Kate Mester
4.5 so rounding up here. Half a star off for some plot conveniences, but this book is GREAT and needed! Korey Jackson was my fave male narrator of Let Me Hear a Rhyme and does an excellent job here. He sounds like a teen and gets the emphasis and tone right. Giles serves up an exploration of toxic masculinity, purity culture, and youth church life that feels fresh, funny, and authentic. Also, I've never heard the kids say “lying on my dick” but I hope it's either a phrase they use in secret or start to use because it's GOLD! Will definitely need more library copies ready for this one because I see it selling hard after booktalks!
A sweet and funny little story about Monty and Percy's first time. A sex positive story without being graphic and all about loving consent and the emotional work to be in a relationship. Can't have enough good examples of of that for teens, especially queer ones. Wouldn't really make sense without having read at least Gentleman's Guide.
Great art and I love Mikki Kendall and the premise but this was tooooooo much for the format and though there was an index, there are no citations or research notes given. There's a light through-line story of girls from the future being taken on a tour of women's rights, but this is mostly used as an attempt to force disparite topics together that don't fall easily into the historical timeline. Also, at least one caption is on the totally wrong person. Definitely worth having in the library collection but a little less than I was hoping for.
Fine not great. Comparisons to Simon vs Homosapien agenda and that's much better. Federle's a screenwriter, so incorporating in aspects of moviemaking was interesting, but for someone praising his own ear for dialogue, a lot of the narration felt clunky and not super authentic.
The story felt a little disjointed, but overall a good slice-of-life senior year YA book with deep themes. Ahmed drew from her own life in Batavia, IL (my central IL heart was REALLY here for this!) and how overwhelmingly and suffocatingly white the small Chicago suburbs are. I like that many readers will have a first-hand windows experience into being on the receiving end of Islamaphobia and have their empathy and understanding muscles worked. Some of the secondary characters feel a little stock, but the film references were legit.
A great addition to a MS/HS poetry collection, timely, vibrant, and very relatable. The notes included were well done to explain inspiration for the poems and mentor poems and poets. I know lots of teens/poets/writers I'd hand this to.
Whew, excellent top to bottom. It's a MUST listen from Elizabeth Acevedo, it's like Zoboi wrote Zuri with her specifically in mind. This update to Pride & Prejudice lived and breathed and loved and was joyful and real, with gentrification as a necessary central plot point. This would be a great lit circle/book group/class read selection.
I think this is the most fully stylish book jacket I've ever seen, so well designed. As for the content, Zoboi gathered an all-star cast of 17 Black YA authors for this anthology, specifically to write/show that Black culture is not a monolith (wonderful!). It was a little uneven, with authors I've loved delivering some lows (Jay Coles, Kekla Magoon, & Rita Williams-Garcia in particular), but mostly the stories were good to great. My favorite stories were from Jason Reynolds (short but so sumptously written, he's just showing off with his skill at this point, writing that well about sandwiches!), Nic Stone, Ibi Zoboi (best line - “charter schools were full of young white women from the Midswest thinking they could change the world and save the poor Black kids” oooof but yes), Coe Booth, & Tochi Onyebuchi. Bought another copy for the library because our brand new copy walked and is hopefully living a good and well-read life somewhere!
Of what I've read, my pick for Caldecott. Beautiful and touching tribute to EJK and his work. Award would be full circle, as The Snowy Day itself won Caldecott. Pinkney's poems are outstanding, and the research was clearly and lovingly done.
Not as strong as Allegedly but still great. She does the SE DC setting proud and her teen dialogue continues to ring true. Claudia does occasionally read as much younger than her age, but I found that to feel right as the story goes on. After the reveal the multiple timelines make sense and had me flipping back through to check in, though I agree with other reviewers that this might be a challenge turning kids this book might be perfect for off of the book. Very interested in kid opinion on this, and will be an easy sell once I tell fans off Allegedly is by same author.
Ooooof, I LOVE Kwame Alexander and his previous books but this was a big miss for me. The characters managed to be both unlikeable but also flat, the story was boring, the rock songs weren't rock songs and aren't something a 17 year old would choose, and the audio songs were just plain bad and didn't match to the characters at all. Not something I would recommend.
I just adore this series. Super creepy while also being fun and funny. The characters are so vividly written, so good in fact that my favorite is a talking skull! I'm sad the series has ended because I'd just keep reading more.
This would be a wonderful book to use next to the actual mentor texts of all the poets included in the collection, as a template for students writing their own poetry. The illustrations are unique, stunning, and individualized to each poem. Want to purchase for our library but would recommend for all K-12 libraries & classrooms.
Respect to AS King for trying surreal & experimental, but easily the worst of her books. Would be interested to see teen reactions, because there are very few I could think of liking this. Finished to see if it got better, but I don't think it did. Mostly just found it annoyingly bad.
Loved Grasshopper Jungle, but the multiple stories didn't come together in the same zingy way here, it felt like the seams were showing where GJ felt weird and effortless. Will booktalk and see if I have takers and will be very interested in their opinions
Solid 4 1/2. Really well written, maybe the best I've read by him. Haven't seen other books deal with the subject in such an authentic way
Satisfying conclusion to the story. Her detailed world-building and Nigerian nuances are really unparalleled. She puts her characters through actual harm in a compelling way. Strongly recommend for both MS and HS.
Fun, action-driven modern hacking mystery with a graphic element (the audio book version of graphic portion was well done). Not much on character depth or the “why” of the mystery, but will be a sure sell to upper middle/early HS.
I love Adam Rapp but even with Mike Cavallero's good art (often better than the story), the story isn't fully realized. I'm not sure Rapp can translate his ideas to this format. The world and characters were underdeveloped and there wasn't enough investment to build to the tragic ending (though use of color gave emotion, but too little, too late). Seemed interesting but a real swing and a miss.
Read to see if it would work for lit circles for on of my Social Studies teachers, but it's definitely upper elementary or middle school. As such, is a very detailed and well researched primer on the Syrian war and refugee crisis, though a fictionalized account.
Really liked the premise but the story and characters were overly simplistic, lots of description but everything was surface level. Not sure who I'm going to sell this too, but I'll look for an audience.
Have a set of 5 for World History/Lit book circles, so finally reading it. You learn some interesting things about Iraqi culture and history and why people choose to stay or leave, but kids will struggle here. It's jarringly disjointed, with anecdotes that switch back and forth in time, and her art doesn't hold up to the often intense subject matter. There's biographical black and white pictures included a few times, but no labels or context, so they aren't additive to understanding her story.
I've liked Sedgwick before, and the writing, at least in the first half, is well done, but the allegory/didacticism is so heavy handed and overblown and as a white Englishman, it's absolutely not his story to tell. The torture porn of brown bodies in service to a cautionary tale for what could happen to white society if we don't change is a seriously problematic mess. Wish I had read this before the BOB committee chose it so that I could have suggested an alternate title
An important book necessary for high school, college, and public collections. I appreciate Burgess's honesty and vulnerability in sharing their story and also using it as a platform to give information and visibility about asexuality, anxiety, and OCD. The memoir is warm and inviting, well laid out, and includes resources at the end.
Well written story about the perils of summer camp and friendship for an upper elementary/ middle school audience. Liked the inner look at Russian Orthodoxy and how true to the time the characters were - like the social hierarchy of owning American Girl dolls! I was a kid who dreamed of the summer camps I read about/saw on TV but never got to go, so would have loved this book as a young kid.