and her friends.

Grateful to the librarian who knew I’d need to see these beautiful endpapers and didn’t tape the front closed.

Review: The Bridge Home

The Bridge Home, by Padma Venkatraman (narrated by the author) (Listening Library 2019)

First line: “Talking to you was always easy, Rukku. But writing’s hard.”

My first choice for #MiddleGradeMarch was a book I’ve been meaning to get to for years. The Bridge Home was all over the place back in 2019 when it was released, earning all sorts of starred reviews from major review sources and the coveted Walter Dean Myers Award, which recognizes children’s literature written by diverse authors that celebrate and discuss diversity in a meaningful way. (Past winners have included favorites such as Firekeeper’s Daughter, A Long Way Down, Punching the Air, and The Poet X.)

The Bridge Home follows sisters Viji and Rukku who have recently run away from an abusive father and have decided to try to make it on their own on the streets of Chennai in India. Although Viji is technically the younger sister, Rukku has a developmental disability that has always made Viji feel responsible to watching out for her. While Viji knows that staying at home was no longer a viable option, she finds out that the streets are more dangerous and frightening than she was expecting. But soon the sisters meet two other young outcasts, Muthi and Arul, and the four become a tighter-knit family than any of them have experienced in the past.

I found this to be a beautiful story of found family and survival. In a story that could have been a “depressing” book, and one that definitely had its heartbreaking moments, I didn’t feel that way reading it, and think that Muthi’s humor and Viji’s determination keep it from veering in that direction. I was also glad that this book didn’t succumb to the “all adults are terrible” trope so often seen in children’s literature. While there were certainly some villains here, there were also good and compassionate adults that helped these kids survive when they might otherwise have not. The author narrates this audiobook (which isn’t always a good thing where fiction is concerned), and she did an excellent job bringing her characters and situations to life.

A solid addition to the middle grade canon, and one that will be eye-opening to many young readers.

Review: Woke

Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice, by Mahogany L. Browne with Elizabeth Acevedo and Olivia Gatwood (Roaring Brook Press 2020)

First line: “What does it mean to be woke?”

This year to honor Black History Month, I spent a little time each day of February reading one of the poems in this middle grade collection. Covering issues from body positivity and empathy to intersectionality and joy, the poems in this book offer an introduction to many different aspects of being “woke” in today’s society. Because of the intended audience of this book (older kids and young tweens/teens), the message of each poem come from a place of foundational understanding: they are accessible, easy to read, straightforward, all while using rich, beautiful imagery and language. Yes, it’s middle grade, but because of its approach, I think there’s great value in this collection for any age. I found the poem “What’s in My Toolbox?” by Olivia Gatwood, for example, to be perhaps the best explanation of privilege I may have ever read. These poems are wonderful jumping off points for tackling some really tough conversations with kids in the classroom or at home, and I am glad to know that I will have these to use in the future.

Review: A Universe of Wishes

A Universe of Wishes, edited by Dhonielle Clayton (Crown 2020)

First line: “Dear Reader, I was a mess as a teenager.”

This fourth anthology produced by the We Need Diverse Books campaign features 15 new stories by 15 diverse YA authors, including Samira Ahmed, Jenni Balch, Libba Bray, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova, Tessa Gratton, Kwame Mbalia, Anna-Marie McLemore, Tochi Onyebuchi, Mark Oshiro, Natalie C. Parker, Rebecca Roanhorse, V. E. Schwab, Tara Sim, and Nic Stone. While the three previous volumes have been primarily contemporary realistic fiction, this collection of short stories are all fantasy or science fiction, ranging from deep space to near future dystopian, fairy tale retellings to magical communication via toilet. Some of these authors I had read before, and some were new to me.

After finishing, I went back through to narrow down my favorites, see which stories had spoken most to me, and was surprised and thrilled to find myself highlighting more than half the stories in this book! I could list all these story titles for you, but instead, I’ll just mention two, and leave you to discover your favorites on your own.

“The Coldest Spot in the Universe” by Samira Ahmed was the story that left me the most unsettled. Set in dual timelines, one far in the future (though how far is a little unclear due to their different calendar year), and one just ten years from now. In 2031, we are hearing from the journal of Razia, a teenage girl who has seen the devastation of our planet and a cold age set in due to a horrendous miscalculation of a nuclear solution. Later, we hear the voice log of another teenage girl, many many years in the future, who has returned to our planet as part of an archeological mission to determine what happened to humanity and if the planet is stable to return. The horrifying and tragic picture of our planet painted by Ahmed is disturbing to say the least, and not that unrealistic, and the connection between these girls many generations apart was incredibly powerful.

The last story of the collection, “Habibi” by Tochi Onyebuchi, is an epistolary story between two young men trapped in solitary confinement across the globe from each other. While their cultures, languages, and environments are about as far as they could be from each other, their experience is startlingly the same. Somehow, through some mysterious magic involving bodily processes (yes: through their poop.), they are able to send each other letters. Through their communication, they find connection where they had none, hope where they had none, love where they had none. It’s beautiful and devastating.

I’m only now seeing, through discussing each of these stories, how many similarities there are between them. I guess I know what themes were speaking to me this week.

This beautiful book comes out today and should appeal to any YA speculative fiction lover you know! Once again, I find myself loving these anthologies and seeing the need to include more of them on my tbr.

Thank you to Crown Books for Young Readers via Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Doing the Work: Conducting a Racial Diversity Audit

Scrolling the internet this past week, I’ve encountered list after list of resources for those of us needing to assess our role in fighting racism. So many folks have shared books for all ages that strive to teach antiracism and help white readers in particular diversify their reading habits. I’ve always thought of myself as having a diverse book collection at my home, and while I was a librarian, it was actively part of my collection development policy. But when I started taking a look around my house yesterday to pull out books written by Black authors, I couldn’t find very many. I decided that if I was going to be intentional about my self-reflection and education on racism in our country, I wanted to conduct a diversity audit of my physical bookshelves and my Goodreads Read shelf to see not only how diversely I’m reading, but also where I’m spending my money. The results are not that surprising, unfortunately.

My first step was to go through my Goodreads lists, which I use to track my reading. Since 2017, I’ve added a shelf each year to track how many books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) authors I read. From that shelf, I was able to count which of those were from Black authors. While I was librarian-ing, in addition to collecting diverse books, I also tried to read diversely, to be able to booktalk those books by #ownvoices authors so that I could expose my largely white/Christian student body to other perspectives. (I can really see this in 2018 reading list.) But since leaving school in the Spring of 2019, I’ve noticed that my numbers have plummeted in terms of reading from non-white authors. 2020 has been my least-diverse year yet. Moving forward, I’m making some serious efforts to rectify that. Two of the four I’m currently reading are by Black authors (Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates), and my next two lined up are also (The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett and The Source of Self-Regard, by Toni Morrison).

	2017	2018	2019	2020  (so far)
Total Books Read	115	120	102	51
BIPOC authors	29 (25.2%)	46 (38.3%)	25 (24.5%)	10 (19.6%)
Black authors	21 (18.3%)	24 (23.5%)	13 (12.7%)	6 (11.8%)

My next step was to take inventory of my physical bookshelves here at home. Until recently (thanks Corona), I’ve always been a BIG library user (especially when I worked in one every day, but also at my public library since I’ve been at home). So what I read is not necessarily reflective of what I own (and vice versa). What’s more, I rarely keep books I’ve read on my shelf unless they are absolute favorites, are by favorite authors, or are just too gorgeous to get rid of. Otherwise, they move on to Little Free Libraries, used bookstores, Goodwill, or to friends and family. I would say somewhere between 60-75% of my books are unread (I didn’t count this. I should have.) So again, what I own is not reflective of what I’ve read. But I thought auditing what I own was also an important step, as it shows me where I’m spending my money. I spent yesterday evening counting books on my shelves, with the following results.

Author’s Race	Number of Books	Percentage of Collection
White	207	73.7
Black	23	8.1
Indigenous	4	1.4
Latino	5	1.8
East Asian	9	3.2
Middle Eastern/Indian	33	11.7

I’m glad to have these numbers so as I move forward buying more books (as I always will), I can do so with intention, with awareness, working to bring those percentages more in balance. This week I’ve added lots of books by Black authors to my TBR, so some of those will probably eventually come to reside on my home shelves, especially if I stay away from the library for much longer. If you have any suggestions of ones I should add to my shelf, please let me know in the comments! I would love to have more recommendations.

Have you ever conducted a diversity audit of your bookshelves in terms of race or any other feature? Now might be the time.

Peace and love, reader friends.

Black Lives Matter.