Sugar by Jewell Parker Rhodes

4 stars A fantastic story about a young girl making her way through life in Reconstruction-era Louisiana. Though slavery in America has ended, ten-year old orphan, Sugar, is still stuck on the River Road Plantation working the sugarcane fields. All she wants to do is have fun, but she’s the only kid left on the…

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Bronzeville Boys and Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks

Illustrated by Faith Ringgold 4 stars A nice collection of poetry focused on the lives of children in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. The book includes a variety of themes expressed with different rhythms and rhymes. It covers relatable topics of friendship, moving to a new place, making new friends, dealing with illness, death of…

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Poetry Will Save Your Life: A Memoir by Jill Bialosky

1 star A disappointing read from a book with such a catchy title and lovely cover. Loved the idea but the execution did not work for me. For me, this book tries to do too much. It is part memoir, part poetry anthology, and part poetry analysis with some facts and quotes from other poets…

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What’s Up, Beanie?: Acutely Relatable Comics by Alina Tysoe

5 stars I love reading Tysoe’s comics on Webtoon and Instagram so I was super pumped when I saw she’d put together a book collection. While I would have been perfectly content with a bound collection of her comics, Tysoe blew me away by creating a little frame story about her younger self time traveling…

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