The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin by Kip Wilson

The year is 1932 in Berlin and now that Hilde is eighteen, she must leave her orphanage and set out on her own. She quickly discovers, however, that finding a job is near impossible in these economically depressed times. But fate intervenes one night when she meets Rosa, who brings Hilde to Café Lila where she meets a cast of characters that soon become her chosen family. 

As Berlin falls further and further into the authoritarian grip of the Nazis who are scapegoating Jews and the queer community, Hilde along with the employees and patrons of Café Lila continue to remain quietly hopeful and defiant... until trouble comes loudly knocking on their door. 

Just as the title suggests, this YA historical fiction in verse by Kip Wilson is dazzling.  Berlin is my favorite city on earth, mostly because there has always been a provocative, defiant, avant-garde, and counter-cultural energy about it. That was true in 2004 when I visited for the first time, and it was certainly true when this novel takes place. 

But just as this book is a window into 1930s Germany, it's also an alarming mirror to societies, including American society, that allow idealogues and populists to rise to power. 

In addition to being a cautionary historical fiction in verse, The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin is also a gentle queer/lesbian love story, which is a much-needed addition to the canon of LGBTQ+ YA fiction, which seems to lean more heavily towards male romance. Because this book is many things (historical fiction, novel in verse, queer romance, a cautionary tale for modern times), there would be potential in the hands of a less adept writer for this book to have taken on too much. But never fear, dear reader, Kip Wilson manages to weave all of these elements perfectly and seamlessly. 

The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin by Kip Wilson*
Published: March 29, 2022
Publisher: Versify
Pages: 416
Genre: Historical Fiction/LGBTQ+ Romance
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Advance listening copy provided by publisher

*Purchasing the book from the above Bookshop affiliate link supports independent bookstores and gives me a small percentage of the sale. 

Three 9/11 Themed Novels to Put on Your TBR Pile

With the 15th anniversary of 9/11 fast approaching, many who follow the goings-on in the kidlit world have noticed a spate of 9/11-themed novels being published this year. I've read three such novels in the past few months and I'd like to give you my thoughts on them.


The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner
Expected Publication: September 6, 2016
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 288
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: Digital ARC downloaded from NetGalley


When Kyle Donahue who sees the twin towers fall from the window of his high school, he immediately flees to safety across the Brooklyn Bridge like so many did on that fateful day. As he's running for his life, he notices a girl along the side of the bridge, not moving, covered in ash, and wearing angel wings. Fearing for her safety, Kyle decides to bring her home with him. As he tries to figure out who this girl is and where she lives so he can get her home safely, Kyle realizes that the girl has amnesia. 

As the chaos of that horrible day in history unfolds, Kyle tries to solve the mystery of who this girl is and why she was so content to just stay put on the bridge as everyone else was running for their lives.

The Memory of Things is a book that takes place during 9/11 but manages to not be ABOUT 9/11. It's a reminder to us all that despite great tragedy, life goes on and the world keeps turning. It's a book that took me back to that fateful day in September of 2001 and what I was feeling, but it reminds me that the students I now teach weren't even born yet when it happened. 
 
It's so easy to dismiss narrative and expressive writing in favor of teaching students dry, expository essay writing in school. But students aren't going to feel loss and empathy by reading about 9/11 in a textbook. They feel it by reading stories. All the more reason that books like this, while fiction, bring out an understanding that expository writing just can't accomplish. I have a feeling that when this book finally hits bookstores, it's going to be a popular staple in my classroom library.


Nine, Ten by Nora Raleigh Baskin
Published: June 28, 2016
Publisher: Atheneum
Pages: 208
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: ARC provided by Simon & Schuster rep

This book begins a few days before that fateful day as we meet four different kids from across the country whose stories seem disparate and unrelated, but stick with it because the stories do intertwine in a meaningful and important way at the end — especially in today's political climate of fear and mistrust.


Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Published: July 12, 2016
Publisher: Little, Brown
Pages: 240
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: Purchased copy


Fifth-grader Deja doesn't understand why they have to study history in school. To her the past is the past and it's better to look toward the future. She also doesn't understand why her dad is always sick and depressed and why he can no longer work -- especially since his lost income means they must now live in a homeless shelter. 

But when a school project forces Deja to confront a moment of history she knew absolutely nothing about, suddenly the past as well as their family's circumstances are very much part of her own present and future. 

It's hard to believe the kids I teach now weren't even born when 9/11 happened. This novel speaks to that feeling of what it must be like to be a kid who doesn't know about 9/11 when the adults in their lives are still haunted by it. For that reason, Towers Falling is a book for adults just as much as it is for kids.

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

The Wilhelm Gustloff was pregnant with lost souls conceived of war. They would crowd into her belly and she would give birth to their freedom. But did anyone realize? The ship was christened for a man, Wilhelm Gustloff... He had been the leader of the Nazi Party in Switzerland. 

He was murdered. The ship was born of death. 

It's January 1945 and Germany is facing a swift Soviet advance. Desperate refugees flock to the coast to board ships that will lead them to safety. This is the story of four refugees whose circumstances bring them together as they seek shelter and freedom aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff.

In Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys does just as she did in Between Shades of Gray -- brought to light a moment in history that no one ever knew about. In this case, it's the biggest disaster in maritime history. Told in short chapters via four characters' alternating points-of-view, this book will leave you staying up late into the night to finish as you say to yourself, "Just one more chapter." And, as an added bonus, Sepetys managed to connect this story to Between Shades of Gray so that is an exciting moment in the story when the reader comes upon that realization.

I have had the pleasure of hearing Ruta Sepetys talk many times and hearing her talk about her research process is always nothing short of inspiring. It was no different for Salt to the Sea. This week she visited Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor and to a full house, she had the audience rapt listening to her tell the stories of survivors, family members, and of divers who have gone down and experienced the Gustloff first hand. But even more inspiring than her research process was what she said about why she writes about forgotten history. It's actually in the author's note in the back of the book:

History divided us, but through reading we can be united in story, study, and remembrance. 

I hope Sepetys keeps researching, studying, and uniting us all through story for years to come.

Hear Sepetys talk about Salt to the Sea:


Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
Published: February 2, 2016
Publisher: Philomel
Pages: 400
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Advance reader copy acquired at the NCTE convention in November

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Gerta and her family are living in East Berlin during the time of the Cold War. One evening her father and brother go over to the West to make preparations for their family to move to a place where they will be free, when overnight, a wall divides the city, keeping its residents caged in like animals. Gerta, her mother, and brother Fritz are now stuck in East Berlin where they must constantly fight and dodge the Stasi, the East German Secret Police, who have put a mark on their family due to their father's involvement in resistance activities while he was a citizen of the GDR.

So the next four years of Gerta's life are spent longing for her father and brother and a life with them in West Berlin. When one day, Gerta spots her father on the other side of the wall sending her what seems to be some sort of message. As she attempts to interpret her father's cryptic dance, a little while later, Gerta receives a mysterious photograph that seems to be telling her that she and her brother need to tunnel under the wall to escape into West Berlin. But after Gerta's brother Fritz faces the death of a friend as the result of a botched escape attempt, the family must consider the real possibility that attempting to dig a tunnel to the West might result in their arrest and possible death. The question is, are they willing to take the risk?

I've written about Berlin many times before. But here I go again.

Berlin is my favorite city in the entire world. When I visited it for the first time back in 2004, I had never been to a place that had such a youthful energy despite its bleak and storied past. Reminders of that past are on just about every corner you turn, yet the energy of the city still feels vibrant, palpable, and charged with hope. It is the place I realized how little one can actually learn about history inside the walls of a classroom.

When my husband and I visited visited the Checkpoint Charlie Museum during that first visit to Berlin, and despite the fact that we have very short attention spans when it comes to visiting museums, we spent over three hours there just soaking in the stories of all the people who tried to escape into the West and marveling at the lengths people went to in order to live in a free society.

Ever since that first visit to Berlin, I have been waiting for history to catch up to itself and find more children's literature about the Cold War, more specifically, about those who lived behind the Iron Curtain.

In A Night Divided, I have finally found the Berlin Wall novel I've been waiting for.

This is a meticulously crafted book. From character to plot development, Nielsen left no detail amiss. And in some ways that is both a strength and a weakness. Because this book is so perfectly and precisely crafted, it almost feels too perfect, with everything in its place just so, when we all know that life doesn't always work that way. I want to make it very clear that I am not saying this to be persnickety or nit-picky, trying to find problems where there are none, but simply noting that as I was reading, I felt like I was constantly aware of Nielsen's craft moves because they were so precise. But that is honestly the only thing I have to criticize about the book. It is page-turning, suspenseful, will fill you with emotion, and reads like an extended version of those heart-wrenching stories you read at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. It it is exactly the kind of Cold War middle grade/young adult historical fiction I have been pining for since I first visited Berlin over ten years ago and internalized the words of John F. Kennedy back in 1963 when he stood in the shadow of the Berlin Wall and said, "Ich bin ein Berliner."


A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Published: August 25, 2015
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 384
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Middle Grade/Young Adult
Disclosure: Library Download

 If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

Audiobook review: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Goodreads summary:

Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.

Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo. 

I normally like to write my own plot summaries before getting down to writing my thoughts about a book because I feel like a more legit book reviewer that way. But sometimes a book is so beautiful and complex that it takes your breath away and you can't even find the words to describe what it's about. You just know that it's a book that needs to be felt and no amount of plot synopses will convince someone to read it because it's one of those books you have tell people, "Trust me on this. Just read it." 

Echo is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read, or listened to as it were. The listening experience I think is superior to reading the physical book. Because Echo revolves around the magic of music, hearing the pieces that Ryan describes adds an extra emotional element to the narrative that reading alone cannot fulfill. There were many times I had to stop what I was doing, close my eyes, and let the music take me away, like when Friedrich walked by a window and heard the melancholy melody of Beethoven's Für Elise.

At the next corner, he turned down the thoroughfare. When he reached the music conservatory, he could hear someone practicing the piano in an upper story Beethoven's "Für Elise." For this he stopped and lifted his head, becoming lost in the music. 

Unconsciously, his hand rose and bounced to the time of the song. Friedrich smiled as he pretended the musician was following his direction. He closed his eyes and imagined the notes sprinkling down and  washing his face clean.

 Or when Mike sat at the concert grand piano at Mrs. Sturbridge's house for the first time and played the longing and mournful notes of Chopin's Nocturne in  C-Sharp Minor. 

A music book stood on the stand. He flipped the pages until he came to the Chopin Nocturne no. 20. He positioned his hands, feeling the desire, like a magnet drawing his fingertips closer.

He played the opening chords. The room filled with the rich timbre of the piano and its full-bodied tone. It wasn't like any piano he'd ever heard before. The high notes sounded brighter, the now ones darker and more ominous. 

Those moments when I could actually hear the music and not just attempt to hear it in my mind, made the story so much richer and more impactful for me. I may have cried a time or two or four. 

Because the presence of the music in the audiobook was so integral to the listening experience, there was actually a moment toward the end of the book when the absence of music detracted from the narrative and made it feel like something was missing. When Mike was playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, there was no music to accompany Ryan's descriptions. Since a soundtrack always accompanied the narration every other time music was mentioned in the story, this moment's absence it felt like there was a gaping hole in the audio production. If I had to venture a guess as to why it was missing, I'd say it likely had to do with permissions and copyright issues, so I hate to fault the audiobook producer for this missing element, but I do think it marred the listening experience just the slightest bit. It made me downgrade the audiobook from absolute perfection to pretty amazing – which is still a pretty darn good rating.

When I first saw the heft of Echo – and the fact that it was historical fiction – I initially balked. I could not imagine who I would recommend this book to. Historical fiction is already a hard enough sell, but then when you factor in the length, I thought Echo was doomed from the start. But I was too quick to judge. This book is beyond masterfully written – though it is that – with its delicately woven threads coming perfectly together to a seamless whole at the end. And while yes, this is historical fiction, it is also much more than that. There is an emotional element to this story that I find most historical fiction, no matter how compelling, often lacks. Echo is a book for not only the readers in your life who love music, but also for those sensitive readers who are looking for books to be transcendent – to give you an experience beyond your emotions, becoming almost a spiritual experience. And that is what makes Echo more than just a heartprint book for me – it is a book that feeds my soul.

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Audiobook narrators: Mark Bramhall, David de Vries, Andrews MacLeod, Rebecca Soler
Published: February 24, 2015
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 592
Audiobook length: 10 hours, 37 minutes
Genre: Historical Fiction, Magical Realism
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: Audiobook library download/ Purchased hardcover

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Sophie Blackall

From Goodreads:
In 1710, a girl and her mother in Lyme, England, prepare a blackberry fool, picking wild blackberries and beating cream from their cow with a bundle of twigs. The same dessert is prepared by a slave girl and her mother in 1810 in Charleston, South Carolina; by a mother and daughter in 1910 in Boston; and finally by a boy and his father in present-day San Diego. 

A Fine Dessert, written by prolific children's book author Emily Jenkins, is told from an interesting perspective. Instead of a character, it is told from the perspective of an age-old dessert: blackberry fool. And what the reader is likely to notice as they progress through the story is that as life changes and society changes, the dessert stays the same.

Kids will notice obvious societal changes throughout the story such as the evolution of kitchen utensils, going from a wooden whisk, metal rotary beaters, and finally an electric mixer. But there are also subtle changes in the narrative that might be less obvious to kids, such as how the roles of women and men in the home have changed. There is also a greater emphasis on equality and diversity by the end of the story as one notices that the interaction between people of different backgrounds and races is vastly different. This type of progress might be obvious to adults, but to kids it is likely less so, which would make it a great book for discussion in an intermediate classroom. But what I most love about A Fine Dessert is that it is another reminder to us all that food, like family, is steeped in story.

Sophie Blackall's illustrations are soothing and pleasing to the eye and while visually the emphasis is not on the dessert per se, but more on the people, the book is still likely to make you want to run to the store to gather ingredients for blackberry fool. Luckily, the book includes the recipe at the end, and it is simple enough that it would be perfect to make with your kids.

A Fine Dessert:  Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Sophie Blackall
Published: January 27, 2015
Publisher: Schwartz and Wade
Pages: 44
Genre/Format: Picture Book/Historical Fiction
Disclosure: Library Copy

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.   

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

In the early days of World War II, Ada and her younger brother Jamie live in London with their abusive mother. Ada receives particularly more brutal abuse than her brother because Mam is ashamed of her club foot and won't ever let Ada go outside. Mam makes Ada crawl around on the ground and punishes her by forcing her to sleep in a dank, dark cupboard filled with roaches and other filth.

When worries over London bombings by the Nazis start circulating, parents send their children away to safer areas of the country. Jamie of course is sent away, but once again their mother refuses to allow Ada to go. Ada, however, finds a way to sneak off and join Jamie while their mother is away at work.

Susan, the woman who is forced to take Ada and Jamie, lives in a beautiful house in the country and initially says she doesn't want the two neglected siblings. But even with her resistance, Susan shows them more kindness than their mother ever did. Slowly, as Ada begins to venture outside, ride horses, make friends, and even help watch out for German spies, she discovers the humanity that her mother denied to her as a result of her cruelty and shame.

Often when students are asked to read a historical fiction, they immediately recoil and shrink back in terror. If they don't say it outright, the looks on their faces are enough to hear their thoughts: "Please don't make me read this boring book!" The War That Saved My Life is a different breed of historical fiction, though. It's a page-turner. It's both a challenging and accessible read. But more importantly, it is a satisfying read. The abuse that Ada and her brother experience only happens in real-time for a very short part of the story. The remainder of the narrative involves Susan's attempts to repair these broken children. And so, readers feel the satisfaction of knowing that Ada and Jamie's lives are being vindicated.

I did have a couple issues with the novel, but they were petty in the overall scheme of how the novel made me feel as I was reading it. Still, I couldn't shake these two issues and so I will bring them up here:

1) Mam's treatment of her children was so cruel that it bordered on unbelievable. Her behavior felt more like that of a cartoon villain than a character in a serious historical fiction. Perhaps that was by design in order to make Ada and Jamie's experience living with Susan more satisfying, but it did feel a bit off-putting.

2) Ada begins the story completely illiterate and only later in the story does Susan begin teaching her to read. Her learning to read is not elaborated on much in the narrative -- it's really only on the periphery -- so the fact that this story is told by Ada in first person POV, who uses very sophisticated language, is a tad unbelievable. Perhaps if her literacy journey had been more on the forefront of the narrative, this might have made more sense, but as it was, by the end of the story, Ada still didn't know how to read and write that well.

Those are my nitpicky criticisms of the story because overall, I really enjoyed it and found myself staying up late to read it. Like Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793 and Ruta Sepetys' Between Shades of Gray, I think this will be one of my go-to historical fiction novels I hand to students who don't like historical fiction.


The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Published: January 8, 2015
Publisher: Dial
Pages: 316
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: Review copy provided by publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.  

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon

I am Malcolm.
I am my father’s son. But to be my father’s son means that they will always come for me.
They will always come for me, and I will always succumb.
 

Malcolm Little's young life is fraught with heartache and tragedy. After his father's murder, his family begins to unravel, no thanks to the white officials who have cut his desperate family off of government assistance and deemed his mother an unfit parent. In addition to his family unraveling, so too do his dreams when a teacher whom Malcolm trusts discourages him from aspiring to be a lawyer, despite the fact that Malcolm is a top student and also class president. His teacher only sees his skin color rather than young Malcolm's potential.

It's at this moment in his life that Malcolm wonders why he bothers even trying anymore and decides to escape to Boston where his half-sister Ella lives. It is here that Malcolm is tempted away from his once promising future into a world of nightclubs, hustling, and drugs. Malcolm thinks he has found a freedom in abandoning his past, but it's only a matter of time before the freedom he thinks he's found comes crashing down around him.

X is a fictionalized portrayal of a young Malcolm X's life, co-written by Kekla Magoon and Malcolm's daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz. This is a story that is incredibly timely given the animosity and resentment occurring in our country right now with the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Malcolm X's fight for civil rights was demonized when he was alive and is still done so to this day. In that regard, there are so many parallels that can be made from not only Malcolm's public life, but also his youth in the 1940s (when this novel takes place), to the struggles of African Americans still going on in 2014.

As I was reading X, there were many occasions when I had to put the book down to process and contemplate what I had just read. The scene with Malcolm's teacher was one such occasion because I knew despite the incendiary language used in that moment, it was something that I needed to share with my students. We are taught the power of the N word from a very young age. It is a word so powerful it can no longer be spoken. But it wasn't until the aftermath of the moment when Malcolm is called that horrific word by his teacher that I could fully internalize its power. I wanted my students to experience that same moment of horror and indignation.

X is a profound novel. It is one that can change hearts and minds. I know it did mine.


I'm not meant to be part of the things that are wrong with the world, but neither am I meant to run from them. 
I'm meant to fight against them. 
I can't hold my own in the ring, but out in the world, I do know how to fight. 
With words. 
With truth. 


Download the teachers' guide

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon
Publication Date: January 6, 2015
Publisher: Candlewick
Pages: 384
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: ARC received for review from publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

The Soccer Fence by Phil Bildner, illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson

Hector dreams of playing professional soccer, but as a black child growing up in apartheid South Africa, he experiences frequent denied opportunities because of the color of his skin. But as apartheid comes to an end in South Africa and Nelson Mandela is elected president, Hector both sees and experiences the power of sport to heal a nation.

Beautiful and poignant, Phil Bildner's words and Jesse Joshua Watson's illustrations take the reader on an emotional journey of highs and lows and leave you with a joyous lump in the throat by the last page.

No doubt fans of the movie Invictus with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon will draw some comparisons to Bildner's story, as Mandela used the universal language of sport early in his presidency to try to help heal racial wounds in his country.


The Soccer Fence: A Story of Friendship, Hope, and Apartheid in South Africa by Phil Bildner, illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson
Published: March 13, 2014
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Pages: 40
Genre: Picture Book/Historical Fiction
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: Library Copy

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.

The "Did Not Finish" Chronicles: Sekret by Lindsay Smith

 Goodreads Summary:
Yulia’s father always taught her that an empty mind is a safe mind. She has to hide her thoughts and control her emotions to survive in Communist Russia, especially because she seems to be able to read the minds of the people she touches. When she’s captured by the KGB and forced to work as a psychic spy with a mission to undermine the U.S. space program, she’s thrust into a world of suspicion, deceit, and horrifying power where she can trust no one.

She certainly can’t trust Rostov, the cruel KGB operative running the psychic program. Or handsome Sergei who encourages her to cooperate with the KGB. Or brooding Valentin who tells her to rebel against them. And not the CIA, who have a psychic so powerful he can erase a person’s mind with his own thoughts. Yulia quickly learns she must rely on her own wits and power to survive in this world where no SEKRET can stay hidden for long.

 I really, really wanted to like this book. I mean Cold War Soviet teenage spies? This had slam dunk written all over it. I am fascinated with all things Cold War and Soviet Union. But here's why it ultimately failed for me: there was too much internal conflict. Normally I love internal conflict. I'm a character driven girl myself, but a novel about Russian spies begs for an external conflict and as I said, there was way too much internalizing going on here. I realize the main character has psychic powers and that needs a level of internalizing, but it still didn't work for me. I abandoned the book after 100 pages. Maybe it picks up and gets more action-packed later in the novel, but I had already lost interest to wait and find out.


Sekret by Lindsay Smith
Expected Publication: April 1, 2014
Publisher: Roaring Book Press
Pages: 337
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: ARC acquired through NetGalley

ARC review: Going Over by Beth Kephart

Ada and Stefan are in love. But like any star-crossed love story, there is something preventing them from being together: a wall that divides their city. Pink-haired Ada lives in West Berlin where freedom and self-expression rule the streets and have emboldened her to become an angsty, teenage graffiti artist. Stefan lives in the straight lines and drab colors of East Berlin where his life and job have been forced upon him, so he waits for the day when he can escape to the West to be with Ada.

I was very excited to read Beth Kephart's Going Over because, you see, Berlin is my absolute favorite city on earth. History resides on every corner and yet it possesses a vibrant, youthful energy. It is like no other city in the history of the world. A wall divided it for decades: on one side, the free west, on the other, the oppressed east. The duality was striking and it still is to this day. When you go up to the top TV tower on Alexanderplatz in what is former East Berlin, you can clearly see where East and West once resided. When the wall came down in 1989, it was by the will of the people rather than weapons that

West and East: still obvious when I visited in 2004

brought it down, which is what makes this city's story so compelling. When Beth Kephart says in the author's note:

"When I traveled to Berlin in the summer of 2011 I discovered a city palpably alive, brilliant with color. I stood before memorials. I cried inside museums. I touched pieces of the old graffiti wall and imagine the ache of being separated from people I loved, from landscapes I yearned to see."

That was my experience with Berlin when I traveled there in 2004. I loved everything about it. Its storied past. Its hopeful and frenetic future. I own a t-shirt that says "Ich bin ein Berliner" because I love this city so much (Side note: saying "Ich bin ein Berliner" is a totally legit thing to say. It doesn't mean "I'm a jelly doughnut.") 

It is fitting that I chose to post this review on Feburary 27th because it was ten years ago today that I first set foot in this amazing city. So given my clearly emotional investment in the city of Berlin, I think it has skewed my impression of Going Over somewhat. It was difficult to find MY Berlin in this book and that's precisely why I had a hard time with it. I was looking for the Berlin I experienced in 2004, but how could that be when the story takes place in 1980s Berlin? And despite the fact that I drink up every piece of Berlin history I can get my hands on, I didn't feel the spirit of my beloved city in this story. Again, why would I? It was a different time and place.

But also, I just wanted to feel the city more in this story. When you have such a strong setting like Berlin, the city should almost be another character, much like I felt Prague was in Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone. It should be so vivid that you feel like you are there, and I didn't feel that sense of place I was longing for. And that's precisely why it's difficult for me to review this book objectively.

But despite my difficult experience with this book, I want to thank Beth Kephart for writing it. I think the Cold War is just now starting to become an era of history authors are beginning to explore and I think Berlin is a goldmine of fictional - and true! - stories just waiting to be told in young adult literature. Even though I didn't connect with the story as much as I would have liked, I will still recommend it to people and hope that they connect with it. Maybe it will even inspire people to visit and fall in love with the city the same way I did.

Read my blog post from 2009 celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall:
Remember, Remember the 9th of November.



Going Over by Beth Kephart
Expected Publication: April 1, 2014
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Pages: 262
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: ARC acquired at NCTE convention 

Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads welcomes Ruta Sepetys

Every year the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti district libraries choose one book for a program they call Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads. The purpose of choosing one book is "to promote reading and civic dialogue through the shared experience of reading and discussing a common book."

This year the committee chose Ruta Sepetys's Between Shades of Gray, which if you know me at all, you know how much I adored this book. And not only did I love it, but despite the fact that historical fiction is a hard sell to students, this book got passed around like a hot potato last year in my classroom (and I'm sure it would this year too if I had a classroom). Kids couldn't read it fast enough to pass it off to the next reader. It was never on my shelf.

I heard Ruta speak in 2012 when Between Shades of Gray won the Amelia Elizabeth Walden honor at the ALAN conference at NCTE in Las Vegas. Her speech moved me to tears then as it did on Tuesday night when she addressed a full auditorium at Washtenaw Community College for almost two hours, talking about how the book came to be, and what it has meant to readers all over the world.

Ruta talked about some of the difficulties she had researching the book and all the emotions that

came along with it, how the voice of one woman she interviewed, Irena, came back to haunt her as her agent was looking for a publisher. One publisher passed on the book because they said, "Well surely if this really happened someone else would have already written about it." Irena's words suddenly rang in her ears: "Ruta, this book will never be published. History has forgotten us."

As Ruta talked about the difficulty of the process of interviewing survivors, eventually she realized she needed to stop asking questions and just ask, "What would you like to share with me?" One man said to her, "I have seen hell and it is white." That's when she discovered she would never get   responses that telling by asking specific questions and just had to let them tell their stories.

Other important takeaways from Ruta's talk:

• "I wrote the book, but it's not my story." Meaning, this story belongs to history and to the people of Lithuania.
• " Together, we're adding a chapter to history books."
• "History divided us, but we're united through reading." Referring to the fact that this book has helped bring conversations among cultures that might not have ever happened before.
• Good fiction has us ask questions but doesn't force answers.

The people in attendance asked such wonderful, thought-provoking questions, such as the man who wanted to know if the book, which is published in 30 languages and 46 countries, is published in Russian. It is not. Rather telling, don't you think?

I know I tend to say this at the end of every author event recap, but I always mean it: if you ever have a chance to hear Ruta speak, please do it. She is a passionate, dynamic speaker who will get you thinking about reading and history in new ways. Despite the fact the Between Shades of Gray is a work of fiction, it has helped bring an era of history out of the dark and into our consciousness.

Read my review of Between Shades of Gray.

Watch Ruta's heartfelt interview:

Every Day After by Laura Golden

Lizzie Hawkins has bigger problems to worry about than the school bully, Erin Sawyer. Like the fact that her daddy abandoned the family, her mama is paralyzed with sadness, the bank is about to take their house away, and Lizzie must now be the caregiver to her own mother. Soon, however, Erin's bullying goes beyond the schoolyard and doesn't mince words when she makes it known that she's determined to see Lizzie end up in the orphanage. But Lizzie already lost her daddy; she's not about to lose her mama too, and will do whatever it takes to keep them together.

Every Day After is a beautiful novel that is the very essence of what Laurie Halse Anderson calls resilience fiction. Lizzie is a fighter and is someone who will put you in mind of the great historical fiction characters of Jennifer Holm novels like Turtle from Turtle in Paradise or May Amelia in Our One and Only May Amelia.

While the novel started off a bit slow and I wondered where it was going, I'm so glad I stuck with it. I loved that the end didn't tie up all loose ends but left the readers feeling more than satisfied. I could see this one being a surprise Newbery winner next month. Newbery committees seem to gravitate towards this type of historical fiction novel with the message of resilience. And it just so happens that there's lots of room on the cover for an award sticker. In fact, I personally think it looks kind of bare without one if I do say so myself.

I'm so glad I met Laura at ALA this past summer because if I hadn't, I'm fairly certain that this little gem of a novel would have passed me by. Laura was so sweet and charming and just an all-around wonderful person that I couldn't let the opportunity pass me by to read her debut novel. Based on her ability to write such a fierce, determined female character, I hope she'll be writing many more books in the years to come. 


Every Day After by Laura Golden
Published: June 11, 2013
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 224
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: Purchased Copy

Audiobook review: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. 

In 1828 Agnes Magnusdottir was charged with the murder of two men in Illugastadir, part of northern Iceland. Awaiting execution, the District Commissioner sends Agnes to a remote farm to live with the family of Jon Jonsson. The family is anything but happy to be housing a convicted murderer, but as her execution nears and Agnes slowly begins telling her side of the story to the priest she has chosen to be her confessor, the family realizes that perhaps Agnes isn't the monster they initially believed her to be. As the months go by and Agnes's death looms, Jon's wife and daughters wonder if there's anything they can do to save her before it's too late.

Burial Rites is Hannah Kent's debut novel, but she writes like a seasoned author. Her prose is dripping with vivid, haunting descriptions but not to the point where it seems overindulgent. Kent weaves seamlessly in and out of third person and first person narration, with the condemned prisoner of Anges taking on a first person narrative.

Agnes Magnusdottir was a real person convicted of murder and put to death in Iceland. She was in fact, the last person to be put to death there. Kent had a long fascination with Agnes Magnusdottir ever since she traveled to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange as a teenager. The author's note at the end of the book along with her acknowledgements show the vast depth of research she did to write this novel, but in reading the author's note, you get a sense that Kent's research began as something she was interested in learning and grew into an idea for a novel much later. Kent's use of language throughout the novel is both stark and poetic. I don't know if I would have enjoyed reading about Agnes Magnusdottir coming from any other writer. From the first few pages, you immediately get a sense that Kent was meant to tell this story.

It's not often that I read adult fiction anymore, finding YA and middle grade much more satisfying, but I was intrigued by the stark setting of 1800s Iceland. Having just returned from a trip to Iceland back in June and knowing what a bleak history the country has, I was curious to read a historical novel set there. Burial Rites did not disappoint. It is easily one of my favorite books of 2013. That is also in part because of the brilliant audio narration by Morven Christie. Her voice was like being cloaked in silk. She was both soothing and austere at the same time. While I initially began my journey with this book from the print galley I received ALA back in June, I soon decided that while I was enjoying reading with my eyes, reading with my ears might help me finish the book sooner. I'm glad I did because reading the book on my own didn't give me the same satisfaction as listening to the audio did. Christie's voice transported me to 1800s Iceland better than I think I could have done from just reading the words on the page.

I would highly recommend Burial Rites to anyone who loves historical fiction. However, don't let an aversion to the genre prevent you from picking this book up.  Just like Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, I think this book transcends genre preferences. Even readers who don't like historical fiction can find themselves swept away by the narrative Kent has created. 

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Audiobook narrator: Morven Christie
Published: September 10, 2013
Print Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Audio Publisher: Hachette Audio
Pages: 323
Audiobook Length: 11 hours, 59 minutes
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Adults
Disclosure: Galley received at ALA/Audiobook purchased on Audible

ARC review: Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

While everyone was lauding Code Name Verity last year, I have to start right off the bat by saying that I didn't connect with it. The book was difficult for me to follow, I think because of all the military jargon. I didn't feel anything for the characters despite their grave circumstances, mostly because I felt like I wasn't really inside the story, I was sort of hovering around the outskirts of it.When many people found themselves sobbing by the end, I felt nothing. And I'm usually a crier. Don't get me wrong, I know what a brilliant and important book Code Name Verity is; I just didn't personally connect with it the way I was hoping I would.

Needless to say, I was nervous (and maybe a little hesitant) to tackle Rose Under Fire, a companion novel to Code Name Verity. But the premise of the story drew me in and I knew I had to give it a go. 

Rose Justice is a young American ATA pilot and a budding poet. While flying from France to England, Rose is captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, a women's concentration camp. Despite Rose's grave circumstances, she manages to find loyalty, friendship, and hope with her fellow prisoners known as the Rabbits, on which the Nazis have performed horrific medical experiments. But hope in a concentration camp isn't the same thing as hope when you're free, as Rose so eloquently puts in her poem "Kite Flying":

Hope has no feathers.
Hope takes flight
Tethered with twine
like a tattered kite,
slave to the wind's 
capricious drift,
eager to soar
but needing a lift.

There's more to that poem, but I'll let you read the rest for yourself. What I especially love about many of Rose's poems is that she uses other poems as inspiration, a mentor-text if you will. In "Kite Flying" Rose uses Emily Dickinson's famous "Hope is the thing with feathers" poem as her muse. 

Throughout the story Rose's poetry is what sustains her and her fellow prisoners and even keeps them alive on a few occasions. I think this poetry connection is what immediately allowed me to feel for Rose as the protagonist when I couldn't feel for the characters in Code Name Verity. And this is a very different story than Wein's first novel. But if you think it will be impossible to love Rose Under Fire as much as Code Name Verity, you would be wrong. This book is equally as compelling, both emotionally and intellectually. And reading about the horrors Rose and especially her fellow prisoners had to endure at the hand of their captors, was both heartbreaking and hopeful, knowing that despite the inhumanity, there was still kindness and hope to be found -- eager to soar, but needing a lift.


Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
Expected Publication: September 10, 2013
Publisher: Hyperion
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: ARC received at ALA

Audiobook review: Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

When Syrenka falls in love with Ezra, she doesn't realize what consequences she will set in motion for future generations. A mermaid abandoning her life in the sea for love on land comes at a price: a curse on the women in her lineage to die after the birth of their first child.

Over a hundred years later, sixteen-year-old Hester is seeking answers to the reason why women in her family die after giving birth. What she discovers haunts her to her very core and comes at a price of her own.

If you know me as a reader then you know three things: 1) As a rule, I don't like fantasy 2) I especially hate mythology (it's a long and storied tale that I'll save for another day) and 3) I don't do mermaid books.

And for those reasons, Monstrous Beauty should have never been on my radar except for three things:

1) This book won an Odyssey honor this year and I wanted to see if I would judge it worthy of such an honor.

2) Katherine Kellgren is the narrator and she is one of the best in the business. Her reading of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series by Maryrose Wood is one of my all-time favorite audiobook experiences. She's one of those narrators who manages to make the book better by listening to it instead of reading it.

3) Elizabeth Fama graciously hosted a party at her house during ALA and even though she had never met many of us, she knew that we were all book lovers, and that was enough for her. After getting a chance to talk to Beth a little bit and to see what a wonderfully artistic family she has, I just knew that I would have to lift my mermaid moratorium and listen to this book.

I was not disappointed. In fact, I was quite shocked at how much I enjoyed this mermaid story. It is told in two different time periods: the late 1800s, and twenty-first century Plymouth, Massachusetts. There are so many facets to this story that make it more than just a book about mermaids. It's a historical fiction, it's a family saga, it's a ghost story; there's romance, violence, tenderness, and seduction. The writing is so lush and vivid that you feel all of your senses experiencing the story as it plays out, even if you don't want to be because, quite frankly, there are some rather uncomfortable, violent scenes that occur throughout the course of this book . And don't assume that just because this is a siren story with a mermaid on the cover that it doesn't appeal to guys. I could very much see young adult males reading this book and enjoying it. It very truly is a book with something for everyone, unless you're looking for a light, uplifting romance. Then maybe this isn't the book for you.

To learn more about Monstrous Beauty, check out this photographic tour of the setting over at The Midnight Garden.

Check out some other reviews of Monstrous Beauty:
Stacked
Bewitched Bookworms
Romance Around the Corner


Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama
Audiobook narrator: Katherine Kellgren
Published: September 4, 2013
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux and Macmillan Audio
Pages: 295
Audiobook Length: 8 hours, 1 minute
Genre: Fantasy/Historical Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Library Copy

Audiobook Review: Riot by Walter Dean Myers

The summer of 1863 was a violent one for New York City. As Civil War is raging, Abraham Lincoln institutes a military draft. However, for the cost of $300, men could purchase a waiver to prevent them from being drafted into the army. $300 is a year's salary for the poor Irish immigrants of the city and as hatred and resentment brews, so does the violence as it comes to a head for five agonizing days in July.

Riot tells the story of  the animosity that existed between the Irish immigrants and the blacks of this time period, but Myers brilliantly uses this opportunity to tell about a rather obscure part of our history through the lens of a character who is caught in the middle. During this time, fifteen year old Claire, who is half black and half Irish, is torn between the two warring sides and must now begin to forge her own identity and discover a strength she didn't know she had.

Riot was written in screenplay format which can be off-putting and difficult to follow for some readers. However, listening to this book on audio eliminates any confusion or frustration because it is read by a full cast. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if I had just read this book as opposed to listening to it I wouldn't be praising it as highly as I am. The full cast presentation along with the soundtrack made this novel-in-screenplay feel like you were actually watching a movie instead of listening to an audiobook. For those of you who weren't sold on the reading experience, I highly suggest giving the audio a try. I think your minds will be changed.


Riot by Walter Dean Myers
Audiobook Narrator: full cast
Publisher: Egmont, Listening Library
Publication Date: September 22, 2009
Audiobook Length: 2 hours, 36 minutes
Pages: 192
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Young Adult/ Middle Grade
Disclosure: Library copy

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

ARC review: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

I wasn't certain of anything anymore, except the New Orleans was a faithless friend and I wanted to leave her.

The year is 1950 and Josie Moraine wants more than anything to leave her current life behind. Her mother, a brothel prostitute on Conti Street, pays little attention to Josie, and when she does, it's usually because she wants something from her. The gruff brothel madam, Willie Woodley, looks out for Josie, keeping (or getting) her out of trouble, and is more of a mother to her than her own.

When Josie befriends Charlotte Gates, a wealthy girl who lives Uptown, she becomes even more convinced that she needs to leave New Orleans. It isn't long into their first meeting that Charlotte convinces Josie that her way out of New Orleans is to apply to Smith College in Massachusetts.  Figuring out how to afford and get accepted to Smith becomes an obsession for Josie, one that she is willing to go to almost any length to accomplish.

But the mysterious death of a wealthy man in the French Quarter soon causes Josie to become embroiled in a police investigation, brought upon by her own mother, which causes her to question her loyalty to all the people involved in her life.

Out of the Easy is a brilliant sophomore effort by the author who brought us one of the most moving, important books written in the last ten years, Between Shades of Gray. And while nowhere near as moving as her first novel, Out of the Easy is just as compelling. Sepetys once again shows her prowess at throwing her readers into a story with a hook that reels them in and then keeps them turning the pages with meaningful, empathic characters and a riveting plot. And the fact that Sepetys can write a brothel madam whom readers can empathize with shows what a master she is at the craft of writing. I mean, hearing or reading the words "brothel madam" doesn't exactly conjure up the warm and fuzzies, ya know? But Sepetys still finds a way to get you on her side.

Despite the fact that Out of the Easy is a drastically different book than Between Shades of Gray, don't let that steer you away from reading it. In fact, that should actually make it more appealing: it proves that Ruta Sepetys isn't just a one-trick pony and that she is a well-rounded author. And while Ruta may say that historical fiction is "the ugly girl at the dance" as she recently did in her speech at the ALAN conference (alluding to what a hard sell it is to young readers), I'm going to have to mix my metaphors here and say that Sepetys is that ugly girl's fairy godmother, getting her to dance with the handsome prince at the ball.


 
Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Expected Publication: February 12, 2013
Publisher: Philomel
Pages: 348
Genre: Historical Fiction/Mystery
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: ARC acquired at the NCTE conference

Audiobook Review: The Diviners by Libba Bray

When Evie O'Neill's life is rocked by scandal in her small town of Zenith, Ohio, she is sent off to stay with her Uncle Will in New York City who is the owner and curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult - AKA "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies." Despite her anger and heartbreak over the reason for her exile, she couldn't be more excited about what awaits her in New York: The lights! The glamor! The Speakeasies! And even though Uncle Will gives Evie strict instructions to stay out of trouble, she soon finds herself hanging with the flapper crowd in speakeasies and getting in trouble with the law. If it weren't for her secret and mysterious power that could possibly help her uncle and the police with a serial murder investigation, Evie might have found herself on a train back to Ohio. If she's not careful though, Evie could become a target of the killer herself.

Libba Bray proves once again what a talent she has for the written word. Her ability to set the perfect mood, whether it's 1920s New York City or a deserted island full of beauty pageant contestants, Libba always takes you on a journey to another place and time. And while getting into this novel is slow going at first, once you hit your stride, you will be hard pressed to want to stop. Though I caution you, unless getting the bejeezus scared out of you is on your list of fun things to do, you might want to reserve this book for daytime reading. Despite hitting the middle of the novel and not wanting to stop, I decided a restful sleep was better than a fitful one and chose to halt my listening until the safety of daylight hours.

Speaking of listening, let's talk about the audiobook narrator, shall we? I can't imagine anyone being a more perfect narrator for the audiobook of The Diviners than January LaVoy. While her performance is more subtle than, say, Libba Bray's in Beauty Queens or Bahni Turpin's in The True Meaning of Smekday (two of my favorite, over-the-top audiobook productions), LaVoy is a master at setting the mood. Her voice has a lighthearted bounce when she needs to be funny, and transforms to grave and austere when the book takes a spooky turn. She even manages to downright give you chills when her deep, fluid voice croons a mournful version of the Negro Spiritual "Wade in the Water." It's experiences like this that propel certain audiobooks into more a enjoyable experience than reading it on your own. The Diviners pos-i-tute-ly goes on my list of audiobooks I highly recommend over reading the book on your own. But if you're not a fan of reading with your ears, then read this one with your eyes. It's still worth it.


The Diviners by Libba Bray
Audiobook Narrator: January LaVoy
Published: September 25, 2012
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Listening Library
Pages: 587
Audiobook Length: 18 hours, 14 minutes
Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy
Audience: Young Adult (though this is a great book to give adults you're trying to convert to YA)
Disclosure: Audiobook checked out from library