Home is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo
Novel in verse, Recommended for grades 8-12
Nima is very aware of the ways in which her life could have been very different. Her father died while her mother was pregnant with her, and she ended up with a different name than her parents had been planning. Nima imagines a version of herself with the other name, Yasmeen, as someone better, prettier, and happier than her. After a horrible day involving an attack against her friend Haitham, Nima meets Yasmeen and gets a glimpse into her family’s past. The experience gives her a newfound appreciation for her relationship with her mother as well as the realization that she is better off as herself than as the idealized version of herself she’s always imagined. Nima and her mother and friend are immigrants who speak Arabic and are evidently Muslim. Their country of origin is never specified, but a few hints such as a description of their flag indicate that it is Sudan. An interesting speculative fiction concept with a vaguely spooky tone.
Starfish by Lisa Fipps
Novel in verse, recommended for grades 4-8
Ellie Montgomery-Hofstein is fat. It’s been her defining characteristic ever since her fifth birthday, when she jumped into a pool, making the “splashiest cannonball ever” while wearing a whale swimsuit. Since then, Ellie has kept a running list of “Fat Girl Rules”, the unspoken rules she must follow to avoid attracting attention and ridicule. Despite those rules, she gets bullied for her weight at school and is under constant scrutiny from her mother and brother and sister. The only people who really support her are her father, her best friend Viv who is moving away, and now her new neighbor Catalina. Then her parents force her to start therapy, which she later realizes is a compromise because her mother wants to make Ellie get bariatric surgery. Ellie doesn’t want to confide in her therapist, but over the course of the book, she opens in therapy and learns how to confront the bullies and eventually even her mother. While this book contains positive messages about self-acceptance and conflict resolution, the plot is a little lacking and there aren’t well-developed, nuanced characters besides Ellie herself. I kept expecting a redemptive moment for Ellie’s family members, perhaps a passage in which we find out that Ellie’s mother has always suffered from an undiagnosed eating disorder, since there are certainly hints of that throughout the book, or at least an interesting side plot in which Viv or Catalina do something besides offer emotional support for Ellie. While I would definitely recommend this book to anyone specifically looking for books about body positivity featuring an overweight protagonist, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it very highly to a more general audience.
The Curse of the Mummy: Uncovering Tutankhamun’s Tomb by Candace Fleming
Nonfiction, recommended for grades 5 and Up
Like the other royal Egyptian tombs, Tutankhamun’s resting place was disrupted by tomb robbers shortly after his burial, but unlike the rest, the boy king’s tomb was never picked bare; its entrance was completely hidden after a rainstorm that left the valley full of mud and sediment. When archeologists found it thousands of years later, it was full of intact artifacts including the mummy of the pharaoh. But before the sarcophagus was even opened, Lord Carnarvon, the English nobleman who was financing the excavation, died suddenly of an infected mosquito bite. In subsequent years, several other egyptologists and VIPs who had visited the tomb also died strange deaths. And so rumors of a mummy’s curse swirled. Although most of this book focuses on the factual details of the dig, there are brief interludes between the chapters, printed on black paper and always starting with the phrase “it was said”, which present the ancient mummy’s curse as a plausible explanation. (Spoiler: In the final chapter, this theory is debunked, perhaps a little too quickly and dismissively to constitute a satisfying ending) Besides the discussion of the curse, this book also gives a lot of interesting contextual information about the discovery, including the history and policies of the Egyptian Antiquities Service and Howard Carter’s backstory. Aspiring archeologists and egyptologists will love every page of this book. Recommended for tweens, teens, and adults.
Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark adapted by Jenny Laird, illustrated by Kelly & Nichole Matthews
Graphic novel, recommended for grades 2-5
Mary Pope Osbourne’s popular chapter book series is now being adapted into graphic novel format, and this first title in the series is promising and pleasingly true to the original. In this story, eight- (and a half) year old Jack and his younger sister Annie discover a mysterious tree house in the woods near their home in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Despite Jack’s reservations, when he realizes that the tree house is full of books, he can’t resist taking a look around. Jack looks at a book about dinosaurs and comments that he wishes they could go “there”, that is, to the time of the dinosaurs. That’s when he and Annie discover that the tree house is magical and can take them to the places depicted in the books. This graphic novel adaptation is almost word-for-word identical to the chapter book version, although I felt that it’s geared for a slightly older audience and gives a more mature take on the differences between Jack’s cautious, practical personality and Annie’s spontaneous, happy-go-lucky attitude.
The One Thing You’d Save by Linda Sue Park, illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng
Novel in verse, recommended for grades 3-8
In this brief illustrated novel in verse, a teacher challenges her students to decide what object they would save if their home was on fire. (She clarifies that we’re assuming that all family members and pets are already safe, and she reminds students that, in the case of a real fire, they shouldn’t actually go back for anything) Few of the students are mentioned by name, but they each get a turn to give their answer. Their discussion is insightful and their varied responses give readers an idea of the characters’ individual personalities and backstories. Park’s literary talent is clear in that she manages to achieve this while keeping the text so succinct. Some of the students want to save collectibles or mementos, and one student says they’d save their laptop because it’s expensive. Many talk about items that remind them of deceased family members or pets, and one student has actually experienced a home fire already. The format and style is based on sijo, a traditional Korean poetic form.
Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper
Nonfiction picture book, recommended for grades 1-4I’m including this book in this list because it’s nonfiction, but I already reviewed it in my previous blog post, which was a list of picture books. Click that hyperlink and scroll down to read my review of it.
Librarian Magdalena 