The Plot:
Desperate to find his brother and sister, who have both left their home to find a better life, Ebo sets off on his own treacherous journey to leave his homeland.  His hope is to make it to Europe, where he knows there will be more opportunities for him.  In order to make it, he must rely on the help of scoundrels and thieves, who take his money in exchange for the most basic provisions.  He must cross the Sahara Desert in an overcrowded truck and hope he doesn't fall off.  He must scrabble and scrape in towns along his way, like Tripoli, to make enough money to fund the next stretch of his trip, hiding all along from authorities who will send him home if he is found there without proper documentation.  He must survive an endless trip across the sea in a too-small inflatable raft.  He must hold on to his hope at every moment - hope that he will not be caught, hope that he will survive his journey, hope that he will see his brother or sister again.

Why This Book Is Worth Reading:
I read this book in one sitting on one of our many snow days.  My kids were napping. I had a brief window of time and a million things to do around my house.  But I sat down to read this book for just a few minutes and I couldn't stop.  Ebo's story is gripping.  It is intense and dramatic, and the graphic novel format of the book enhances both of those qualities.  You can see the emotion on the characters faces.  You can feel their discomfort at being confined to cramped quarters without food or water.  As Americans, our national news often contains stories or footage of people in circumstances like Ebo, but those people are often trying to enter the United States.  It lends tremendous perspective to think about this journey happening halfway around the world, so different and yet so much the same.   Illegal allowed me to connect to this plight in an entirely new way.  I will continue to think about this book for a long time.

​Book Details:
Title: Illegal
Author: Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin
ISBN: 9781492662143
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publication Date: August 7, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Awards/Accolades: A 2019 YALSA Great Graphic Novels Top Ten pick, 5 starred reviews
Do We Own a Copy?: currently being processed

The Plot:
Maya Aziz sees the world through the lens of a camera.  She thinks about her life in constructed angles, impeccable lighting, and the perfect soundtrack for a memorable and moving scene.  Unfortunately, real life doesn't always comply with her vision.  She'd love to leave the Midwest and go to film school in New York, but her parents want her to stay local and study something practical.  She has had a crush on ** forever, but her parents want her to date an Indian boy, preferably one who is Muslim like her.  She's navigating the life of a conflicted teenager, caught between two cultures and varying expectations.  All of that would be hard enough, but then an Islamic-focused hate crime gives Maya and her family an entirely new set of worries.

Why It's Worth Reading:
This book almost reads like two related stories - the initial plot of Maya's daily challenges captures the daily reality that many multicultural teenagers, including many at Novi, face.  It's incredibly challenging to find a happy balance between American culture and heritage traditions, particularly with significant pressure from parents who are more connected to their native culture.  After the terrorist attack occurs midway through the novel, much of Maya's focus shifts to an arguably greater cultural challenge - fighting against stereotypes that others force upon her due to race, religion or ethnicity.  While the transition between the two sections feels a bit rushed and clunky, it seems that the adjustment to relatively new racism and Islamophobia that Maya faces would feel very abrupt as well.  The bottom line is that both components of this novel convey welcome and much needed perspectives in YA literature, and are put together in a quick, interesting novel that will be difficult for readers to put down.  

Book Details:
Title: Love, Hate and Other Filters
Author: Samire Ahmed
ISBN: 9781616958473
Publisher: Soho Teen
Publication Date: January 16, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Awards/Accolades: 4 starred reviews in just a month!
Do We Own a Copy?: 2 copies
​

Normally, on a Friday afternoon, you'd see my weekly blog post featuring a book review.  True confession of a working librarian - I've got nothing this week.  I'm in the middle of reading several books at once and the last couple of books that I finished, I didn't like much.  Since I don't recommend books unless I enjoyed them, here I am with no book to review on a Friday.

Instead of my own review, I decided to offer a couple of lists.  The Young Adult Library Services of America (YALSA) group, announces the five finalists in a couple of their award categories at this time of year, and they came out this week!  I've read several and am extremely excited about most of them, so I thought I'd share them here.  

Morris Finalists
The William C. Morris Award honors the year's best books written for young adults by a previously unpublished author.  I'm excited to see that I've already read two of the five, Dear Martin by Nic Stone, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which were both incredible.  The other three books are:  

Devils Within by S.F. Henson
Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali
Starfish​ by Akemi Dawn Bowman

​  Here are the covers of all five novels:

YALSA Award for Excellence in  Nonfiction Finalists
The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults during a given year.  I have had my eyes on a couple of these titles, but have not yet read any of them, so I need to get to work!  This year's finalists are:

Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and the Invention of Modern Photojournalism by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos

#NotYourPrincess: Voice of Native American Women by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale

Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman

The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked and Found by Martin W. Sandler

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

Add these titles to your reading list quickly!  One of them in each category will win the award when they are announced at the ALA Midwinter Conference on February 12.  I can't wait!

The Plot:
You Bring the Distant Near starts with an Indian family that has recently emigrated to the United States in the 1970s.  Mother Ranee is skeptical of the move.  She wants to preserve the family's Indian heritage and keep her daughters safe from the danger that waits for children on the streets of America.  Sonia and Tara are thrilled to be in the U.S. but for totally different reasons.  Tara is engrossed in American cinema and theater, transforming herself to look like a new movie star each year.  Sonia is an activist and is thrilled about her new access to free speech and public demonstrations.  As the generations pass, Sonia and Tara have daughters of their own, who continue the saga of trying to find their way as Indian American women.

Why It's Worth Reading:
There are so many reasons why this book was excellent.  It's a multi-generational, multicultural family story.  It's a beautiful picture of what emigration can look like and feel like to different people within the same household.  It perfectly captures how the American picture of immigration has changed with each generation from the 70s until now.  It's Mitali Perkins at her finest.  And gosh darn it, that cover is stunning.  I'm thrilled to have an authentic and honest novel depicting a large Indian-American family for the many Indian-American students that attend NHS, and for their peers who may want a better understanding of how some of their classmates might see the world. 

Book Details:
Title: You Bring the Distant Near
Author: Mitali Perkins
ISBN: 9780374304904
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
Publication Date: September 12, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Awards/Accolades: 5 starred reviews, and Longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award
Do We Own a Copy?: On order

**Disclaimer - I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.**

The Plot:
​Vivi is new to Verona Cove and she loves it.  She really needed a break from Seattle and everything that happened last year.  When she meets Jonah, she knows she has come to the right place.  Jonah's is gorgeous and he's taking care of his family because his dad passed away and his mom is not in a good place.  He needs her.  She's finally found a place where she can be herself and not be the one with "problems," except she has a secret.  She's been throwing her pills over the most beautiful cliff in town every morning.  Her mom would freak out about that, but Jonah doesn't know anything about her pills or why she has them.  He just thinks she's perfect and they are going to have an amazing summer together.  What could possibly go wrong?

Why It's Worth Reading:
When We Collided won the 2017 Schneider Family Book Award.  It is given annually to honor an author or illustrator of a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.  Both Vivi and Jonah's mother struggle with mental health disorders throughout the novel, and Emery Lord does an absolutely incredible job of demonstrating full, nuanced portrayals of how those disorders can display themselves in different people.  She also paints an imperfect, frustrated and confused picture of grief in Jonah and his siblings, which adds to the overall meaning of the novel.  And the writing is so lovely.  I marked passage after passage the just sung with beauty.  Here's a favorite:

"'I've always loved The Wizard of Oz, you know?  Every girl wants to be Dorothy Gale or maybe Glinda.  I never wanted to be the tornado.'

I open my mouth to say that it's okay, that I'm just so glad to see her.  That if she's the tornado, it's not because she's cut terror through a tiny town.  It's because she's swept us all up into a place where there's color everywhere."

This book could easily be played off as another YA romance.  I'm so glad that it won the Schneider Award so that it will get the attention and honor that it rightfully deserves as a beautiful, honest, captivating, funny, and bittersweet story, that happens to have some romance.

Book Details:
Title: When We Collided
Author: Emery Lord
ISBN: 9781619638457
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's Books
Publication Date: April 5, 2016
Format: Hardcover
Awards/Accolades: 2017 Schneider Family Book Award
Do We Own a Copy?: Definitely!

The Plot:
The day that Natasha and Daniel meet is one that is already scheduled to change both of their lives.  Daniel is headed to his Yale interview.  If it goes well, he's headed to Connecticut to become a doctor, just like his parents have always wanted.  Natasha's family is being deported to Jamaica - tonight.  She's hoping to meet with a lawyer to figure out a way to stay.  They are both in the middle of major moments in their lives, but when they meet, they both suddenly have entirely new reasons for staying in New York. Do they dare disturb the universe and its plan already in progress?  Or is meeting each other part of the plan?

Why It's Worth Reading:
It's Eleanor & Park in New York City with a touch of Serendipity in the mix!  There are a lot of sappy romances out there, but this isn't one of them.  It's a clever, sincere, hilarious yet poignant story about two young people who don't have time or space in their lives for each other, but they just cannot help themselves.  They come from completely different cultures and have completely different philosophies.  No one would ever put them together, but the universe has other plans.  There are also these fabulous chapters that function as asides within the story and add tremendous depth and oft needed background to the plot.  One, for example, might focus on a minor character with whom Natasha interacts for only a few minutes, giving history and explanation of how their momentary interaction has a lasting impact.  Later in the story, after the reader learns that Daniel's South Korean parents own a black hair care store, one of these chapters briefly but compellingly explains the fascinating history of the South Korean hair trade that led to nearly all black hair care shops in New York being owned by immigrants from South Korea.  There is a reason that this novel made all of the best of lists in 2016 and was a finalist in multiple award categories, including the John Steptoe New Talent Award (a sub-category of the Coretta Scott King) and National Book Award.  It's at the top of my 2017 list already.

​Book Details:
Title: The Sun is also a Star
Author: Nicola Yoon
ISBN: 9780553496680
Awards/Accolades: 2017 Printz Award finalist, 217 John Steptoe Award for New Talent, 2016 National Book Award finalist and at least 5 starred reviews!
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: November 1, 2016
Do We Own a Copy?: Multiple copies are on order.
​

The Plot:
Katie never knew her grandmother.  Her mother, Caroline, hates to speak of her past and thoughts of her mother, Mary, only enrage her.  But when Mary's husband Jack dies unexpectedly, the hospital calls Caroline to come pick up Mary, who is suffering from dementia and cannot be left alone.  Caroline is livid.  Her mother never took care of her, so why should she be expected to drop everything to look after Mary.  Katie, on the other hand, connects with Mary instantly - she is a stranger, but she seems so familiar.  And it's not her fault that she gets confused and can't remember things.  When Katie starts trying to help Mary recall her memories, she begins to understand some of the rift that has always existed between her mother and grandmother.  But Katie could never guess the secrets that lie deep within her family history or the way that Mary's stories will help Katie to understand a secret of her own.

Why It's Worth Reading:
I doubt that anyone would classify this book as a mystery, but I found it so suspenseful!  Downham does an incredible job of layering the events of the present with Mary's stories from the past.  Mary's dementia and Caroline's dislike of her history with Mary add to the mysterious nature of the plot.  Katie cannot help but feel like she is missing details, either because Mary cannot remember them or because her mother refuses to discuss her past.  The character development in this novel was so rich, making it easy for the reader to recognize how Mary's free-wheeling spirit led to Caroline's buttoned-up watchfulness, and then on to Katie's desire for some freedom of her own.  I also really loved how Mary's dementia was handled.  The devastation of the disease was apparent, but Katie was still able to connect with her, even having only known her in the throes of her disorder.  This book had so much going for it - it's a family story, it's a coming-of-age story, it's a mental health novel, and it's a 2017 Stonewall Honor book.  It may just be the perfect choice for an open-minded reader who is not sure what to read next.  Give it a shot!

Book Details:
Title: Unbecoming
Author: Jenny Downham
ISBN: 9780545907170
Awards/Accolades: 2017 Stonewall Honor Book, 2017 ALA Best Ficton for Young Adults list, & at least 5 starred reviews!
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: ​Scholastic
Publication Date: February 23, 2016
Source:  LIBRES Book Review group
Do We Own a Copy?: Multiple copies are now in our library.
​

The Plot:
Margot is living two lives - at home, she's the family's little Princesa, daughter to the owner of not one, but two grocery stores in the Bronx, where most of the store employees look up to her father and see her as a privileged princess.  At her private school, she struggles to fit in, befriending girls who make comments about her brown skin and view her as the clown of the group.  She's hoping to spend the entire summer with her school friends in the Hamptons, living at their family mansions and attending parties with the social elite.  But a poor decision lands her in trouble at home, sentenced to a summer of working at her father's store.  At first, she can only think of ways to convince her parents to let her join her friends, but soon, she begins to notice that there have been a lot of changes - in her family, at the store, in the neighborhood in the Bronx - that she has missed while she was working so hard to be popular.  Margot's summer is going to be major, but not for any of the reasons that she had planned.

Why It's Worth Reading:
We can all relate to Margot in some way, right?  She feels pulled between two different parts of her life.  She's trying to play a role at school that doesn't jive with who she has always been at home.  I think everyone goes through phases of trying to figure out who they really are and where they truly belong, sometimes to the point of creating an identity that isn't really honest.  I know I went through more than one such phase in my younger years.  I don't consider them my finest moments, but I would not be who am I today without those experiences. While I sometimes found Margot's identity struggles frustrating, I understood exactly how they came about and I was so thrilled when she had moments of recognition about who she really wanted to be.  I loved seeing how Margot's Puerto Rican culture influences her family and life as the story progresses as well.  Ultimately, Margot's bigger struggle is a major concept - she should assimilate into the culture of her peers, separate herself strictly into the Latino community, or find some kind of middle ground?  This is a time-honored struggle, pervasive from classic literature to pop culture and everywhere in between.  I appreciate Lilliam Rivera bringing the conversation to the YA world in a realistic, sincere way.

​Book Details:
Title: The Education of Margot Sanchez
Author: Lilliam Rivera
ISBN: 9781481472135
Format: eBook
Publisher: ​Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: February 21,2017
Source:  Advanced Reader's Copy  (Full disclosure: I received a free e-galley in exchange for my honest opinion.)
Do We Own a Copy?: ​Definitely!

The Plot:
Fabiola and her mother have been planning to leave Haiti for years, but when they finally make the trip, her mother is detained at the U.S. border.  Fabiola is forced to navigate her way to Detroit to live with family she has only known over the phone.  Her aunt is mysterious, often ill, disappearing into her room for days at a time.  Her cousins are legendary.  Known around their school as the 3Bs, they strike fear into the hearts of anyone who crosses them.  Fabiola feels most at  home with them, but also fails to understand the complicated world in which they live.  She wants to stay in the U.S., but she also misses Haiti and her mother, about whom no one else seems to share her concern.  She lives at the crossroads of Joy Road and American Street and she has reached a crossroads in her life as well.  Where does she belong?

Why It's Worth Reading:
I think I've made it clear in previous posts that I love books set in the Detroit area if they are done well.  (See my review of Elusion.)  This is one of the best that I've read in a while.  Fabiola's exploration of the city is made all the more interesting because she is seeing it through the eyes of stranger, navigating streets, restaurants, and neighborhoods familiar to me, but foreign to her.  Her perspective of the city is fascinating because while she recognizes that is has many flaws, she draws direct comparison to her hometown of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, an area which has also seen some struggle and setbacks.  Zoboi, through Fabiola, is able to assess the community very matter-of-factly, without melodramatic judgment or the overwhelming historic perspective (a fall from greatness, or recent rejuvenation after that fall) that is often represented.  The other aspect of this novel that really stands out is the writing.  There is a poetry to the language, and tons of beautiful metaphor, most particularly the intersection of American and Joy, that make it clear that this book is something special.  

​Book Details:
Title: American Street
Author: Ibi Zoboi
ISBN: 9780062473042
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: ​Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: February 14, 2017 
Awards/Accolades: 5 starred reviews before release!
Source:  Advanced Reader's Copy  (Full disclosure: I received a free galley in exchange for my honest opinion.)
Do We Own a Copy?: ​On order

The Plot:
Tina's been plotting her revenge for the last four years.  Her mother was murdered and Tina knows exactly who is responsible.  She joins the Goondas, a gang in her town of Sangui City, Kenya, and with their help, she vows that she will take his money, then his power, and finally, his life.  On the night that she sneaks into his house to enact her plan, everything goes wrong and Tina finds herself caught by Michael, the killer's son who swears that his father is innocent.  He convinces Tina to give him a few days to figure out the truth behind the murder and, in doing so, opens a door to a past full of secrets, lies, and a family history that she never knew existed.

Why It's Worth Reading:
This book was an absolute page-turner!  I was totally gripped with the mystery behind Tina's family, her mother's move from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Kenya years ago, and her complicated relationship with the wealthy and powerful Greyhill family.  Plus, what's the last book that you read that was set in Africa?  So many of the books published in the United States are either set here or in Europe.  It's fantastic to leave the familiar settings behind and explore a completely new part of the world with these characters.  Anderson does a really incredible job of connecting the setting, particularly the DRC, to the story, interweaving culture and history with the characters and their journey to unearth the truth.  It reminded me regularly of how lucky I am to live in a place where I feel safe, secure and comfortable.  Grab this one if you like a compelling mystery driven by politics, corruption, and revenge.

​Book Details:
Title: City of Saints and Thieves
Author: Natalie C. Anderson
ISBN: 9780399547584
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: ​G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: January 24, 2017 
Awards/Accolades: 4 starred reviews only three days after its release
Source:  Advanced Reader's Copy  (Full disclosure: I received a free galley in exchange for my honest opinion.)
Do We Own a Copy?: Two on the New Book shelf now!