A satisfying story that demonstrates how the past can shed light on the present.
A middle schooler learns important lessons while running for office.
Eighth grader Indigo Fitzgerald is willing to try anything to get her old friends back. An aspiring investigative journalist whose exposé videos get a lot of views, she attempts to change her squeaky-clean reputation by spray-painting a wall at school—which only lands her in detention. There, she encounters the autobiography of trailblazing Black journalist Ida B. Wells. While reading it and observing racial disparities between the student body as a whole and those present in detention, Indigo decides to expand her platform by running for student council president. Other issues in her family and community claim her attention as well. As her campaign progresses, she realizes she is being judged as intense, militant, and unlikable rather than as a crusader for justice. Indigo becomes more aware of how race impacts the way she is perceived and has a brave and honest conversation with her White mother about whether she can truly understand what Indigo, her brother, and her Black father experience. This lively middle-grade novel successfully captures the turmoil of finding one’s place while navigating the various demands of growing up. The fictional letters informed by research on Wells’ life show how learning about real-life figures can inform a young person’s development. Indigo is an intriguing character surrounded by a realistic supporting cast of peers and adults.
A satisfying story that demonstrates how the past can shed light on the present. (author’s note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781728467689
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
The novel’s dryness is mitigated in part by its exploration of immigrant identity, xenophobia, and hate crimes.
Seventh graders Karina Chopra and Chris Daniels live in Houston, Texas, and although they are next-door neighbors, they have different interests and their paths rarely cross.
In fact, Karina, whose family is Indian, doesn’t want to be friends with Chris, whose family is white, because the boys he hangs out with are mean to her. Things change when Karina’s immigrant paternal grandfather, Papa, moves in with Karina’s family. Papa begins tutoring Chris in math, and, as a result, Chris and Karina begin spending time with each other. Karina even comes to realize that Chris is not at all like the rest of his friends and that she should give him a second chance. One day, when Karina, Papa, and Chris are walking home from school, something terrible happens: They are assaulted by a stranger who calls Papa a Muslim terrorist, and he is badly injured. The children find themselves wanting to speak out for Papa and for other first-generation Americans like him. Narrated by Karina and Chris in alternate chapters, Bajaj’s novel gives readers varied and valuable perspectives of what it means to be first- and third-generation Indian Americans in an increasingly diverse nation. Unfortunately, however, Bajaj’s characters are quite bland, and the present-tense narrative voices of the preteen protagonists lack both distinction and authenticity.
The novel’s dryness is mitigated in part by its exploration of immigrant identity, xenophobia, and hate crimes. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51724-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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