5 stars A powerful tale of a life lived and how quickly the world can change. Inside Out & Back Again tells the story of a year in the life of Hà, based on Thanhha Lai’s own childhood. In that year (1975), Hà experiences the Fall of Saigon, the treacherous journey by ship to America,…
Read More
4 stars A delicious book recounting the tale of a girl trying different foods (even though pizza is the best!) for the sake of science. Perfect for pizza lovers of all ages and a good reminder about how fun (and delectable!) it can be to try new foods. Gianna Ruggiero‘s illustrations are just the right…
Read More
4 stars Absolutely loved this collection! There is so much positive energy and joy packed into this book. Despite the struggles presented in each story, they all show so much love and acceptance in their themes and characters. There’s a great variety in terms of plot, style, and the authors who wrote them. Loved seeing…
Read More
5 stars A fiercely powerful collection of prominent voices in the YA and children’s lit community. This is a book everyone should read. Regardless of race, ethnicity, skin color, age, religion. Everyone should read this book. Told from a variety of perspectives, each parent, author, artist, and educator gets at the same message of a…
Read More
3 stars An open and compelling memoir as well as a call to action for representation into the intersection between Blackness and queerness, especially within the YA genre. Johnson does a wonderful job crafting a memoir that acts as a place of relatability for those who share his identities as well as a place for…
Read More
3 stars Aesthetically, this books is absolutely gorgeous. Julia Iredale knocked it out of the park with those illustrations and, let’s be real, that cover is perfection. Overall, the stories were good. What Chainani did well, he did very well. The diversity of the characters is splendid. Loved the cultural elements woven in. Not just giving us…
Read More
5 stars An impressive picture book debut from Tracey Baptiste, author of The Jumbies series, this gorgeous book weaves an enchanting tale of a moonlit stroll to find some jumbies. Great for those already familiar with jumbies as well as those experiencing them for the first time. Featuring a Douen, a Lagahoo, Mama D’Leau, and many more,…
Read More
2 stars This is a tricky one to rate. It tells the story of Tom Token being accepted as the first black student at a historically white mage school, St. Ivory Academy. I personally enjoyed the word play involved. Tom has a crow named Jim and the higher-ups in the school like Headmaster Lynch walk…
Read More
5 stars Another absolutely gorgeous book in the Amulet series! I love the artwork of these books so much. It’s so easy to just get lost in the worlds Kibuishi has created. Despite my best efforts, I flew through this book. So much happens and it was all amazing. The whole storyline on Algos Island…
Read More
5 stars An excellent read filled with remarkable women. Engaging, inspiring, and beautiful in its presentation. One thing I really enjoyed about this book was the range of sciences included. Aviation, nutrition, psychology, entomology, neurosurgery, and engineering are just a few of the many types of STEM fields discussed in this book. It was also…
Read More