BIPOC characters

Fresh Start

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by Gale Galligan
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work
Release date: January 7, 2025
Content: There is some online bullying and talk of periods. It will be in the Middle-Grade Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

Ollie moves a lot because of her dad’s job and so she’s decided that nothing she does really matters. Embarrassing moment at school? Doesn’t matter; we’re moving soon. Fallout with friends? Doesn’t matter; we’re moving soon. Until her dad takes a job in Virginia (after being overseas for much of Ollie’s 12 years) and her parents buy a house: they’re going to stay put for a while.

Which means Ollie actually needs to adapt and figure out how to make friends and find her place in the world.

This one was super fun and charming. I loved Galligan’s illustrations, and I liked that she balanced Ollie figuring out how to fit in with people who had grown up together and stay true to herself. I loved the relationship Ollie had with her sister, Cat, and that they had some honest struggles with their parents. I liked that Ollie’s mom is Thai, and there was that cultural element as Ollie struggles with not being “Thai” enough.

It was just all-around enjoyable. Highly recommended.

Audiobook: Let it Glow

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by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy
Read by Gabi Epstein & Rebecca Soler
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is the relative safety issue of the girls switching places that some parents might have a problem with. Also, one of the grandparents in the story has a fall and ends up in the hospital. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Aviva Davis wants to have the perfect Hanukkah, something which her not-very-observant Jewish family doesn’t seem to do. She wants everything perfect from the menorah to the latkes. And while she wants to participate in the pageant her grandmother’s retirement center is putting on, she’s not sure she’s quite qualified to be the Jewish representation. Holly Martin is just at the retirement home because her mom is trying to convince Holly’s grandpa that he needs more help than they are able to give him at home. Holly has no intention of being a part of the pageant, but then she stumbles on Aviva, who is a carbon copy of Holly. They’re both adopted, they both have the same birthday, they both look alike… is it possible they are twins?

From there, the plot spins out in a very Parent Trap-like direction: Aviva and Holly trade homes to experience what the other holiday is like (Holly celebrates Christmas), while trying to figure out if their parents knew about being twins and just didn’t tell them. It’s a lot about blood family versus adopted family,

This was a very sweet holiday story, made better by the narrators, who were just amazing. I liked how they brought both Holly’s and Aviva’s personalities to life, how they made all the improbabilities of the whole situation make perfect sense. It was charming and adorable, and I enjoyed every minute of the audiobook.

The Teller of Small Fortunes

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First sentence: “On the day the Teller of Small Fortunes came to Necker, the village was in an uproar because the candlemaker’s would-be apprentice had lost all the goats.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There is some violence. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasty section of the bookstore.

Tao is just a teller of Small Fortunes. She is alone, except for her horse, traveling from village to village telling only the things that are small. She told, once, a Big Fortune, and she’s still paying the cost. She doesn’t want company, until she stumbles across a couple of adventurers, out looking for the lost daughter of one of them. And then, they pick up a baker and a magical cat, and Tao’s life has suddenly become complicated.

I picked this one up because I wanted something cozy, and this looked, well, cozy. And at first, I was liking it. I liked that Leong brought in racism and suspicion of the Other, and the idea that Tao – born in one country but raised in another – never quite fit anywhere. But, it kept going and it kept being just cozy without much weight to it (though I think Leong tried), and then I got 2/3 of the way through and realized I just didn’t care anymore about Tao or her companions or their Quest. So I skipped to the end to see if the daughter was ever found, and called it good.

I’m sure this will be comforting and lovely to many people. I’m just not one of them.

Audiobook: Heist Royale

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by Kayvion Lewis
Read by: Jade Wheeler
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Others in the series: Theives’ Gambit
Content: There’s people breaking the law (obviously) and talk of underage (for America) drinking. It’s in the YA section of the bookstore.

When we last left Ross, she came in second in the Gambit, which is not what she wanted. She’s had work over the past six months, but she still has the threat of someone wanting to kill her family hanging over her head. And then there’s the rivalry over who is going to run the Organization. Ross – and her friends – get roped into another gambit this time on teams and for the control of the Organization. Who will take the ultimate prize?

I’ll be up front: while this was fun, it wasn’t as fun as Thieves’ Gambit. That one was new, original, and a lot of fun. This one was almost a re-hashing of the first one. There were moments – at one point, they infiltrate a high-end casino in Moncao and there’s an intense moment when the owner catches Ross and tries to catch her out on cheating (but he doesn’t). That was very satisfying. But, because of the title, I was expecting a heist or a long con – something like Heist Society or Oceans 11 – and I just didn’t get that. That said, the narrator was excellent, and she kept me interested, even when I stopped caring about Ross and her relationship to her mother or her friends. I’m just not entirely sure the Thieves’ Gambit needed a sequel.

And maybe that’s where the problem lies.

Audiobook: Twenty-Four Seconds from Now…

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by Jason Reynolds
Read by Guy Lockard
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s a book about teen sex. There is none actual, but there is a lot of talk about it. There is also swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

Neon and his girlfriend, Aria, have been talking about this night for months: they have been dating for two years and are ready to have sex. Except, as the book opens, Neon is in the bathroom, freaking out. As the book unfolds, going backward in time, we learn about Neon and Aria’s relationship to each other, to their families, and to their friends. We learn about how Neon’s parents are handling him having a steady boyfriend and about their relationship to each other. We learn about Neon’s highs and lows, and basically how he got to this specific moment, in the bathroom, about to take this step.

I think this is an important book. Seriously: I think a book that is frank about consent and parents having healthy discussions about sex with their children is important to have out there. It’s a magnet for the book banners, who don’t want any sex near teens, but honestly, I think honest discussion is a better way to deal with teens having sex rather than ignoring it. And Reynolds knows how to write about difficult subjects with humor and in ways that kids (and yes, parents) can relate to.

This is also a book that I think I enjoyed a lot more on audio. Lockhard Is a fantastic narrator, and he made all the characters come alive for me. It’s a quick read/listen, and I’m glad I did.

Highly recommended.

On a Wing and a Tear

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by Cynthia Leitich Smith
First sentence: “Hesei, cousins!”
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Content: There are a couple of intense moments. Otherwise, it’s a short book with short chapters. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) Section of the bookstore, but I’d give it to a good younger reader as well.

Mel and Ray are off for spring break, and the only thing they want to do with Grandpa Halfmoon is go to a Chicago Cubs game. Except they are thrown a loop: Great-Grandfather Bat was injured and is recuperating in Mey and Ray’s backyard. And he’s been summoned to another Birds vs. Animals baseball game, and it’s up to Grandpa, Mel, and Ray to take Great-Grandfather Bat from Chicago to Georgia.

It’s a road trip!

There are adventures on the way, as they make the trek, stopping to see relatives in Kansas and Oklahoma, before getting Great-Grandfather Bat to his game.

On the one hand, this was a sweet modern folk tale. It has the cadence of a Bre’r Rabbit tale – the omniscient narrator talking directly to the reader, with folksy asides. And I do like the way Smith weaves in Native traditions, cultures, and challenges throughout the book. But it wasn’t quite a straight-up fantasy (Smith even says it’s not fantasy, it’s fiction, even though she warns not to interact with wild animals the way these characters do) but it wasn’t a realistic fiction book either. Maybe it was that there was a little bit of everything and the whole didn’t quite add up.

I didn’t hate the book, but it wasn’t my favorite either.

Magnolia Wu Unfolds it All

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by Chanel Miller
First sentence: “Magnolia Wu was almost ten.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s heavily illustrated, short, and with lots of white space. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I’d give it to a precocious younger reader as well.

While Magnolia likes her family’s laundromat, she feels like nothing ever happens. Then, the summer that she turns 10, she and her new friend Iris decide to return all the lost socks that have been left. What follows is an adventure as Magnolia and Iris learn about their neighbors in their New York City neighborhood.

It’s a cute little book, full of fun illustrations. There’s not much depth to it: Magnolia and Iris solve one little sock mystery after another while Magnolia learns the value of hardworking, caring parents, and Iris and Magnolia navigate a friendship.

Cute, especially for those beginning/struggling readers.

The Cookie Crumbles

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by Tracy Badua and Alechia Dow
First sentence: “Generally speaking, cookies don’t kill people.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is talk of almost-murder, and there are some intense situations. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Laila loves to bake. Lucy is a budding reporter. They both want to get into the prestigious Sunderland boarding school, and the cookie competition hosted by the school, with the grand prize of a scholarship, is the only way they can make it work. The plan was for Laila to bake and be brilliant and for Lucy to write and be brilliant. What they didn’t anticipate was one of the judges – Chef Remy – almost dying after eating one of Laila’s cookies. Now, they need to figure out who tried to kill Chef Remy (it wasn’t Laila!) – especially since there was a storm that wiped out all the ways to get into and out of Sunderland.

This was a fun little mystery. The stakes were high – a lot of the other kids had motives to hurt Chef Remy – but it wasn’t so high that it would scare younger kids. The clues were there to figure it out if you were paying attention (I did), but it was clever enough to keep me entertained. I liked that the authors conceived of a clever way to get parents out of the picture – it was kind of like a sleep-away camp for the competition – so that it wasn’t weird that the kids were running around the school by themselves. I liked the alternating chapters between Laila and Lucy, and I thought it was all done very well.

A really solid Middle Grade mystery.

Audiobook: The Truth According to Ember

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by Danica Nava
Read by Siena East
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is blatant racism towards Native people, as well as some swearing including a few f-bombs. There is on the page, pretty spicy sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Ember Lee Cardinal hasn’t been able to catch a break. She had to drop out of college because she used her college money to bail out her younger brother from jail, but he skipped bail so she lost the money. She’s working a dead-end job at a bowling alley in a less-than-desirable part of Oklahoma City. And all her applications for better jobs come back as rejected. So she decides to be creative: she exaggerates her qualifications and checks the white box instead of the Native American one. (Her dad is white, so it’s not a super big stretch on that one.) She lands a job as an accounting assistant at a tech firm where she meets Danuwoa Colson, the IT guy and fellow Native. He even seems to be interested in her as well. Things are looking up. But when she gets an unexpected (and unwanted) promotion to the Executive Assistant to the CEO and when a coworker finds Ember and Danuwoa in a bit of a compromising position (they were kissing on an elevator at an offsite conference), her lies begin to build and get out of control. With everything – her job, her life, the relationship with Danuwoa – at stake, will Ember be able to come clean?

This one was a ton of fun. There was a bit of second-hand embarrassment as Ember’s lies kept piling up, but I got why she kept doing it. The motivations were always there. Nava was great at making the spice pop as well as weaving in elements of what Native people have to deal with in the corporate workplace (it was SUPER cringe). I loved Ember’s best friend Joanna (not sure of the spelling of that, since I listened) and the way it was incredibly centered in Oklahoma. Additionally, East did an excellent job narrating, making all the characters come to life.

It ended up being one of those books where I kept driving just so I could keep listening, and there really isn’t any higher praise than that.

Audiobook: Buffalo Dreamer

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by Violet Duncan
Read by Ashley Callingbull
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There are some tough subjects, including the residential schools, but they are handled in an age-appropriate way. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Summer is looking forward to a relaxing summer at the rez in Alberta where her mom grew up. But this year, there is a change: they have discovered a mass grave at a closed-down residential school where Summer’s grandfather was forced to attend. Additionally, Summer is having vivid dreams about a girl who ran away from a residential school and walked through a blizzard to escape.

It’s not a long book or even a harrowing one. But it is a sweet story about respecting and learning history, even (or maybe especially) hard history. Summer’s mom and aunties doesn’t think she’s ready to learn the history, and her grandfather is hesitant to speak about it, but when Summer shares the dreams, they are more willing to admit that talking about the hard and painful history can be a healing thing. I also appreciated learning about Summer’s heritage and family traditions as we went along; Duncan was excellent at weaving the small details in with the larger story.

The narrator was excellent as well; I really love listening to books by Native authors in audio because I know I would have no idea how to pronounce some of the words. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.