I Must Betray You, by Ruta Sepetys

     Another wonderful, intense historical fiction book by one of my favorite authors, Ruta Sepetys. Her books are very well researched, very well written, and very heavy in their subject matter...but SO worth it!

     I Must Betray You is a story about the country of Romania, an eastern European country that for many years was under the control of a communist despot. Her book centers around main character Cristian, who lives in the capital city of Bucharest and is trying to survive terrible living conditions. The story takes place in 1989 - not very long ago! - and during this era people in many parts of Eastern Europe lived in fear; of each other, of the government, of the police. No one knew who they could trust, food was difficult to find, which also added to the tension of life. Electricity was inconsistent, which means many people lived in the dark and cold a lot of the time. People waited in food lines for hours for the most basic food supplies. Meanwhile, the country's leaders lived in wealth and abundance and pretended to the rest of the world that the entire country was living the same way. Many other countries were fooled for a long time, including the United States. It was very dark time for the people of Romania.  It happened only a generation ago.

    Anyone who is fan of historical fiction should read any of Sepetys's books. I have read three or four, and they are always excellent. Along with non-fiction writer Steve Sheinkin, she is one of the authors I always watch for when she releases something new, and try to read her new book when I can. They are pretty involved (well researched), and she chooses topics which usually involve people living in less-than-perfect situations. If that sounds at all interesting, give this book - or any of her titles! - a try. You won't be disappointed, but they will likely change you. 5 paws!

    

The Science of Being Angry, by Nicole Melleby

     The Science of Being Angry is one of several book by author Nicole Melleby, but I haven't read any of them before this. I discovered this book only recently, and was a little surprised to see that it initially came out in 2022. The paperback version was released less than a year ago, which is why it probably crossed my radar this school year.

    The title of this book is based on main character Joey, an 11-year-old who has anger issues that go beyond what most people experience when something happens that makes them mad, like stubbing a toe, for example. But for most people, that anger fades, usually as the frustration of the situation subsides. But Joey gets angry easily, and she acts on her anger, in as much as she doesn't have a single friend at school (outside of her two brothers). Her anger gets her family kicked out of their apartment complex, gets her suspended from school, physically harms one of her moms...and on it goes. Because of a science project at school based on genetics, Joey decides to find her biological father to see if he, too, has anger issues. Joey is desperate to discover where this anger comes from, why she can't seem to control it, and how to live without hurting everyone, especially the people she loves.

    The first third of this book was pretty...meh. It reminded me of one of those books you get at the book fair that you haven't heard of before but that costs only a couple of dollars - less than the books you have heard of - so you buy it, read it, and...forget about it. Thankfully, Melleby gathered some steam from that point and I started feeling more a part of Joey's life and her spiderweb of emotions and troubles.  In all, her story is really relatable as she tries to navigate something she has little control over, and has no idea why she is this way. She fears she is hurting the people she really loves, so one strategy she explores is creating distance from them, which doesn't make anything better, as you might imagine.

    The book received starred reviews from two of the publications that I look to when I'm looking for my next good book, which surprised me a bit. Being Angry isn't bad - in fact it's pretty good! - but it's not a 5 paw book, as the starred reviews would suggest. Hmm, maybe you will like it more than I did. It is a good story, and worth a read, but I can only offer 3 paws and a wag.

    I will watch for new releases from Melleby in the future, as I feel like the strengths she shows in this story will carry forward into perhaps a "fuller" book, start to finish. In the meantime, I'll keep watching for my realistic fiction superstars; Kate DiCamillo, Kwame Alexander, Jason Reynolds, A.S. King...

Brownstone, by Samuel Teer & Julia Mar

     A new graphic novel that I really enjoyed! Brownstone won a Printz Award this year, which is one of the awards given out each January by the readers of the American Library Association (a group of people all over the country who read a lot of kids books to choose the best of the best!). And rightly so! 

    Teer and Mar tell the story of Almudena, a 14-year-old girl living with her mom and doing the things teens do - go to school, wrestle with relationships, etc. Her mom gets the opportunity to travel with a dance team, and decides to leave Almudena with her father. The trouble is, Almudena has never met her father! She argues, but to no avail - mom drops her off at her dad's brownstone house in the Latina section of the city. Dad doesn't not speak English, and Almudena doesn't speak Spanish. In addition, Almudena thinks she is part Mexican because of her dark skin, but discovers her father is actually Guatemalan. She's not sure of the difference, but she slowly finds out. And, from the moment they meet on the sidewalk in front of his house, Almudena is put to work helping her dad renovate a really old, broken down house in the middle of the city. Did I mention they can't understand each other?

    As the book progresses, Almudena slowly becomes part of the neighborhood, and of her father's life, but not without a lot of bumps along the way. The only caution I offer with this story is that there are moments of strong language - teenagers talking like they sometimes do to each other, with colorful language that adults may not often use. But I never felt the bad words were out of place, and in fact everything about this book seemed very realistic, which made it funny, sad, maddening...all of those things we all experience in real life!

    A really good book, maybe not for younger readers, but most 7th and 8th graders (and above) will really enjoy this story, I think. 5 paws!

Legendborn, by Tracy Deonn

  The first in what will be a trilogy (3-book series) when Oathborn is released March 4th, and the winner of the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent, Legendborn is a good, long introduction to a modern version of the King Arthur story...with a lot of twists! Main character Bree Matthews is a high school student taking an advanced college program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where her mother also went to school. But while her mother was a student she was in an accident and was killed. Bree is going to find out what happened, and the more she learns the more she realizes that this might not have been an accident after all.

    In the middle of this simple-sounding story line are powerful people tied to century-long lines of power, going all the way back to medieval times. Nick, who also becomes Bree's crush, is from the family line of King Arthur himself, thought to be the most powerful of all families and lines. However, Bree is also Black, and along the way she becomes aware of the power that her family line brings to the story. The two lines do not play well together, and Bree is caught in the middle - and of course the crush doesn't make things any easier!

    This first book by author Deonn is fun, and in many places a real page-turner! But it has to be as it settles in at just under 500 pages long. There is a lot of action and excitement, romance, beasts and monsters and demons. There are many characters that eventually start to find their place in the story, but early on some of the names were hard to remember and follow. The book reminded me a lot of the Stephanie Meyers' Twilight series, which pitted vampires and werewolves with a romance holding the whole story together. Legendborn also reminded me a little of Marie Lu's Legend series, also page turning adventure and a strong romantic element.

    For her first book, Legendborn is very well done. I didn't like the enormous cliff hanger at the end - I thought Deonn could have given a little more closure and still make us want to read the next book (Bloodmarked). And at times I found myself wanting to skip ahead a few pages, especially when Bree was writhing in pain or indecision, which happened a lot by the end of the story. On the other hand, kudos to Deonn for tying African American slave history into a King Arthur story. It made the situation she creates in the book between the Arthurian line and the African American/slave line very interesting. And I think you'll be surprised, pleasantly, by who the "hero" turns out to be!

    A good start, although I don't have the stamina to jump right into Bloodmarked just yet. Perhaps you will! It seems that we will be reading Deonn books for a ling time to come! 4 paws!

Superman Smashes the Klan, by Gene Luen Yang & Gurihiru

     As one of the first named National Ambassadors for Young People's Literature by the U.S. Congress, graphic artists and writer Yang is one of my go-to writers/artists whenever he releases something new. He is a strong advocate for diversity in books for young people (like you!) and for reading in general. We sure do need more people like him in this crazy world of book challenges and bans, right?

    Superman Smashes the Klan is Yang's latest graphic novel release, and along with artists Gurihiru, this book tells the story of an early Superman character who was first created way back in the early 1940s, and whose storylines often followed what the world was facing in World War 2. In fact, according to Yang in his author notes at the end of this book, Superman started as a radio show character before becoming a drawn character in comic books, and in both he was fighting the racism that Nazi Germany was trying to spread across Europe. Germany was only one of the Axis Powers, along with Italy and Japan, and fear of Japanese Americans is also part of our nation's less-than-admiral past. The history of the Ku Klux Klan is intertwined with the racism behind WW2, as well as the history of slavery that the United States was built upon.

    Readers of this blog know that I don't read nearly as many graphic novels as I should, or as many of you do! But as I mentioned, anytime Yang releases a new book, my tail wags, and I make sure my human brings that book home from the library! Superman is well written, well drawn, and really informative. It has all the elements of a good superhero comic plus the addition of the historical background of how Superman came to be, and his role in our nation's history. 

    Sometimes I'll hear discussions about who is the greatest superhero, but my money is always going to be on Superman! After you read this one, he may be yours, too! 5 paws! 

Mascot, by Charles Waters & Traci Sorell

  Silver medal winner of the American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award, Mascot tells the fictional story of a class of 8th grade middle school students in an advanced English class who are grappling with the school's mascot - an "Indian Brave". Not a new topic, of course, but one I don't see a lot in the books I read. In fact, Native American perspectives are still pretty hard to find in teen and young adult literature, although Joseph Bruchac has been writing some great books for years, and newer authors, like Eric Gansworth, are adding some newer books as well.

    Mascot takes place at Rye Middle School near Washington D.C., and real world mascots like the Redskins (now the Commanders), the Atlanta Braves, and many lesser-known mascots around the country are referred to in the story. Authors Waters and Sorell do a nice job of presenting many different takes on whether mascots such as "Braves" are discriminatory and hurtful or honoring cultures such as Native Americans. 

    What I thought they missed was that their characters seem to old for the actions and thoughts throughout the story. If the students in this story were in high school, I would have liked this much more. I know it's a small difference, but when the story mentions that a character was looking forward to high school, I had to reset my thinking, because the messages in the book seemed a little too mature for middle school. Not that middle school students are immature - I don't think that! But the ideas that are explored in Mascot fit better with slightly older teens, in my opinion.

    I also thought a few of the viewpoints presented, and there are several, were a little too "easy". The authors tried to muddy them up a little, but mostly the opinions were pretty black and white, not grey, like I think they are in the real world. But these didn't take away from the story totally! It is a good book, and one that you should read, if for no other reason than to examine your take on the issues surrounding mascots. Are they discrimination? Racist? Or tradition? Good questions. A good book.

3 paws and a wag!

Go With The Flow, by Lily Williams & Karen Schneemann

     A friendship story. Period.

    This new graphic novel is about four girls who become friends as sophomores in high school (second year students). Three of the girls were friends coming into the new school year, and Sasha becomes the newest friend when the other girls step in to rescue her from her first period, which occurs at school (of course!). She is unsure about what is happening or what to do, and of course other kids turn on her and make fun of her for some weeks afterward. People can be mean, can't they?

    Go With The Flow is a new graphic novel from artists Williams and Schneemann who began an online comic series titled The Mean Magenta a few years ago. The comic series, and this book, address menstruation - periods - something that girls first experience at some point in their young lives but is still seen as a taboo topic in most social settings (like school). In the book, the girls are upset that even though there are dispensers in their high school for products to assist with a period, they are not stocked with supplies - yet the football team gets new uniforms every year, so clearly the school has money. Why are girls' needs not being better addressed at school? A fair question, and these fearless four girls go to work to try and solve this "problem".

    A good book, an important topic that I don't think should be a "thing", but apparently it is, even in 2025! I'm not sure the topic will appeal to everyone, but I wish it did...we could all help each other with the parts of being human that we don't control, and make topics about things like menstruation not something to be secretive, or embarrassed, about! Nice, clear artwork, and a topic I haven't seen addressed in a book since Judy Bloom did it many years ago! 4 paws!