Tag Archive | LGBTQ

WHEN THE ANGELS LEFT THE OLD COUNTRY, following the faithful, by Sacha Lamb (YA book review)

May31
book cover of When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sasha Lamb. Published by Levine Querido | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Studying the Talmud with an angel should keep the demon too busy to make trouble in the nameless tiny Polish village, but Little Ash manages to hear all the gossip. Many Jews have left for America, but still no word from Essie, the baker’s daughter.

In the town of Belz, 16-year-old Rose now runs the dry goods store for her distractable father, hiring lovely best friend Dinah as clerk. They’ll keep their families afloat and save enough to go to America! Dinah has not noticed that Rose is as fond of her as the young Torah scholar visiting the store is.

The villagers assume that Little Ash and the angel are young men, glad that the pair can go to Warsaw where Essie was last heard from. Oh, that emigration agent is a scoundrel, cheating so many, even killing some, like that rebbe from Belz! Little Ash will make very sure that the agent harms no one else, ever.

And so it is that they are on the steamship dock with Rose, whose year-long plan was smashed when Dinah announced her engagement. The trio watch each other’s belongings in the crowded steerage deck and pray that all aboard stay healthy enough to pass inspection at Ellis Island.

The angel carried along the rebbe’s books, hoping to bring them to his daughter. The murdered rebbe appears to the angel, saying that they must have kaddish sung for him at the earliest moment possible, lest his spirit wander forever!

Rose longs to meet kind-eyed Essie whose photo was in the letters stolen by that evil agent.

And so it was that the three friends became separated at the immigration station, as the angel was passed first because those letters showed a relative’s address.

Can the angel get Little Ash and Rose released from Ellis Island?
Can they find Essie and save her from the ‘shop boss’?
What place will they carve out for themselves in this new world?

Obligation and challenges, friendship and love – those who tried and dared, may their memory be a blessing.

What stories of arriving in new places do you tell?
**kmm

Book info: When the Angels Left the Old Country / Sacha Lamb. Levine Querido, 2022. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

IT’S A WHOLE SPIEL: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories, edited by Katherine Locke & Laura Silverman (YA book review)

May30
book cover of It's a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories, edited by Katherine Locke & Laura Silverman. Published by Alfred A. Knopf | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Feeling too Jewish or not Jewish enough at school, summer camp, at another family’s Seder dinner, on a Birthright trip to Israel in college…

In this short story collection, young adults embrace, question, and reexamine their Jewish faith as it connects (or doesn’t) to their childhood, their family, their sexual identity, their now, and their future.

Raysh hopes to overcome her fear of drowning (again) in “He Who Revives the Dead”, while Miri’s first meeting with her new boyfriend’s parents is interrupted by an earthquake and “Aftershocks.”

Short stories by Dahlia Adler, Adi Alsaid, David Levithan, Elie Lichtschein, Katherine Locke, Alex London, Goldy Moldavsky, Hannah Moskowitz, Matthue Roth, Lance Rubin, Dana Schwartz, Laura Silverman, Rachel Lynn Solomon, and Nova Ren Suma.

“Judaism is about seeing the world for what it is and being part of a community that is greater than the sum of its parts,” reminds actress Mayim Bialik in the foreword.

Each story in this anthology is one of those parts, a vivid and varied kaleidoscope of experiences, meeting new people, and watching old friends change.

Find the print version or ebook at a library near you with WorldCat.

What part of yourself do you share with a new friend?
**kmm

Book info: It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories / edited by Katherine Locke & Laura Silverman. Alfred A. Knopf / Random House, 2019. [Katherine’s site] [Laura’s site] [publisher site] Personal copy; cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Meet magical creatures in compelling stories with AudioSYNC (audiobook recommendations)

May18

Encounter wonderful and wondrous magical beings in this week’s AudioSYNC free audiobooks.

Be sure to download either or both audiobooks into your Sora shelf by Wednesday 24 May 2023 – free!

You can sign up for a free Sora account and see the entire AudioSYNC season here.

Here are this week’s tales of magical creatures, in our world and theirs.

CD cover of Keeper of the Night, by Kylie Lee Baker | Read by Rebecca Yeo Published by Dreamscape

Keeper of the Night book 1 (free Sora download 5/18-24/2023)
by Kylie Lee Baker | Read by Rebecca Yeo
Published by Dreamscape

Ever-searching for her banished mother, Ren is a collector of deceased souls. The near-immortal teen travels from England to Japan on her quest, encountering mortals and magical creatures. Who’s on her side? Can she escape the rest?

https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/205506/the-keeper-of-night-by-kylie-lee-baker-read-by-rebecca-yeo/

swirling lines clipart http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/mondays-throughout-the-day-17164159
CD cover of Out of the Blue, by Jason June | Read by André Santana, Neo Cihi. Published by Harper Audio

Out of the Blue (free Sora download 5/18-24/2023)
by Jason June | Read by André Santana, Neo Cihi
Published by Harper Audio

During his month-long quest on land, Crest must decide whether to return to the sea as a mer or live as a human. Meeting lifeguard Sean is eye-opening for the non-binary mer. As their relationship grows, Crest and Sean consider what their future might be.

https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/214852/out-of-the-blue-by-jason-june-read-by-andr%C3%A9-santana-neo-cihi/

So many tales of magical beings – what others do you recommend?
**kmm

divider clipart http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/mondays-throughout-the-day-17164159

Y = Time loop? Time warp? SEE YOU YESTERDAY, by Rachel Lynn Solomon (YA book review) #A2Z

Apr29
book cover of See You Yesterday, by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Just great – her high school nemesis is her new college roommate, and a guy in Physics volunteers her to answer a basic question that she doesn’t know.

Investigative reporting that turned Barrett’s whole high school against her isn’t good enough for the campus newspaper – full stop on her career plans.

Don’t even ask why she’s tagged in every photo of a frat house fire… worst Wednesday ever!

The next morning she wakes up to… Lucie moving in again? The first day of Physics and rude Asian guy and humiliating interview again? What is going on?!?

Somehow, she and Miles (the Japanese guy) are both stuck in a time loop – and he’s been repeating this same day for two months!

As they try over and over again to escape this not-great day, the teens discover commonalities (their Jewish heritage, wanting to tell stories that matter, love of classic movies) and differences (his parents are professors, her mom and soon-to-be stepmom run a stationery shop, she’s fat and he’s not).

Doing good deeds, skipping class, asking a retired professor about theoretical time travel – what’s going to break this cycle?

Or do they want to stay in this one September day forever, together?

Another love story set in Seattle by the author of Today Tonight Tomorrow (I recommended here) and We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This (see more here).

What day in your life would you want to experience on repeat?
**kmm

Book info: See You Yesterday / Rachel Lynn Solomon. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

W is for wonderful AudioSYNC summer – reading with your ears starts NOW! #A2Z

Apr27

Once again, audiobook publishers have teamed up to give us two FREE professionally produced titles through AudioSYNC every week for a summer of great listening, starting today!

Each theme-related pair of audiobooks will be available for one week (Thursday-Wednesday) so I will alert you about new titles for all 13 weeks.

You’ll need to download the free Sora reading app (instructions and sign-up link here) if you don’t already use it with your school or library.

It’s all free, and once you save either or both weekly selections to your Sora shelf, you can read them with your ears whenever you like – no expiration dates.

AudioSYNC summer begins now, with these two titles about the Freedom to Know:

CD cover of TOP SECRET: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers. Published by L.A. Theatre Works | recommended on BooksYALove.com

TOP SECRET: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers (free Sora download 4/27-5/3/23)
by Geoffrey Cowan, Leroy Aarons | Read by John Heard, Susan Sullivan, James Gleason, and a Full Cast
Published by L.A. Theatre Works

Dramatization of the Washington Post’s publication of the secret Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War and pushback from the Nixon White House – recorded with a live audience.
https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/38585/top-secret-by-geoffrey-cowan-leroy-aarons-read-by-john-heard-susan-sullivan/

CD cover of YOU CAN'T SAY THAT! Writers for Young People Talk about Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell. Published by Brilliance Audio / Candlewick | recommended on BooksYALove.com

YOU CAN’T SAY THAT! Writers for Young People Talk about Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell (free Sora download 4/27-5/3/23)
by Leonard S. Marcus [Ed.] | Read by Tom Parks, Roxanne Hernandez, Arthur Morey, Janet Metzger, Thom Rivera, Susan Dalian
Published by Brilliance Audio / Candlewick

A noteworthy collection of YA authors share their experiences of their books being challenged for ‘controversial issues’ – Matt de la Peña, Robie H. Harris, Susan Kuklin, David Levithan, Meg Medina, Lesléa Newman, Katherine Paterson, Dav Pilkey, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, Sonya Sones, R. L. Stine, and Angie Thomas.

I recommended the 2021 print book earlier on BooksYALove.com here

https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/198953/you-cant-say-that!-by-leonard-s-marcus-ed-read-by-tom-parks-roxanne-hernandez/

How many audiobooks do you read in a year?
**kmm

divider clipart – http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/mondays-throughout-the-day-17164159

S is for Sun and Rook, SPELL BOUND in magical emergencies! by F.T. Lukens (YA book review) #A2Z

Apr22
book cover of Spell Bound, by F.T. Lukens. Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Magic is real – fact.
Cars still don’t fly – sad.
You’ve got magic or not – great or so, so sad.

Just-graduated Edison misses his late grandmother’s magic and needs a job, so he asks the most powerful sorcerer in the city, Antonia Hex. Because her magic fries out electronics, the owner of Hex-a-Gone cursebreaking services hires the tech-savvy 16 year old, dubbing him Rook.

The non-magical teen has invented a secret device that displays the spell-powering ley lines that only magic-wielders should be able to see. Antonia isn’t a fan of the Consortium that makes all the magical rules, so this is…interesting. But according to teenage Sun, ever-clad in black and apprentice to sorcerer Fable, that Spell Breaker device is going to get Rook into big trouble.

Rook and Sun see each other on big jobs where Antonia and Fable must (grudgingly) work together to fix things like singing mice in apartment walls. And meet for coffee while Sun finishes their summer school homework before apprentice hours with Fable. And venture to his grandmother’s house together, Spell Breaker in hand…

Can Antonia really teach magic to Rook?
Will the Consortium find out?!?
What did happen to her last apprentice?

Chapters by Rook and by Sun recount the growing fondness between the teens, in contrast to the deepening feud between Antonia and Fable, with the Consortium’s iron fist ever-looming over all. (watch out for that enchanted doormat with a bad temper)

Just published! Modern-day magic by the author of In Deeper Waters (more here) and So This is Ever After (recommended here) – anything they write, I want to read!

If you could cast just one spell, what would you choose?
**kmm

Book info: Spell Bound / F.T. Lukens. Margaret K. McElderry Books/ Simon & Schuster, 2023. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

O is for on campus, starting college at FIRST-YEAR ORIENTATION! edited by Eric Smith & Lauren Gibaldi (YA book review) @A2Z

Apr18
book cover of First-Year Orientation, edited by Eric Smith & Lauren Gibaldi. Published by Candlewick Press | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Move-in day,
time for goodbyes and hellos –
your new life after high school begins!

Welcome to Rolland College, home of the Owls! Many first-year students (we don’t say freshman anymore) come from other states or countries to this small New Jersey institution, which is a hometown fixture for a few.

This year’s entering class includes marching band buddies and theater stars (on stage and behind the scenes), a football player with brains and brawn, former child actors trying to escape rerun fame, youth with helicopter parents or a missing family member or a big secret…

Through these 16 short stories by YA authors and an actress, we meet students who are first in their family to attend college and those following relatives’ footsteps at Rolland, young people who want to reinvent themselves or finally get to show their true selves.

Get ready for dorm drama, an emotional support rabbit, a crack in the universe, and campus ghosts in these stories by Adi Alsaid * Anna Birch * Bryan Bliss * Gloria Chao * Jennifer Chen * Olivia A. Cole * Dana L. Davis * Kristina Forest * Lauren Gibaldi * Kathleen Glasgow * Sam Maggs * Farah Naz Rishi * Lance Rubin * Aminah Mae Safi * Eric Smith * Phil Stamper.

I love how main characters in one story appear in others as the first-years and returning students at this fictitious college rush to and from orientation, the student organizations fair, welcome parties, and the much-anticipated live concert… a kaleidoscope of encounters and emotions.

Just published this month in hardcover and paperback! From the editors of short story anthology Battle of the Bands, another look at a single day from multiple perspectives by several YA authors – recommended here.

What “how I got here” story do you tell on your first day in a new place?
**kmm

Book info: First-Year Orientation / edited by Eric Smith & Lauren Gibaldi. Candlewick Press, 2023. [Eric’s site] [Lauren’s site] [publisher site] Review copy via Edelweiss and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

K is Kyr battling in space for vengeance and SOME DESPERATE GLORY, by Emily Tesh (YA book review) #A2Z

Apr13
book cover of Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh. Published by Tordotcom | recommended on BooksYALove.com

“While we live, the enemy shall fear us.”

They’re the last true humans, hidden in a hollow asteroid, living on scant food, training for vengeance after Earth was obliterated by the alien Majo.

Genetically-enhanced Kyr expects the other teen girls to train for combat with her focused ferocity, so they’ll be placed on a battleship instead of being trapped in the nursery as breeding stock.

Only her brother Mags is a stronger warrior, yet he is sent on a suicide mission to a planet of Majo-cooperating humans, and the Commander assigns Kyr to her worst nightmare.

Desperate to save Mags and herself, Kyr enlists the help of his tech-savvy friend and crush Avi to escape their fates by using the recently-captured Majo ship and its alien pilot Yiso.

Away they flee, to the same planet that their big sister defected to, the planet that the supreme Majo leader will soon visit…coincidence?

The history relentlessly drilled into Kyr gets a reboot, a shadow engine of subreality makes their toughest training sims seem like babies’ play, and the young people have only a short time to help Yiso keep things from getting worse.

And then time twists… and twists…

Who’s the hero here?
How can anyone gay survive in a society where reproduction is paramount?
What other ways could Kyr’s life have turned out?

In the future, as now, different views of the same events bring conflict as well as opportunities for peace.

What “fact” of history learned in childhood have you unlearned?
**kmm

Book info: Some Desperate Glory / Emily Tesh. Tordotcom, 2023. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Sisters sharing DRIZZLE, DREAMS, AND LOVESTRUCK THINGS, by Maya Prasad (YA book review)

Dec7
book cover of Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things, by Maya Prasad. Published by Hyperion /Disney | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Four sisters,
four seasons,
five chances for love…

For the past decade, the four teen Singh sisters have lived in the Songbird Inn on Orcas Island, where their widowed father met and married Pop as they renovated the old property together. But three years ago, the girls’ beloved stepdad died, before he could see their dream named as “the most romantic inn in America” for its unique seaside weddings.

Nidhi has planned her senior year and beyond in great detail as she will head to pastry school in Paris after graduation, with boyfriend Matt. A tree crashing through her bedroom brings Grayson and construction crew to the inn – how will his secret artistic passions affect her carefully ordered life this fall?

Avani has spent the winter avoiding Francisco after a date mix-up, not so easy when his family supplies produce and goat cheese to the inn daily. Her grief for Pop lingers even as Dad begins seeing Amir, so she decides to revive his beloved Winter Ball in his memory, finding that Francisco’s help can make it happen.

Spring on the is photographer Sirisha’s favorite season, and hosting the Thousand Shores theater troupe at the Inn makes it even better – brown girls, queer girls, stories turned and retold. And beautiful Brie leaves her tongue-tied, even as the young actress tries to help Sirisha find the story that will help her photos win the San Juan Snaps contest.

Queen of Romance – Rani’s deep love of romance novels has helped her twin Avani and her older and younger sisters find happiness this past year. As they prepare for the biggest summer wedding of all, which inn visitor will be her happily ever after – socially-conscious Vikram, fun and sporty Leo, or Raj who didn’t kiss her last summer?

A wonderful year in Washington’s Pacific Northwest with the Singh family as they work through past issues with family still in India, decide what their futures might look like, and host a parade of interesting guests in the beautiful inn that they call home.

Where would you build the best inn ever?
**kmm

Book info: Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things / Maya Prasad. Hyperion, 2022. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

We are still HOPE NATION, our favorite YA authors remind us, edited by Rose Brock (nonfiction book review)

Nov23
book cover of Hope Nation: YA Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration / Rose Brock, editor. Published by Penguin Teen | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Us versus them or together we can succeed?
Time to give in or time to persevere?
Time to hold onto hope with our whole heart!

Written in the wake of the 2016 elections, the personal essays by these well-known YA authors call us to continue finding reasons to hope – and work – for a better future together:
Atia Abawi, Renee Ahdieh, Libba Bray, Howard Bryant, Ally Carter, Ally Condie, Christina Diaz Gonzalez, Gayle Forman, Romina Garber, I. W. Gregorio, Kate Hart, Brendan Kiely, David Levithan, Alex London, Marie Lu, Julie Murphy, Jason Reynolds, Aisha Saeed, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Jenny Torres Sanchez, Nicola Yoon, Jeff Zentner.

“What I really think is that hope is in the work. That it lives in the space between what’s been done and what could be accomplished,” counsels Kate Hart (pg. 119) reminding Hope Nation that our work is fighting for what’s right.

Angie Thomas recounts an event from her book tour for The Hate U Give, where a Black woman asked those present “Can we begin to listen to one another, and can we change things?” (pg. 65) following racist incidents at their New Jersey high school – this is Hope Nation.

When bigots try to ban books in your school or town, stand against them and remember Jeff Zentner’s words: “Nothing forces people to confront the humanity of others like engaging with their stories” (pg. 92) – Hope Nation doesn’t see everyone else as ‘other’ like the bigots prefer.

Where do you find your hope?
**kmm

Book info: Hope Nation: YA Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration / Rose Brock, editor. Penguin Teen, 2018 [editor site] [publisher site] Personal collection; cover image courtesy of the publisher.