Book Reviews

Last year Jacqueline Woodson won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, for her memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming. Her newest book, Another Brooklyn (Amistad/Harper 2016) is published and marketed as an adult book. This novel about four black girls growing up in the 70s—four fast friends—shows joy, hardship, and great love among the characters.

Clearly it is an adult book, but being about young people, why is that? Much “young adult” literature is chock full of violence, sex, and other topics that are taboo to middle grade readers (for the most part). But certain ideas fall in the realm of adult ideas, as in this book, which shows difficult assumptions about young black women and the pressure they feel. Still, I would put this book in the hands of some young adult readers. There is so much to aspire to in the relationships among the girls as they go from nine to sixteen.

When many of us were growing up, we weren’t aware of “young adult” or “teen” literature. We just read books—like Hermann Hesse, Ayn Rand, JD Salinger. We understood them to the extent we understood. Sometimes when we spoke of these books, adults would marvel at our deep understanding. In some cases, the adults were more impressed than we deserved, using their own understanding to stretch our words and meanings.

Back to Another Brooklyn. Like all of Woodson’s writing, it is poetic. Her storytelling is masterful. I marvel at the ten-year-old girls’ devotion to each other. In their teens, they support each other, rely on each other. I didn’t find relationships like that until I was twenty. When I think further, I realize, that first deep girlfriend relationship was with Corinne, a young black dancer in London. We would walk down the street, arms locked. No one could penetrate our mutual protection.

Eventually I’d carry that intimacy to relationships with white girls. But now I ask myself, is this close bond something born especially in a black community? Am I stereotyping? Or just acknowledging that some stereotypes are born from a kernel of truth.

August, the book’s narrator, says her mother did not experience closeness with other women— quite the opposite. And it’s because of her mother’s depression that her father takes the children away from their Tennessee mother to live with him in Brooklyn. Eventually August’s estranged mother takes her own life. So . . . Is Woodson telling us that a woman’s relationship with other women essential? I surely agree.

And the title? “Another” Brooklyn. This implies an original Brooklyn. Is she saying there’s a white neighborhood experience and a black neighborhood experience? Perhaps. I loved this view into a world that I can only overlap, but have never lived. That is so often the beauty of books and reading—being given a view of life different than your own.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Win a copy of her not-yet-released Loving vs. Virginia here:

Why I wrote Loving vs. Virginia – Book Give Away

Graphic novels can be a fantastic way to get a reluctant young adult to read. A reader of graphic novels develops visual acuity, but this takes exposure, maybe some practice. But it’s really fun. Graphic novels no longer feature just Superman and Batman “pow! bang! pop!” characters. The illustrations tend to be more universally inviting. And there are graphic novels on many topics—serious, comic, nonfiction, fiction. Here are a few.

“Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls Are Used in War” (Kids Can Press 2015) by Jessica Dee Humphreys and Michel Chikwane and illustrated by Claudia Dávila tells the non-fiction story of Michel Chikwane, a child forced into a rebel army in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The story is augmented with maps and information about child soldiers and what you can do to help end the abuse.

The book begins with Michel arriving in the U.S.A with his mother, among other lucky refugees. The reader is given a brief history of the Congo, briefly describing the white (Belgium in this case) exploitation of its people and bountiful resources. The story is told by Michel, who says, “I played soccer, watched TV. I went to school and I daydreamed.” He explains how they made soccer balls out of crumpled paper wrapped in plastic bags and banana leaf rope. He was of the middle class, his father a human rights lawyer. His mother fed the whole neighborhood. At five years old Michel was kidnapped by a rebel army and forced to shoot his best friend. This is not easy reading, but it tells a necessary story. Many relocated refugees, now in the USA need to be seen and their stories told.

            “Roller Girl” (Dial 2015) by Victoria Jameison tells the story of twelve year old Astrid whose interests diverge from those of her best friend who wants to go to ballet camp. Astrid chooses roller derby camp. It’s rough to grow apart from a best friend and find new friends and new interests. You feel Astrid’s pain and understand why she stops confiding in her mother. It’s all part of growing up. Plus you learn all about roller derby. So this is realistic fiction, with information on a sport you may have known little or nothing about.

“Baba Yaga’s Assistant” (Candlewick 2015) by Marika McCoola, illustrated by Emily Carroll is fantasy fiction which embraces folklore. To escape her home and newly blended family, teenaged Masha thinks she wants to assist the Russian folklore witch, Baba Yaga. First Masha has to get into Baba Yaga’s house, which sits atop chicken legs. Deceit rules, once she is inside the house. Masha must outsmart a bear and the witch who is serving children for dinner. This slightly dark poignant story is a fast fun read.

These graphic novels are all high quality productions, not printed on cheap comic book paper. The color is fantastic, and the feel of the books is smooth. Try them out.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Her young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases in January 2017. talesforallages.com

Frances Hardenge sets “The Lie Tree” (Amulet 2016) in Victorian England, amidst the argument of God vs. Darwin’s theory of evolution. Faith, 14 years old, soon-to-be a woman, must feign ignorance in order to discuss natural science.

Speaking to a doctor who measures his patients’ heads, Faith remarks, Oh, you’re a cranionimist. When he balks and threatens to stop speaking, she timidly asks, Is that the right word? Due to her timidity he can continue. Message: a woman musn’t be too clever.

Faith observes that women “expand into the space left by men.” Various women maneuver differently, “without visibly changing, they unfolded, like flowers, or like knives.” Faith’s mother, pretty and clever in the ways of women-who-know-their-place, stakes her claim in the pecking order of the local caste, surviving on her good looks—unfolding as a flower to impressive results. These are her tools in an unfair world. At first her mother’s coquetry is abhorrent to Faith, but she learns to appreciate her mother’s high intelligence.

Hardenge gives insight into human foibles with wit akin to Jane Austen.

Faith’s father, a clergyman and natural scientist drinks tea along with his colleagues “while racing their rival theories like prize ponies.” The men speak science. And argue God vs. Evolution. Could God have created imperfect animals? No. Faith longs to join the discussion—and argue—but she’s doomed to drink tea with her docile mother and the ladies.

            Faith thinks of herself as dull, prim, and shy. We see her as daring to be inquisitive. When she tells her stern and revered father that she is clever he accuses her of being burdened with “repellant vanity.”

Mystery opens the story with her father being banished from London to avoid a scandal. We know it has something to do with the credibility of his research. But what has he done? One third of the way through, a death occurs in the family. Is it an accident? Suicide? Murder? This book, besides providing insight into a precursor to our society, is a page turning thriller.

Characters are playing each other. Faith is no exception. Playing on the servant’s superstitious natures, she sets up situations which reek of witchcraft. The servants are terrified and the remaining family members fear the servants. Hardenge sums up one scene, saying, the room “crackled of fear.”

Most nights, Faith risks her life to row out into the night-time bay to a cave where her father has hidden a struggling plant he’s brought from London. The fruit from this plant, “the lie tree,” bears fruit when someone utters a lie to it. The fruit, in return reveals a hidden truth to that person. Faith wants the truth and goes to great extremes to get it.

What wonderful imagination and stunning execution ground this award-winning book. First published last year in England, it’s only the second young adult book to be awarded the prestigious Costa Book of the Year (formerly “Whitbread”) since Philip Pullman won in 2001.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Her young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases in January 2017. talesforallages.com

Steve Sheinkin won the Boston Globe Horn Book Nonfiction Award for his last three books including his most recent “Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War” (Roaring Brook 2016). No wonder. It’s thoroughly researched, clearly stated, and reads like a thriller.

Ho Chi Min came to power in Vietnam at the end of WWII. America supported him briefly, then slighted him because he was communist. Vietnam divided into North (Communist) and South. The U.S. with its Cold War fear, needed to halt Communism.

A bright young man, Daniel Ellsberg, went to work at the Pentagon.

President Johnson wanted to fight a war against poverty, ignorance, and disease. Instead he was handed the Vietnam War. In Top Secret documents he was advised that the (communist) Viet Cong had more staying power and the U.S. could not win the Vietnam War. The Johnson administration systematically lied to the American people, saying that North Vietnam initially fired on the U.S. Not true. When Johnson sent 200,000 U.S. soldiers he told the American people that he sent 125,000. He said the war would be brief. He knew it would be long. But he did not want to be humiliated as the first U.S. President to lose a war.

Working with Top Secret Pentagon papers, Ellsberg knew all this. Ellsberg was demoted for sneaking a peak at a forbidden binder. But he was able to copy and take the 7,000 Top Secret war report when he was fired. These became known as the Pentagon Papers. Intense, intelligent, and deeply patriotic—Daniel Ellsberg went to Vietnam to try to find a way to win the war. Or end it.

In 1966 Secretary of Defense MacNamara, knowing we couldn’t win the war, didn’t tell President Johnson. Johnson escalated the war and lied to the American people again. He sent Henry Kissinger to Paris for Peace Talks with South Vietnam President Thieu. Presidential candidate Richard Nixon used his friendship with Thieu asking him not to cooperate in the peace talks so Johnson would look bad and he—Nixon—could win the presidency, which he did.

President Nixon secretly escalated the war, bombing Cambodia. Still in Vietnam, Ellsberg realized that the South Vietnamese wanted the war ended under any circumstances. We were there because no U.S. president wanted to lose. This, Ellsberg felt, was an abomination.

Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, first to the New York Times. The government ordered the newspaper to stop printing and went after Ellsberg. But Ellsberg had already gone to the Washington Post. Then the Boston Globe and the Chicago Sun Times. Nixon was in a strangle hold. He sent FBI workers to illegally take Ellsberg’s psychiatry records. Those agents (who were trying to seal leaks) became known as the Plumbers. They failed miserably. Nixon’s presidency ended. The Vietnam War ended.

Read this book. Please.

Patricia Hruby Powell’s book Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker was awarded a Sibert Honor for Nonfiction, Boston Globe Horn Book Nonfiction Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor for illustration. talesforallages.com

Flannery, 16, lives with her charming but flaky mother in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Flannery says, “We used to be what’s called the working poor, but now we’re just plain old poor.” Her mother, Miranda, is an eco-artist, but that doesn’t qualify as work. She’s not paid. Both Flannery and Miranda are loveable characters in Lisa Moore’s “Flannery” (Groundwood 2016).

As is a somewhat common theme in young adult literature, the precocious daughter is more responsible than her single mother. Miranda’s most recent major installation was an ice sculpture of a mama polar bear and her cub. She carved it with a chain saw and set it to sea to melt—her comment on global warming. Very cool, but, as Flannery points out, it doesn’t pay the bills.

Starting in France, Flannery’s father was sailing around the world on a boat made of junk—outsized plastic containers, rusted refrigerator doors, found tarps—to protest the garbage that is abandoned on African beaches. He landed in Newfoundland on one wonderfully romantic night. But we don’t know his name, because Flannery doesn’t know it. Because Miranda never asked his name. So he doesn’t even know he’s a father.

Flannery’s “voice” is fun, intriguing and remarkably authentic. It draws you in as you wait for the story to get going. Flannery has a little brother. She knows who the father is, but Hank has left them to marry a law student like himself. Flannery wants Miranda to tell the adorable, naughty, annoying Felix who his father is, but Miranda won’t.

Flannery’s best friend, Amber, “drops” Flannery and stops competitive swimming all for an abusive boyfriend. Flannery is in love with bad boy Tyrone who is an outlaw graffiti artist. They’ve known each other since they were toddlers. Things look up for Flannery when their entrepreneurship teacher pairs her with Tyrone to do their final project. But Flannery ends up doing it alone since Tyrone neither comes to school nor answers her texts.

But it’s Tyrone’s idea to sell love potions as their project. Flannery knows it’s a gag, but she’s going all out, having little bottles blown by a glass artist who’s on his way out of the country. The red “eternal love” potion is actually boiled beet water, the “crush” potion is spinach water, plus there are two others. Surprisingly, the potions seem to work. Power of suggestion?

Best friend Amber is making a rock video of her boyfriend’s band for her entrepreneur project. He’s also her project partner. The boyfriend works to isolate and humiliate Amber. But Amber will not allow Flannery or anyone else to help her.

There are lots of issues, which do indeed get tied together. You root for all these quirky characters through the many subplots. Not everything works out ideally for Flannery, but there are a lot of issues to hold the attention and respect of teens.