A fawn opens its newborn eyes to its mother. “You are alive! You are a bright star inside our hearts.”
Book of the Week
Freedom Swimmer
In Guangzhou province, China, 1968, teenage Ming lives with other older orphans and works in the fields like everyone else in his village. Six years before, Ming’s mother, like many in the village, died during the great famine that the government attributes to natural disasters when in fact it was the result of poor policy.
Mighty Inside
African American Melvin is about to start high school in Spokane, Washington, in the 1950s, following in the footsteps of his high-achieving older brother, Chuck, and older sister, Marian. It would be a daunting prospect even if he didn’t have a stutter.
The Great Stink
“No matter how you describe it—smelly, foul, fetid, rank, putrid, bad, or reeking—in the summer of 1858, London’s River Thames STANK.” So begins a hilariously straightforward account of a grim subject: the pollution of the River Thames—and thus, Londoners’ drinking water—with sewage, and the eventual creation of a hygienic sewer system.
Pony
In 1860, sensitive, sheltered Silas, 12 lives with his father, Martin Bird, and Mittenwool, a ghost who’s been Silas’s companion for as long as he can remember.
Daisy
Named after her mother’s favorite flower, warthog Daisy gets teased about her name at school. “’You don’t look like a daisy,’ said Rose. ‘More like a thistle,’ said Violet.”
The Legend of Auntie Po
Chinese American Mei, 13, lives in a Sierra Nevada lumber camp in 1885. Her father, Hao, is the head cook; her best friend, Bee, is the white daughter of the camp manager.
Dawn Raid
Twelve-year-old Sofia, Samoan/white, living in New Zealand in the mid-1970s, is chosen to participate in a regional speech competition after wowing with a classroom presentation titled “About Me.”
The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
Eugene Yelchin’s funny, tender memoir recounts aspects of his childhood and young adulthood in Leningrad during the Cold War.
America My Love America My Heart
“America, the Brave. America, the Bold. / America to Have. America to Hold.” A picture book in which the opening lines suggest the celebratory and devotional goes on to asks unflinching, essential questions in a second-person narrative addressing America in the voice of individual Black and brown children.