Tag Archive | school

Z for ZARA HOSSAIN IS HERE, so deal with it! by Sabina Khan (YA book review)

Apr30
book cover of Zara Hossain is Here, by Sabina Khan, Published by Scholastic Press | recommended on BooksYALove.com

The only home she’s ever known,
her city, her beach, her neighborhood,
now a threat, hostility around each corner…

Zara’s college plans are in limbo as the high school senior impatiently waits for her family’s green card status to be approved in Corpus Christi where her father’s medical practice has thrived for years.

The devout Muslims here say her Pakistani family is too secular, while white bullies at school are ratcheting up their harassment of brown people.

Meeting Chloe is like a beautiful seabreeze, and the two young women begin a relationship, despite the disapproval of Chloe’s conservative religious parents.

When her gentle father angrily reacts to a hate crime against their family, Zara’s life shatters into disarray.

What’s their green card application status now?
Why are immigrants hated here so much?
What’s next?

Living next door to the Garcias since she and best friend Nick were toddlers, Zara knows only Texas as home, but maybe this land of opportunity doesn’t want to know her.

New this month and a fitting AtoZ Challenge finale on the 25th anniversary of Dia de los ninos/Children’s Book Day which celebrates connecting the deep, wide, and wonderful range of books to all kids of all backgrounds.

When to stand firm and when to bend?
**kmm

Book Info: Zara Hossain Is Here / Sabina Khan. Scholastic Press, 2021. (author site) (publisher site) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Y is for Yay, it’s finally time for AudioSYNC Summer!

Apr29

Yes, yes, yes! AudioSYNC summer starts today! Every Thursday, we’ll have a one-week opportunity to download – free – 2 complete professionally-produced audiobooks with a theme in common.

With the free Sora app on your device, you’ll be able to “read with your ears” for as long as you keep the downloaded audiobooks! The FAQs here tell you how to set up Sora and connect it to the AudioSYNC library.

Sign up here for reminders of each week’s new selections or just stay tuned to BooksYALove.com where I’ll introduce each book pair with links every Thursday through July 29.

CD cover of Come On In, anthology edited by Ali Alsaid. Published by Recorded Books | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Come On In: 15 stories about immigration and finding home (free download on Sora 4/29-5/5/2021)

by Adi Alsaid [Ed.] | Read by Amielynn Abellera, Jonathan Todd Ross, Katherine Littrell, Leila Buck, Maria Liatis, Sneha Mathan

Yes! I recommended this collection of short stories writing by YA authors who are immigrants or children of immigrants during April 2021 here on BooksYALove – don’t miss the audio version with narrations in many voices and accents.

CD cover of Illegal: Disappeared, book 2, by Francisco X. Stork. Published by Scholastic Audio | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Illegal: Disappeared, book 2 (free download on Sora 4/29-5/5/2021)

by Francisco X. Stork | Read by Roxana Ortega, Christian Barillas

The siblings seeking to escape Mexico in Disappeared are now across the US border – Sara waits in a detention facility to hear if her application for asylum has been approved while Emiliano is still on the run from both US authorities and the cartel members trying to stop him from exposing their trafficking activities.

This week’s AudioSYNC theme is “After Crossing the Border” – what happens next?
**kmm

R is for RURAL VOICES: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America (YA book review)

Apr21
book cover of Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America. Published by Candlewick Press | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Everyone drives a truck and wears muddy boots,
talks slow and walks even slower –
today’s teens outside big cities go way beyond those tired old ideas.

An aspiring rodeo queen in Utah draws strength from her Puerto Rican roots.

A Michigan queer girl’s 4-H showmanship in swine competition might draw her crush closer.

Forced up a tree by an angry bull, best friends finally talk about whether Alina’s stories identify with her home state or strive to distance her from West Virginia.

This collection of viewpoints and vistas includes stories by David Bowles, Joseph Bruchac, Veeda Bybee, Nora Shalaway Carpenter, Shae Carys, S. A. Cosby, Rob Costello, Randy DuBurke, David Macinnis Gill, Nasugraq Rainey Hopson, Estelle Laure, Yamile Saied Méndez, Ashley Hope Pérez, Tirzah Price, and Monica Roe.

I live outside a very small town where FFA and AP classes are on the same schedule, and young people can pursue big dreams with or without moving to the big city.

What rural voices have you heard lately?
**kmm

Book Info: Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America / Nora Shalway Carpenter, ed. Candlewick Press, 2020. [editor interview] [publisher site]

Q for a queer COMPLICATED LOVE STORY SET IN SPACE aboard Qriosity, by Shaun David Hutchinson (YA book review)

Apr20
book cover of A Complicated Love Story Set in Space, by Shaun David Hutchinson. Published by Simon Schuster BFYR | recommended on BooksYALove.com

A message he can trust,
new friends in this adventure,
why can’t they remember how they got here?

It’s disorienting to wake up in a spacesuit floating outside a spaceship amid flashing warnings of imminent explosion – and to have another 16 year old inside Qirosity trying to shut down the faulty reactor and help Noa get to the airlock at the same time!

Noa stumbles out of the resuscitator (first death is the hardest), meeting Jenny on his way to find DJ – who abducted them from all over the US?

Just the three teens on this spaceship… and a grown-up kid actor’s hologram with unhelpful messages, and a murdered girl, and the kid actor’s entire mystery series to watch, and more than a lifetime supply of Nutreesh bars in the galley.

DJ and Noa are falling for each other, Jenny is plotting revenge on the aliens/kidnappers, and strange events keep them hopping as one day seems to repeat itself, repeat itself.

Steered automatically to a high school on an asteroid, they find cliques and yucky PE class and teachers who stop all the fun and the murdered girl from Qriosity who doesn’t remember being on the spaceship at all…

Why is there a high school in space?
Why does Jenny prefer Nutreesh to what Noa cooks?
Is DJ and Noa’s love real?

The three teens must rely on each other to survive months in space, a monster or two, crisis after crisis, and a school dance as they keep trying hack into Qriosity’s navigation system and get back to Earth.

Another tale of strange happenings and learning to love from the author of The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza (I recommended here) and At the Edge of the Universe (more here).

Aliens – yes or no?
**kmm

Book Info: A Complicated Love Story Set in Space / Shaun David Hutchinson. Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021. [author site] [publisher site]

P is PREPPED to survive any disaster…almost, by Bethany Mangle (YA book review)

Apr19
book cover of Prepped, by Bethany Mangle. Published by Margaret K. McElderry/Simon Schuster | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Ready for fire, falling into icy waters,
nuclear fallout, kidnap attempts,
but not real-life like other families…

Growing up with doomsday preppers means constant vigilance and training – high school senior Becca has the scars to prove it. Both sets of grandparents established this Ohio neighborhood of survivalists, hidden bunkers in their backyards and all.

Everyone else in town thinks they’re an end-times cult, but there’s no religion here, just paranoia and preparation and more paranoid preparation.

When Roy Kang’s family joined the group, “genetic diversity” was her parents’ first thought, so he and Becca are paired for marriage soon and will learn trades that’ll benefit the group, no matter what they want.

Becca believes in science, her physics teacher believes she can get a full scholarship far away from here, and somehow dumb-as-a-rock Roy turns out to be much smarter than their parents think.

“Always be ready for the worst day of your life,” but improbably her Dad wasn’t, so now Mom’s in charge and pushing younger kids into hazardous training early.

How can she and Roy leave without tripping the perimeter alarms?
Could their new non-prepper friend really help them escape?
How can Becca leave her 10-year-old sister Katie here?

Love could make them a family, but bone-deep fear of everything makes life unbearable in this debut novel of surviving more than just improbable disasters.

Where would a full-ride scholarship take you?
**kmm

Book info: Prepped / Bethany Mangle. Margaret K. McElderry Books/ Simon Schuster, 2021. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

N for NOAH MCNICHOL & THE BACKSTAGE GHOST! by Martha Freeman (MG book review)

Apr16
Book cover of Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost, by Martha Freeman. Published by Simon Schuster BFYR | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Skulls and fake blood and foam swords,
“there are no small parts, only small players”
The play’s the thing!

Dad says wanting to act is just a phase, so the sixth grade play is Noah’s big chance to be on stage! Oh no – the drama teacher is out so the PE coach will direct them… in Hamlet?

Luckily, an older Jewish guy named Mike volunteers to help because strange things are happening while Coach Fig spends rehearsals on his phone!

The “No-Trauma Drama” script now has its original gruesome ending, the costumes and sets are way better than previous years’ Hamlet, and a cold breeze drifts backstage when all the doors are closed.

Despite not being cast as Hamlet, Noah is enjoying play practice and Mike’s interesting advice… and watching Mike vanish into thin air – is their guest director a ghost?

Noah’s college professor parents are arguing again about which subjects are more important – why is Dad the physics teacher so angry about literature?

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is way more interesting than the family-friendly version written by the lady who donated the school’s nice theater – can they do the real one without interference?

Suddenly, their drama club one-night-only performance is the hot ticket in their New York town – break a leg!

Conversing with someone long gone – yes or no?
**kmm

Book info: Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost / Martha Freeman. Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

M for MILLION MILE ROAD TRIP in the purple whale, to Mappyworld and beyond? whoa… by Rudy Rucker (YA book review)

Apr15
book cover of Million Mile Road Trip, by Rudy Rucker. Published by Skyhorse | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Feuding alien beings,
augmented old station wagon (surfboards included),
three teens must save humanity…

Zoe just wants to get through graduation tomorrow, best friend Villy might not get to (math = yuck, guitar = yes), and his younger brother Scud excels at… being annoying.

Her dad’s in a flying saucer cult, Mom hasn’t forgiven him for walking out when Zoe was little, and her half-sister is in jazz band, too – just regular Southern California, right?

When the musical riff that Maisie just taught her opens an interdimensional portal, small yellow aliens Yampa and Pinchley call Zoe, Villy, and Scud on a mission to stop bad aliens from invading Earth!

Stretch crawdads, fleshy flying saucers (friendly vs. evil), Thudd dinosaurs – the three teens meet all sorts of aliens on their million-mile road trip through the basins and ridges of Mappyworld.

Will they make it to Szep City where rebels gather to oppose Lord Groon’s takeover of Ballyworld aka Earth?
Can they get back to Los Perros in time for Zoe to play her trumpet solo at the talent show and save the world?
Is that Maisie over there?

“Upsy downy inside out” plus a saucer-pearl can get the kids out of jams or into multi-worlds trouble!

Zoe and Villy take turns recounting their amazing sci-fi journey through Mappyworld and from friendship to love. One universal truth – chocolate is the ultimate currency.

Which of your skills would help you outsmart an alien invasion?
**kmm

Book info: Million Mile Road Trip / Rudy Rucker. Night Shade Books, 2019. [author site] [publisher site] Personal copy; cover image courtesy of the publisher.

I is immigration stories: COME ON IN, ed. by Adi Alsaid (YA book review)

Apr10
book cover of Come On In: 15 Stories About Immigration and Finding Home, ed. by Ali Alsaid. Published by Inkyard Press-Harlequin | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Being uprooted,
Growing in a different place,
Wondering if this is the right spot or not…

Since the earliest days of this country, people have arrived ‘from away’ in waves and trickles, immigrants with high academic credentials or no shoes on their feet, all seeking a better place.

Detained by TSA, keeping diaries of now and then, “where are you really from?” – these 15 stories by noted young adult authors who are themselves immigrants or children of immigrants illustrate the many facets of moving away and starting anew.

“The Wedding” of two Americans must be held in Canada so great-uncle from Iran may attend – travel ban keeping old man and his older brother from seeing each other for years.

High school in New Jersey is so different from Bombay that Priya cannot speak aloud, even as her little brother’s new hearing aids open up the world for him, in “First Words.”

Her grandparents finally have visas from Venezuela, but Valentina’s lost all her Spanish – how will they even communicate? “Hard to Say”…

Short story contributors include Adi Alsaid, Varsha Bajaj, Maria E. Andreu, Sharon Morse, Misa Sugiura, Nafiza Azad, Maurene Goo, Sona Charaipotra, Yamile Saied Méndez, Zoraida Córdova, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Sara Farizan, Isabel Quintero, Justine Larbalestier, and Lilliam Rivera.

How do we welcome people and invite them to come on in?
**kmm

Book Info: Come On In: 15 Stories About Immigration and Finding Home / Adi Alsaid, editor. Inkyard Press, 2020. (publisher site) Review copy & cover image courtesy of the publisher.

G for GLIMPSED by a high school fairy godmother! by G.F. Miller (YA book review)

Apr8
book cover of Glimpsed, by G.F Miller. Published by Simon Schuster BYFR | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Seeing their deepest wish,
Sending a few ‘nudges’ into nearby minds –
teen fairy godmother improving lives… right?

Charity can ‘glimpse’ someone’s most-longed-for future and secretly help them attain it – with best friend and fashion maven Sean’s help as needed – and sees past successes in her California high school halls.

Her grandmother (and fairy godmother mentor) warns that trying to nudge Vindhya from robotics club to Homecoming Queen in nine days is too fast, that people need time to change themselves based on the suggestions that Charity plants in their minds.

Uh oh! Adorkable Noah has figured out that the super-popular Pom squad dancer is also a fairy godmother and is ready to tell all!

Eldest in his Star Trek-obsessed family, Noah is sure that her ‘gift’ is logically explainable, and since Charity granted Holly’s wish to be popular which took Holly away from Noah… time to examine the data.

Could she help get Noah and Holly to their Happily Ever After without nudging anyone?

Who’s right – big sister Hope far away from their too-quiet house, workaholic Mom denying that she has any gift, or her grandmother embracing it extravagantly?

Is she pushing Glimpsed relationships in the right direction or are the Glimpses controlling her?

Ask for Glimpsed at your local library or independent bookstore to find out which path Charity chooses for her own future!

Do you want a Glimpse to become true…really and truly?
**kmm

Book info: Glimpsed / G. F. Miller. Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

F is four friends FACING THE SUN & big changes, by Janice Lynn Mather (YA book review)

Apr7
book cover of Facing the Sun, by Janice Lynn Mather. Published by Simon & Schuster BFYR | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Poems and stories and whispers,
Secrets and revelations and sorrows,
Good friends can endure them together… right?

Eldest of five, Eve is so tired of chasing after siblings, being the perfect pastor’s daughter, awash in her parents’ worries about losing the church to developers and something about her father’s health that they won’t tell her. Singing with Toons in the perfect acoustics of that small building is harmony and peace and maybe a little more.

Her single mom keeps Nia on such a short rope, claiming that an all-girls summer arts camp just across the bay wouldn’t be safe, that she needs to read every story before they print the neighborhood newspaper. Borrowing a song heard in the sea-grove as the poem for her camp application could be Nia’s ticket to some breathing room this summer.

Faith’s mother is getting further from reality, and trying to balance homework and dance lessons at her sister’s studio and maybe liking Toons and getting home to keep Mummy safe while her father works late is pulling Faith apart. She doesn’t live on Pinder Street like most of her school-friends, but it hits hard to find out that Daddy’s down there, saying the neighbors have no rights to go onto the beach anymore.

Keekee wonders why she’s the one getting grief from their mom when it’s Toons who’s stepping around with Faith and Eve and Paulette. Her songs channel some of the sting from neighbors’ scorn, those who don’t understand that Angel’s home laundry business supports folks who can’t afford to go to the clinic for condoms or period products.

What’s good about fencing off the beach and tearing down the church so rich people can stay at yet another Bahamas hotel?
Who set the church building on fire as protest?
Where is Toons? Where?

Ties between friends and families twist and tangle in this beachside neighborhood where change seems all-peril, little promise. A tale told in the voices of all four friends, from the Bahamian-Canadian author of Learning to Breathe (my no-spoiler review here).

How do you make yourself brave enough to face changes?
**kmm

Book info: Facing the Sun / Janet Lynn Mather. Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2020. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.