IRA’s new award: The Social Justice Literature Award “This brand-new award is presented to honor books that address social responsibility towards individuals, communities, societies, and/or the environment as well as invite reflection and socially responsible action by the reader.” What…
Category: Economic Justice/Poverty/Immigration
Divided Loyalties: A Review of Brotherhood
In Richmond, Virginia in 1867, 14-year-old Shadrach Weaver is awakened early and violently one morning. Federal soldiers beat him and carry away his older brother, Jeremiah, wanted for murder. The victim, George Nelson, is an itinerant teacher, a white man…
Surviving Depression: A Review of Every Day After
The long recession and weak recovery have kindled interest in the Great Depression and the ways that families responded to sudden economic deprivation nearly a century ago. Laura Golden’s new middle grade novel Every Day After (Delacorte) mines the author’s…
IF I EVER GET OUT OF HERE
IF I EVER GET OUT OF HERE, written by Eric Gansworth, tackles tough issues with raw rugged honesty. The author, an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, grew up on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation in upstate New York. This…
Urban Dilemmas: A Review of Nowhere to Run and Flowers in the Sky
I’ve been reading a lot lately about growing inequality and hardening class differences in the United States. Opportunities for success seem harder to come by in what was once known around the world as the Land of Opportunity. But even…
CODA: A novel of Revolution against addiction and control
Coda (Running Press Kids) by Emma Trevayne $9.95 In her debut novel, Emma Trevayne has painted a punk and rock world in which addictive music controls a future society. The encoded music heals pain and sickness, and controls the…
Politics Comes to Town: A Review of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano
Fifteen-year-old Evelyn Serrano sees herself as an ordinary girl living in El Barrio, Spanish Harlem in 1969. She has just started a new job in a department store and is proud of her ability to earn money for herself and…
Human Trafficking in Space: A Review of The Color of Rain
When people think of books for children and teens that address social justice issues, contemporary and historical fiction and nonfiction are the genres that come to mind. Rarely do we think of speculative fiction as inherently political, though dystopian novels…
This summer read is layered with substance
The Secret Ingredient (Delacorte Books for Young Readers) by Stewart Lewis, $17.99 As with every good summer read, this novel brings a girl, sixteen-year-old Olivia, together with a gorgeous guy named Theo, who works at her dad’s restaurant, only…
CLA / NCTE: Notable Children’s Books in Language Arts
WALKING ON EARTH AND TOUCHING THE SKY is part of a bouquet of beautiful books selected each year by CLA / NCTE: Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts. One of my favorites of the several poetry titles is: WALKING…