Arturo lives in an apartment complex in Miami along with most of the rest of his extended, close, chaotic Cuban American family. At the center of their lives are Abuela and La Cocina de la Isla, the restaurant she began with Arturo’s late grandfather. With Abuela’s health in question, no one wants to tell her about the threat to the proposed expansion of the restaurant into the empty lot next door: a new, buffoonish developer in town has plans for an upscale high-rise.
Book of the Week
Not Quite Narwhal
Kelp knew early on that he’s different from other narwhals. His tusk is short, he doesn’t like typical narwhal food, and he isn’t a very good swimmer. When Kelp is caught in a current and swept far from home, he sees land for the first time. High on a cliff he spots “a mysterious, sparkling creature” and feels an immediate affinity.
Piecing Me Together
A scholarship student at a private high school, Jade misses having her neighborhood friends at school but the private school offers an international volunteer opportunity. This year she hopes to be chosen. In the meantime, Jade’s school counselor encourages her to participate in Woman to Woman, a community-based mentoring program for African American girls.
A Perfect Day
Cat, Dog, Chickadee, and Squirrel are all relishing a perfect day, although the perfection differs for each of them: The warm sun in a flowerbed (Cat), a cool pool (Dog), birdseed (Chickadee), and a corncob (Squirrel). Enter Bear, who disrupts everyone’s moment of bliss.
Star-Crossed
There’s drama on and off the stage in this middle-school romance in which shy 8th grader Mattie decides to try out for Romeo and Juliet. She’s thrilled to be cast as Paris. Although it’s a small part, it allows her to swoon over her secret crush, Gemma, who is playing Juliet.
Niko Draws a Feeling
Niko loves to draw. His pictures, inspired by what he observes, are abstract images of the in between—the feeling or action or intent—of a situation. He draws the “ring-a-ling” of the ice cream truck, not the truck or the ice cream; the hard work of a mother bird building her nest, not the bird or nest. Friends and family don’t understand his pictures. Believing that no one will ever understand his art, Niko expresses how he feels in a picture he tapes to his door.
Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets
Twenty sparkling, original poems each celebrate a specific poet in a terrific collection that also serves as an introduction to the poets honored. The opening poem by Kwame Alexander, “How To Write a Poem,” celebrates Naomi Shihab Nye (“Let loose your heart— / raise your voice. … find / your way / to that one true word / (or two).” The final offering, also by Alexander, celebrates Maya Angelou (“Rise / into the wonder / of daybreak. … Know your beauty / is a thunder / your precious heart unsalable. …Shine on honey! / Know you / are phenomenal.”
Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers
As a young man, Vincent Van Gogh worked at an art auction house but was neither happy nor successful. He turned to God and ministered to the poor with great humility and an unsettling passion for self-denial until he was asked to leave his post. At 27, he returned home and began to draw and paint with purpose, relentless in the desire to improve. His brother Theo, two years younger and a successful art dealer, was his greatest critic and staunchest supporter financially and emotionally. Excited by the new style called Impressionism, Theo encouraged Vincent to use more and more color in his work.
American Street
Fabiola Toussaint hopes to find the American dream when she comes with her mother from Haiti to live with her Aunt Jo and her cousins, Chantal, Primadonna and Princess, on the corner of American Street and Joy Road in Detroit. But when her mother is detained coming into the country, Fabiola must navigate this very different world without her.
Round
“I love round things,” says the young child narrator of this picture book, who goes on to give examples of round things found in nature, from the obvious (oranges, seeds) to the harder-to-find (rings on a tree stump, small butterfly eggs). Some things that don’t start out round become round with time (a mushroom grows into its curves; once-jagged rocks smooth over many years).