by Philip Roy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 2017
Three 12-year-old boys, one hot Canadian summer, one piece of land, and one dream.
Billy, a white boy, one day sees that a piece of land has emerged in the river that runs through his city. Billy is told it belongs to no one, so he and his best friends, Sami and Charlie, claim the property as their own country. Sami came to Canada as a Lebanese refugee via Abu Dhabi three years before, and Charlie is Chinese-Canadian. They decide that their country will be one founded on the principles of tolerance and equality for all, regardless of race, religion, gender, or any other differences in beliefs, but building a socially tolerant nation-state proves to be quite the task. To their surprise, their “country” soon grows to thousands of occupants. They encounter opposition in the form of a civic order of eviction and valid First Nations land claims. The biggest and final challenge is posed by nature itself. How will these three boys navigate these obstacles when they don’t even know the difference between a democracy, aristocracy, and a kingdom? This modern Utopia offers food for thought not just for children, but for adults as well, who could well benefit from applying some of the attitudes and values of the main characters. The naiveté of their approach to creating a model society at times is balanced by their believable purity of purpose.
A parable for our times. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55380-511-3
Page Count: 126
Publisher: Ronsdale Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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by Jerry Craft ; illustrated by Jerry Craft with color by Jim Callahan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 5, 2019
Jordan Banks takes readers down the rabbit hole and into his mostly white prep school in this heartbreakingly accurate middle-grade tale of race, class, microaggressions, and the quest for self-identity.
He may be the new kid, but as an African-American boy from Washington Heights, that stigma entails so much more than getting lost on the way to homeroom. Riverdale Academy Day School, located at the opposite end of Manhattan, is a world away, and Jordan finds himself a stranger in a foreign land, where pink clothing is called salmon, white administrators mistake a veteran African-American teacher for the football coach, and white classmates ape African-American Vernacular English to make themselves sound cool. Jordan’s a gifted artist, and his drawings blend with the narrative to give readers a full sense of his two worlds and his methods of coping with existing in between. Craft skillfully employs the graphic-novel format to its full advantage, giving his readers a delightful and authentic cast of characters who, along with New York itself, pop off the page with vibrancy and nuance. Shrinking Jordan to ant-sized proportions upon his entering the school cafeteria, for instance, transforms the lunchroom into a grotesque Wonderland in which his lack of social standing becomes visually arresting and viscerally uncomfortable.
An engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in America. (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-269120-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS
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by Patrik Henry Bass ; illustrated by Jerry Craft
by Alan Gratz ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2017
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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