Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen (Heartdrum, August 2023) is a middle-grade graphic novel featuring a girl with a unique heritage: she is half Jewish and half Native American, spending most of her life with her Jewish mother and devout Jewish stepfather and attending a Jewish middle school. When people start teasing her about her
The middle grade novel No Place Like Home by James Bird (Feiwel & Friends, August 2023) is a heartfelt tale of resilience and the power of cultural identity. Twelve-year-old Ojibwe boy Opin faces the increasing discomfort of homelessness as he and his mother and brother make their way to Los Angeles to be with family.
The middle grade novel We Still Belong by Christine Day (Heartdrum, August 2023) celebrates Indigenous People’s Day with Wesley Wilder, a girl with Native American heritage (Upper Skagit), as she heads to school for an exciting day. She can’t wait for the school population to see her poem in the school newspaper dedicated to her
Nomads: Life on the Move by Kinchoi Lam (Cicada Books, May 2023) is a middle-grade-level nonfiction picture book that illustrates the lives of those living today with a nomadic lifestyle. With eight pages (four two-page spreads) dedicated to each of seven unique nomadic cultures, Nomads teaches about the home structure, family cultures, and traditional food and
You Are Here: Connecting Flights, edited by Ellen Oh (Allida, March 2023), is a collection of related short stories by a variety of Asian-American authors that captures the Asian-American experience by telling the stories of 12 different children waiting in an airport for their flights. By tying the children’s stories together, Oh has created a
The Turtle of Michigan by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow Books, 2022) picks up right where the The Turtle of Oman ends, as young Aref sits on an airplane to head to the United States from Oman. In The Turtle of Oman (reviewed here), Aref had spent a week with his grandpa, coming to terms with
It is not often that I find a book that takes place in the Middle East, let alone a children’s book. The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow, 2014) is a unique look into not just the culture and traditions of living in a different country but also the sweet geographic feature and
Jose Pimienta’s graphic novel Twin Cities (Random House Graphic, 2022) tells the story of twins that, for the first time, will attend two different schools: one in their home town of Mexicali, Mexico, and the other in a specialty school just over the US border in Calexico, California. As the two kids go through their
Africana: An Encyclopedia of an Amazing Continent by Kim Chakanesta, illustrated by Alabi Mayowa (Quarto Publishing, 2022) is an invaluable new volume for young people that captures basics about the history, landscapes, people, and cultures throughout the regions in Africa. Africa is a giant continent, so obviously one volume will never be enough. Africana provides
Until I was an adult, I had not heard of Africa’s history and the historical leaders of the entire continent. Other than the Egyptian’s creation of the pyramid and the history of the Nile’s flooding, I don’t remember entering the continent during my years in my 1980s public schools. Beginning in college, I have worked
I did always wonder what the COVID-19 pandemic would have been like from the very beginning, even when no one yet knew what it was in Wuhan, China. I only have my experience, watching the progression of the disease through the world before our own world shut down. Morning Sun in Wuhan by Ying Chang Compestine
Beatrice Nash is an educated, talented, and pleasant woman. But life in 1914 England does not give much credence to those qualities when she has been left orphaned and impoverished at the old maid age of 22 without any marriage prospects. To make matters worse, she must rely on her unfriendly relatives for assistance in finding
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