The teen years can be full of painfully overwhelming moral decisions.  Brandon Hoang's Gloria Buenrostro is NOT My Girlfriend explores one such dilemma.  

     Gary Vo and his best friend are way low on their school's social hierarchy.  They're yearning to get in with the elite.  They know they're pretty despicable.  But they can overlook a little nastiness to snag their dream social life.  Unexpectedly they get the chance.  All they have to do is steal a bracelet from Gloria, who is considered the hottest girl in the school.

     NOT SO SIMPLE.  Gary has gotten to know Gloria a lot better.  Her reputation is quite misleading.  In fact she's a smart, kind, thoughtful, funny girl.  He wants to keep her in his life. And he knows what the bracelet means to her.

     Now he has a decision to make.  Does he let his long term best friend down and perhaps lose him?  Or does he hurt someone he's come to really care about?

    The plot is rich and believable.  The characters are complex and nuanced, except the elites who are truly despicable.  Teen readers will find this book truly engaging and thought and emotion provoking.

Jules Hathaway

     Some of the most beautiful gems of juvenile literature are those books by authors of color  so engaging and evocative that they can let young readers walk in the shoes of children who have to deal with very challenging experiences. Jane Kuo's Land Of Broken Promises is one of these.

     Anna and her parents are refugees from Taiwan.  Her parents own a restaurant where she works after school.  Her parents put big time pressure on her to succeed academically so she can work as a professional rather than working with her hands like them.  She has two choices: doctor or lawyer.

     Then a letter threatens to tear their world apart.  It's paperwork that they haven't filled in on time.  Suddenly they are in the precarious position of undocumented aliens.

     The narrative, told in verse, is tone perfect.  The details are well chosen.  The character of Anna springs to life on the page.  And the suspense is very real.

     Young readers will get real insight into one of the most contentious issues in America today and the effect it has on children like them.

Jules Hathaway

     Finally with Columbus Day transformed to Indigenous People's Day we're acknowledging the wise, responsible, and resourceful stewards of this place before we went and stole it.  Some of us are gaining access to their fascinating stories.  Jessica Outram's Bernice and the Georgian Bay Gold is a good introduction for younger readers.  Although fiction it's based on it was based on her Metis great-aunt Bernice's life.

     Bernice and her family live in a lighthouse.  It's a rugged isolated life.  Visits from groups of relatives are special occasions to celebrate with singing, storytelling, and feasting.

     A mysterious stranger visits the lighthouse.  He leaves behind what looks like a treasure map.  It looks like the treasure is on a nearby island.

     Bernice's grandmother needs expensive medical care when she swallows a sewing needle.  Bernice, a big Treasure Island fan, decides to help with the bills by finding the treasure.  She sneaks off in a boat accompanied by the family huskies...

    ...only to be stranded on the island when the sea steals the boat.

   This highly engaging book can sow the seeds for further reading and rich discussions.   

Jules Hathaway  

     Some students in elite private schools have secrets they'll do anything to keep secret.  Some students collect other's secrets as potential blackmail material.  The A listers have plenty of dirt on their classmates.  When they do a big reveal there's hell to pay.

     That's the chilling premise behind Aleema Omotoni's YA novel, Everyone's Thinking.

     Iyanu finds safety and anonymity behind the camera.  One Friday she develops the pictures she took of a school event.  She returns to school Monday to find out that the pictures have been converted to polaroids and sent out to certain students with malicious messages on the backs.

     Her cousin, Kitan, is in the inner circle.  She's bothered by the cruelty, self centeredness, and racism of her set, but terrified of a fall from grace.

     The school is an uproar with students turning on each other.  Iyanu is desperately trying to find the culprit to prove that she didn't send the pictures.  Kitan is trying to believe her set is blameless...

     ...until she can't.

     Iyanu and Kitan are two of the only students of color in a majority white, majority clueless school.  Omotoni gives a vivid picture of the microaggressions and other humiliations they all too frequently have to endure.

     This highly engaging novel subtly enlightens while it entertains.  The complex plot and vividly drawn character will captivate teen (and adult) readers.

     Can you guess who didn't before the end?  I sure couldn't.

Jules Hathaway

      Does it seem like adult warnings about internet dangers directed to teens fall on deaf ears?  Maybe if they don't engage them it's time to ask what will.  How about Dashka Slater's Accountable?

     An Albany, California teen started a private Instagram account with racist memes.  He considered it merely edgy humor.  

    His victims didn't.  They told school officials who were totally unprepared.  Things blew up.  Pretty soon you had seriously traumatized victims, the accused (the boy and his followers) facing school expulsions and criminal charges, lawsuits being filed on both sides, and a community being torn apart.  

     This real life narrative is as suspenseful as fiction.  You can tell Slater did her homework.  The characters and situations are portrayed as complicated and complex.  There are no good guys and bad guys, no DARE preaching, and none of the talking down to that teens understandably have no patience with.  Readers are treated respectively as intelligent and aware human beings.

    So provide this fine book to the teens in your life and do some active listening.  No adultsplaining PLEASE.

    This is also a must read for school administrations and boards.  Too many are still in the dangerous mindset of it couldn't happen here.  Too many are misled by higher ups.  In my school board days I went to a lawyer-led workshop where the whole focus was protecting your school from legal liability.  Any mention of actual kids was treated as completely irrelevant.

Jules Hathaway

     Can a teen regain her trust of the father who let her down badly and broke her heart?  That's the question Sally Engelfried's Learning To Fall addresses beautifully for juvenile readers.

     Daphne lives with her actress mother.  When Mom gets a lucky break--a movie role in Europe--she sends her to live with the Dad she hasn't seen in years.

     Daphne sees Dad is really trying to be a parent.  But what if he slips up again?  And what if he loses his grip on sobriety and starts drinking again?

     Can their mutual love of skateboarding help them to reconnect?

     Young readers will find this novel highly engaging--especially those who have been let down by their own parents.

Jules Hathaway

I didn't post for 2. weeks because I was in the hospital.  I had a stroke.  Writing is still tiring so for a while my reviews will be shorter.

P. O'Connell Pearson's We Are Your Children Too blew me away.  To avoid integration in 1955 Prince Edward County, Virginia shut down the public schools and started a whites only academy.  Thousands of Black children had their lives diminished, their futures foreclosed.

The poignant and powerful descriptions of the children's suffering will really grab teens' hearts.  The selfishness and cruelty of those who shut down the schools, treating kids as collateral damage, and the ineptness and sometimes complicity of some in government will enrage them.  

I couldn't think of a more perfect book to introduce teen readers to the concept of systemic racism and the way racist acts hurt people for generations.

Jules Hathaway