CCBC Weekly Book Reviews
My Mother’s Tongues: A Weaving of Languages
"My mother has two tongues. With one tongue, she speaks Malayalam. With the other, she speaks English." Young Sumi (Indian American) explains that her mother changes the language she speaks depending on who she's with and what she's doing.
March 18, 2024Jimmy’s Rhythm and Blues: The Extraordinary Life of James Baldwin
"Home is brick brown, / Harlem, uptown, / trains rumbling by." An exquisitely composed picture book biography of James Baldwin illuminates his interest in the arts and development as a writer from a young age.
March 11, 2024Fire from the Sky
Teenage Ánte loves his life in a small northern Swedish town. His Sámi family herds reindeer, although they're no longer nomadic. Indeed, he's living a settled, 21st-century life, going to high school, texting with friends, engaging (or not) on social media. Ánte has no desire to go anywhere but wonders if he'll be able to stay: He doesn't know anyone else who is gay.
March 4, 2024Code Red
Eden (white) is struggling to find her middle school footing after an injury ended the gymnastics career that once consumed her life. Although Eden is proud of her mom's rags-to-riches story as the founder and CEO of a menstrual products company, she's dismayed when her mom is invited to give a talk on Career Day and humiliated by the unpredictable period jokes and teasing that ensue.
February 26, 2024Boyogi: How a Wounded Family Learned to Heal
A young boy's father has returned "from far away," where he was a soldier, changed. Daddy used to be fun, but now he's angry and sad and spends a lot of time in his room. The boy's mother explains that Daddy's mind is hurt by bad things that happened while he was gone, and she assures the boy that they are trying to figure out how to help Daddy feel better.
February 19, 2024Darwin’s Super-Pooping Worm Spectacular
Charles Darwin’s belief that worms were amazing contributors to the natural world was not shared by the public, who considered them nothing more than garden pests. Determined to prove his opinion scientifically, Darwin tested worms’ vision, learning they didn’t have eyes but used sensors in their skin to detect light.
February 12, 2024An Impossible Thing to Say
Iranian American Omid lives with his family in Tucson, Arizona, in 2001. At the private high school he attends, Omid is shy and lacks confidence. But he hits it off with new student Emily (white) and the two convince each other to try out for the school play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
February 5, 2024A Pocketful of Stars
Safiya, 13, thinks her mom doesn’t understand her; she certainly doesn’t understand Safiya’s passion for gaming. Safiya (multiracial) suspects that the tension between them wasn’t helped when she chose to live with her dad (white) after her parents’ divorce.
January 29, 2024All the Faces of Me
A young girl fascinated by her Nana’s set of traditional nesting dolls notes that they all have identical smiles. Deciding the dolls shouldn’t be stuck with the same smiles, the girl “fixes” them, adding a range of expressions to their faces.
January 22, 2024More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
This fresh, insightful account of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom documents the event from initial idea through behind-the-scenes planning to the tensions and triumphs of the day.
January 15, 2024Everyone Wants to Know
Honor Lo, 15 (Chinese American/white) grew up in the spotlight thanks to a reality TV show about her family. Although the show ended a few years ago, her parents and two older sisters continue to seek the spotlight and monetize their fame.
January 8, 2024The Dubious Pranks of Shaindy Goodman
Admired for being smart and “nice,” the girls in Shaindy Goodman’s sixth grade class at Bais Yaakov Orthodox Jewish day school don’t bully Shaindy outright, but neither do they befriend or include her.
January 2, 2024What If I’m Not a Cat?
A farmer’s goodnight to the many cats in her barn has led to some confusion on the part of the donkey who also lives there. Donkey “knew he was a cat because Farmer had said so.”
December 26, 2023Red & Green
This tall, narrow book features a bisected green tree studded with boldly colored “ornaments” on its red cover. Inside, a rhyming text riffs off Clement Moore’s poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (“It was a cold, wintry night, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring … except a small mouse!”) ...
December 18, 2023Rez Ball
Tre Brun is entering his sophomore year of high school on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota.
December 11, 2023- More Books of the Week