Alice Cary

FictionHistorical Fiction

When We Were Young & Brave

Review by Alice Cary

On the eve of World War II, Elspeth Kent and young Nancy Plummer meet aboard a ship as they travel to Chefoo School, a missionary school in northern China. Nancy is already homesick for her family, especially her mother, while Elspeth has come to teach and reinvent herself, having lost the man she hoped to marry in a mining accident. A few years later, in 1941, Elspeth is ready to return to England when the Japanese army takes control of the school after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Inspired by true events, When We Were Young & Brave tells the story of what happens to Elspeth, Nancy and the rest of the school’s students and staff for the duration of the war.

The latest novel from bestselling English author Hazel Gaynor (The Girl Who Came Home) is reminiscent of J.G. Ballard’s powerful classic Empire of the Sun, based on his own experiences as a boy in China after World War II. When We Were Young & Brave is told in alternating chapters by Elspeth and Nancy, as each tries valiantly to maintain an attitude of stoic optimism. Once the school group is moved to a large internment camp, they suffer malnutrition, disease and more. In the face of all this, Elspeth and the rest of the staff provide heroic solace to their charges, continuing with lessons, activities and Girl Guide meetings, trying to impart as much structure, normalcy and distraction as possible. The narration flows smoothly, full of big and small moments: an adopted kitten, sunflower seeds planted as an act of memory and hope, the worsening illness of Nancy’s best friend and a Chinese newborn who needs care. Years pass until eventual liberation, and Gaynor excels at describing the rhythms of this difficult daily life.

Readers will quickly find themselves immersed in When We Were Young & Brave, which, despite its subject matter, is an uplifting, hopeful tale of camaraderie in the face of hardship and danger.

On the eve of World War II, Elspeth Kent and young Nancy Plummer meet aboard a ship as they travel to Chefoo School, a missionary school in northern China. Nancy is already homesick for her family, especially her mother, while Elspeth has come to teach and reinvent herself, having lost the man she hoped to marry in a mining accident. A few years later, in 1941, Elspeth is ready to return to England when the Japanese army takes control of the school after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
YA FictionYA

We Are Not Free

Review by Alice Cary

“We’re already fighting a war out there. Why do we have to fight one in our own country too?” wonders Minoru “Minnow” Ito, a Japanese American teenager living in San Francisco during World War II. He’s one of the 14 characters whose story Traci Chee tells in We Are Not Free, a captivating portrait of teens whose experiences were shared by over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were forced to live in inhumane incarceration camps during the war.

The topic is a departure for the New York Times bestselling Chee, whose acclaimed debut novel, The Reader, kicked off an epic fantasy adventure trilogy that concluded with 2018’s The Storyteller. But it’s also a deeply personal one, inspired by the experiences of her grandparents and their families; the book's title comes from words spoken by her great-aunt during her incarceration.

We Are Not Free is a lively but sobering saga that starts in March 1942, just before the forced removal of Japanese Americans from their homes began, and continues through March 1945 as several characters return to their much-changed neighborhoods, where lives and livelihoods have been destroyed and racism remains rampant. The grand sweep of the novel allows her to explore the wide variety of situations that Japanese Americans faced during this time: forced resettlement, loyalty pledges with hidden consequences and military service that often included unjust treatment.

Chee’s 14 narrators hail from nine different families and include Minnow, who loves to draw; lively, rebellious Twitchy; college student Mas; softball-loving Yuki; and Frankie, who “always looks like he’s spoiling for a fight.” The connections and relationships among these teenagers form the heart and soul of the novel, and their yearnings, heartbreaks, fear and anger ring true on every single page. A “character registry” at the beginning of the book helps readers keep track of the sprawling cast, though readers may find themselves occasionally wishing they could follow some characters more closely. Even so, what Chee sacrifices in depth, she makes up for in breadth, rewarding readers with an exceptional portrait of a community scarred by prejudice, intolerance and racism.

Whether she is describing Yuki’s dismay at a shop owner’s refusal to serve her and her teammates ice cream or portraying the horrors Twitchy faces on the battlefield in France and Italy, Chee is an extraordinarily gifted writer whose words here have a searing intensity. Though her book is packed with historical detail, her characters and their interactions sparkle with energy, even as their experiences remain all-too-timely. One character warns, “It’ll happen again, if we’re not careful.” We Are Not Free is a superb addition to the works of literature that chronicle this shameful chapter of American history.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Author Traci Chee shares her personal connection to the history she depicts in We Are Not Free.

“We’re already fighting a war out there. Why do we have to fight one in our own country too?” wonders Minoru “Minnow” Ito, a Japanese American teenager living in San Francisco during World War II. He’s one of the 14 characters whose story Traci Chee…

Children's & YAPicture Book

Soaked

Review by Alice Cary

In Abi Cushman’s delicious moody first picture book, Soaked, rarely has a dreary day been so delightful.

Sometimes when you’re in a funk, you just need to stay that way for a while; so it is with Bear. Channeling his inner Eeyore, Bear declares his feelings on the book’s very first page: “Look at all this rain. Everything is dreary. Everything is drenched. And no one is happy.” Pelted by rain and holding an ice cream cone that’s been destroyed by the storm, it’s easy to understand where he’s coming from.

Amid a dismal gray and cloudy landscape, Bear’s downcast eyes perfectly convey his sour temper, which is nicely counterposed by plops of pink from his melted ice cream. Bear’s determination not to be cheered up by his patient companions—a sneaky badger, a watchful bunny and a big-spirited, fun-loving, Hula-Hooping moose—is impressive. Anyone who’s ever had a bad day will find Bear’s gloomy mood relatable, and only a reader with a heart of stone could resist the appeal of the dispositional tug-of-war between Bear and Moose.

Cushman propels her story forward with minimal text; her images do most of the work through a pleasing combination of spots and full-page spreads. In one, Moose stands on his head, apparently oblivious to the rain, as Bear sits on a log nearby, wallowing in his misery and letting out a “Blahhhhh. . . .” that spans the entire spread, highlighting Bear’s ennui. Pops of color contrast against the book’s muted palette and enliven the action, especially when it comes to Moose’s multicolored, glow-in-the-dark Hula Hoops.

There’s verbal fun, too, as when Bear, having been sufficiently restored to good spirits by his friends’ efforts, jumps in a puddle and gleefully exclaims, “It’s so splishy and sploshy! Silly and soggy!” Of course, even when the rain stops and the sun starts to shine again, brooding Bear gets the perfect last words: “Blah. Too sunny.”

In Abi Cushman’s delicious moody first picture book, Soaked, rarely has a dreary day been so delightful.

Sometimes when you’re in a funk, you just need to stay that way for a while; so it is with Bear. Channeling his inner Eeyore, Bear declares his…

NonfictionSocial Science

Caste

Review by Alice Cary

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson eloquently traced the lives of the 6 million Black Americans who fled the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration. Never once in that 640-page book did she mention the word racism. “I realized that the term was insufficient,” she explains. “Caste was the more accurate term.”

Her latest book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, is a much anticipated follow-up and couldn’t be timelier. In it, she examines the “race-based caste pyramid in the United States,” comparing this sociological construction to two other notable caste systems: those of India and Nazi Germany. “As we go about our daily lives,” Wilkerson writes, “caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”

Wilkerson’s comparisons are profound and revelatory. Chapters describe what she has identified as “the eight pillars of caste,” the methods used to maintain this hierarchy, such as heritability, dehumanization and stigma, and control of marriage and mating. In addition to such insights, including how immigrants fit into the caste system, what makes this book so memorable is Wilkerson’s extraordinary narrative gift. Highly readable, Caste is filled with a multitude of stories, many of which are tragically familiar, such as those of Trayvon Martin and Freddie Gray. The story of Sergeant Isaac Woodard Jr. is particularly shattering. Returning home on a Greyhound bus after serving in World War II, Woodard asked the driver to allow him to step off the bus to relieve himself, but the driver refused. When Woodard protested, the driver called the police and had him arrested. The police chief, in turn, blinded the returning soldier with his billy club.

Stories like these are painfully informative, making the past come alive in ways that do not beg but scream for justice. That said, Wilkerson is never didactic. She lets history speak for itself, turning the events of the past into necessary fuel for our current national dialogue.

Dismantling the caste system is possible. Wilkerson points out that Germany did it after World War II. But in the meantime, “caste is a disease, and none of us is immune.” If you read only one book this year, make it Caste, Wilkerson’s outstanding analysis of the grievances that plague our society.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Love audiobooks? Check out Caste and other nonfiction audiobook picks.

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson eloquently traced the lives of the 6 million Black Americans who fled the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration. Never once in that 640-page book did she mention the word racism. “I realized…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Fighting Words

Review by Alice Cary

“I’ve learned that some things are almost impossible to talk about because they’re things no one wants to know,” says Delicious Neveah Roberts, the narrator of Newbery Honor author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s magnificent Fighting Words. The 10-year-old, who goes by Della, already sports a tattoo and openly admits that she has a “big mouth” and that her superpower is, “I don’t take snow from anybody.” (Della uses the word “snow” as a substitute whenever she’d rather use a “bad word,” which is frequently.) “Sometime you’ve got a story you need to find the courage to tell,” Della informs the reader with characteristic directness.

Della is inseparable from her 16-year-old half-sister, Suki. Their mother was incarcerated in Kansas after blowing up a motel room while making meth with both girls at her side. Her parental rights were terminated, and the girls fell through the cracks and continued to live with Clifton, their mother’s boyfriend, in Tennessee. As the book opens, the girls have just made a bold escape from Clifton’s house and have been placed into foster care after Suki caught Clifton abusing Della. Della reveals, “I’d had sixty seconds of terror. Suki had had years.”

Bradley depicts the girls’ story, including Clifton’s abuse, directly but gently, in a way that never once feels inappropriate for a middle grade readership. She carefully recounts the aftermath of their trauma (Suki has screaming nightmares and attempts suicide) as the girls are placed first in temporary care with a woman Della describes as an “emergency replacement witch” and then with cigarette-smoking Francine, about whom Della observes there is “nothing motherly,” but who turns out to be exactly the protector the sisters so desperately need.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley reveals why Fighting Words is the book she was put on earth to write.

Della makes a few friends at her new school, most notably Neveah, with whom she shares her middle name. As Della and Suki debate whether and how to testify against Clifton, Della clashes with her teacher and a bully named Trevor, who likes to pinch girls’ backs to see whether they’re wearing bras. These tensions culminate in a powerful moment in which Della proclaims, “Never touch me again. Never touch me or any girl in this class without permission ever again.”

In all truthfulness, I was reluctant to read Fighting Words when I learned about the topics its plot would include. “How depressing,” I thought. But oh, how wrong I was. Bradley handles these tough subjects in ways that are enlightening, empowering and—yes—uplifting, thanks largely to the irrepressible Della’s engaging narrative voice, which itself is a testament to Bradley’s immense talent.

As their friendship deepens, Della’s friend Neveah, whose family lost their apartment and briefly lived out of their car, lends her a copy of Barbara O’Connor’s How to Steal a Dog. Though Della fails to connect with O’Connor’s tale of another girl in a “tough spot,” Neveah’s articulation of the book’s importance in her life is certain to be echoed by some readers of Fighting Words: “I was glad, you know, to read the book. To know it didn’t only happen to me.”

An award-worthy tale about a feisty survivor, Fighting Words is a story readers will draw strength from, and Della is a heroine they’ll be unlikely to forget.

“I’ve learned that some things are almost impossible to talk about because they’re things no one wants to know,” says Delicious Neveah Roberts, the narrator of Newbery Honor author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s magnificent Fighting Words. The 10-year-old, who goes by Della, already sports a tattoo…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

The Summer We Found the Baby

Review by Alice Cary

At first glance, The Summer We Found the Baby, a short novel about a baby discovered in a basket on the steps of the new children’s library in Belle Beach, Long Island, appears to be a sweet snapshot of life in a small town during World War II. But author Amy Hest packs much into its pages—an intricate plot, deeply imagined characters and relationships and adroitly tackled big issues such as death and unplanned pregnancy—and handles it all with delicacy and care.

Alternating rapidly among three narrators—12-year-old Bruno Ben-Eli; his next-door neighbor, 11-year-old Julie Sweet; and Julie’s 6-year-old sister, Martha—the book begins in the morning just before the library’s opening–day celebrations. Julie and Martha have arrived early with a homemade cake for First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, to whom Bruno and Julie have both written letters in the hope that she might attend the day’s festivities. It’s the girls who discover the baby nestled in a basket on the library steps, but it’s Bruno who spots them walking away from the library with the basket. “Holy everything,” he thinks, “Julie Sweet is a kidnapper.”

The action unfolds quickly from this auspicious beginning. With each twist and turn of the plot, Hest is adept at filling in only as much backstory as is needed for each character. The three resourceful children are united by an undertone of sadness and longing. Bruno’s beloved older brother, Ben, is serving overseas, and Julie and Martha’s mother is deceased. The war casts a long shadow over the book’s events, and Hest adds spare but effective historical references throughout the story. 

Hest’s prose is wonderfully unadorned, her narrative voices natural and the story deliciously satisfying. The Summer We Found the Baby is a quiet wonder and a rare delight.

 

At first glance, The Summer We Found the Baby, a short novel about a baby discovered in a basket on the steps of the new children’s library in Belle Beach, Long Island, appears to be a sweet snapshot of life in a small town during…

NonfictionMemoirAnimals

Horse Crazy

Review by Alice Cary

Horses have always been the salvation of Sarah Maslin Nir, who grew up having “the conversations with horses I longed to have with my family.” She felt like an outcast both at home and at her tony Upper East Side prep school, where, she says, “my accomplishments with horses were not currency of value to my high-pressure, high-power mother and father; horses weren’t Harvard degrees or newspaper bylines.”

With horses as her anchor, Nir eventually earned more than stellar bylines. As a New York Times reporter, she became a Pulitzer finalist for her yearlong investigation into New York City’s nail salon industry. Now, in Horse Crazy: The Story of a Woman and a World in Love With an Animal, she turns the investigative lens on herself, exploring why she and so many others share this equine obsession. Not surprisingly, her writing is energetic, exquisite and enthralling enough to appeal to both horse fanatics and more casual readers alike.

Reminiscent of Susan Orlean’s ‘The Library Book’ in its fascinating examination of a singular topic, this is an expertly crafted, wrenchingly honest memoir.

With chapters named after important horses in her life, Nir traces a love affair that began at age 2, when family lore has it that her parents put her on a horse in an attempt to get their frenetic little girl to sit still. Her Jewish father had escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Catholic child in Poland and later became chief of child psychiatry at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, among his many other accomplishments. Her psychologist mom became a TV personality, chatting with Oprah and co-writing books with her husband. With such busy parents and half brothers who resented her very existence, Nir turned to horses in both loneliness and awe.

As a city kid, Nir’s horseback riding experiences were far from typical. She honed her skills at Claremont Riding Academy, a vertical four-story stable in the heart of Manhattan where horses and riders trudge up and down ramps between riding rings and stalls. In high school, Nir served a stint as a mounted patrol officer in Central Park. Seamlessly woven among these personal accounts are a variety of additional narratives, such as Nir’s trip to watch the annual pony penning at Assateague Island, Virginia, a chat with horse whisperer Monty Roberts and a mind-blowing horse show for plastic Breyer horses. Nir wears her heart on her sleeve for anything equine-related but also keeps it real, admitting she tries hard “to avoid cat lady status when it comes to horses.”

A series of accidents, broken bones and chronic pain hasn’t kept Nir away from riding, which she says is discounted as an extreme sport because its participants are predominantly female. “I’ll never stop,” she writes. “I’m extreme too.” For her, the sport creates “an interspecies bridge that . . . leaves the two halves greater than a whole.”

Reminiscent of Susan Orlean’s The Library Book in its fascinating examination of a singular topic, Horse Crazy is an expertly crafted, wrenchingly honest memoir.

Horses have always been the salvation of Sarah Maslin Nir, who grew up having “the conversations with horses I longed to have with my family.” She felt like an outcast both at home and at her tony Upper East Side prep school, where, she says,…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Something to Say

Review by Alice Cary

Jenae is content in her social solitude, having already realized that “the world is full of people . . . who think fitting in is more important than being yourself.” However, her first day at John Wayne Junior High presents a challenge when her teacher announces that students must pair up to debate in front of the class.

Something to Say, like Jenae herself, is quietly commanding. Lisa Moore Ramée’s breezy chapters fly by as she thoughtfully explores friendship, activism and other serious issues.

The heart of the story is the budding friendship between Jenae and Aubrey, a new boy in school and her partner in the debate challenge. They bond over a fictional superhero but are otherwise total opposites. Aubrey is loud and energetic, and he couldn’t be more excited about the debate assignment.

Aubrey helps Jenae navigate her worries about her brother, whose athletic career has been sidelined by injury, and Jenae begins to appreciate the value of their friendship. But Jenae’s life becomes more complicated when her beloved grandfather, Gee, has a stroke, and her absentee father lets her down again.

Meanwhile, Jenae’s community is deciding whether to change her school’s name because of white supremacist comments made by the school’s namesake, an actor whom Gee admires. Community leaders want to rename it to honor Sylvia Mendez, the girl at the center of Mendez v. Westminster, a 1947 school desegregation case that set a precedent used in Brown v. Board of Education. Ramée weaves this conflict into the story skillfully, avoiding didacticism while acknowledging why many people resist change.

As Jenae discovers her own powerful voice, she must overcome her fear of using it in order to spark positive change in her community. The book’s message about the importance of righting the wrongs of history and taking a stand for what you believe will resonate loud and clear.

Jenae is content in her social solitude, having already realized that “the world is full of people . . . who think fitting in is more important than being yourself.” However, her first day at John Wayne Junior High presents a challenge when her teacher…

FictionFamily Saga

The Vanishing Half

Review by Alice Cary

When Desiree Vignes returns to Mallard, Louisiana, in 1968 after running away 14 years earlier, people take note—especially because she’s accompanied by her dark-skinned 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The black citizens of Mallard believe that lighter skin is better, an idea that’s been championed since the town’s founding back in 1848. All these years later, the townspeople “weren’t used to having a dark child amongst them and were surprised by how much it upset them.”

That’s just part of the masterful plot of The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett’s exquisite second novel, which weaves together scenes from the 1950s through the ’90s, tackling such issues as racism, identity, gender and inherited trauma. Family ties and secrets were at the heart of Bennett’s bestselling debut, and she continues to explore these themes here, this time concentrating on sisterhood. The title refers to Desiree’s identical twin, Stella, who has turned her back on her family, married her white boss and is living in California as a white woman, a secret unbeknownst to her husband and daughter, Kennedy.

This is a novel to be devoured slowly, not only for its intriguing plot and exploration of vital issues but also for its gorgeous writing. Bennett digs deep into the history of colorism and racism in America and explores how far their poisons can reach. As young girls, Stella and Desiree witness the lynching of their father by angry white men. This tragedy haunts his surviving family, its effects reverberating for generations to come.

At the novel’s core is not only family but also community, from Mallard to the privileged, seemingly progressive Los Angeles neighborhood where Stella lives with her family. When a black television star and his family move in across the street from Stella, it poses a unique dilemma that unfolds in a multitude of rewarding scenes. Soon the lives of cousins Jude and Kennedy intersect with plot twists reminiscent of Twelfth Night, which the novel references.

The Vanishing Half calls to mind the work of Toni Morrison, Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout. Bennett writes like a master, creating rich worlds filled with a broad cast of characters, all shining brightly in memorable moments both big and small. 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read about how Brit Bennett’s mother inspired The Vanishing Half.

Family ties and secrets are at the heart of Brit Bennett’s bestselling debut, The Mothers, and she continues to explore these themes, this time concentrating on sisterhood.
YA NonfictionYA

Kent State

Review by Alice Cary

Deborah Wiles was 16 years old on May 4, 1970, when she heard the news that the National Guard had opened fire on college students who had been protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. Four students were killed and nine were wounded, one of whom was left paralyzed. Two of the students killed had simply been walking to class. Fifty years later, the award-winning author revisits the tragedy in Kent State, an extraordinary and passionate recounting written in free verse from multiple points of view. “The earthquake of its enormity has never left me,” Wiles reflects in an author’s note.

Like a meticulous theater director, Wiles opens by carefully setting the stage, then coming out from behind the curtain and addressing readers directly. “You are new here,” she writes, “and we don’t want to scare you away, / but we want you to know the truth.” She explains that the military draft provoked angst and uncertainty across Kent State’s campus, and describes mounting student anger at Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia.

Wiles’ decision to write in free verse, rather than prose, effectively harnesses her meticulous research and enables her to convey her four-day chronology of events through collective, often conflicting, voices. She captures the vigorous debates and frequent clashes that occurred between these voices, which include white and black students, townies and National Guard soldiers. The opinionated participants remain anonymous on the page, distinguished through careful and varied typography, but together, they form a diverse chorus that offers readers a mix of opinion, memory, fact and misinformation. Wiles also intersperses the lyrics of protest songs through the book, including Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Ohio,” which was written by Neil Young in the aftermath of what happened and, as Wiles explains, “helped change the national conversation about the war in Vietnam.”

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Deborah Wiles shares the book that inspired Kent State’s verse format and her personal memories of May 4, 1970.

Yet always at the forefront of this chorus are the victims, to whom Wiles dedicates Kent State. Allison Krause was “attractive in every way” and died in her boyfriend’s arms. She was 19 years old. Jeffrey Miller had recently chatted with his mother by phone, telling her, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get hurt.” He was 20 years old. Bill Schroeder had just met with his ROTC advisor and eventually planned to help frontline solders as a military psychologist. He was 19 years old. Sandy Scheuer was a “delightful square” who loved Dinah Shore and Perry Como. She was 20 years old. Wiles doesn’t mince words when describing the circumstances of their deaths: “America turned on its unarmed children, in their schoolyard, and killed them.”

In Kent State, Deborah Wiles has created a powerful work of art that serves as both as a historical record of a national tragedy and a call to action for every American, but especially for young people. After all, as she writes, “It has always been the young / who are our champions / of justice. / Who stand at the vanguard / of change.”

Deborah Wiles was 16 years old on May 4, 1970, when she heard the news that the National Guard had opened fire on college students who had been protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. Four students were killed and nine were…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

We Dream of Space

Review by Alice Cary

Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s latest novel is a work of historical fiction that pulses with contemporary relevance. We Dream of Space chronicles the lives of three siblings during the month leading up to the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986. 

Life in the Nelson-Thomas home is anything but easy. Mom and Dad fight constantly, and the family feels “like its own solar system,” with members who are “floating objects that sometimes bumped or slammed into each other before breaking apart.” Twins Bird and Fitch couldn’t be more different. Fitch loves arcade games but can’t control his temper (a cruel outburst gets him suspended from school), while Bird thrives in her classes (the budding engineer spends her spare time drawing schematic diagrams of everything from VCRs to cassette tapes). Big brother Cash feels he isn’t particularly good at anything, especially since he’s repeating seventh grade, putting him in the same class as the twins. Kelly develops the siblings’ personalities through short, focused chapters, allowing their stories to emerge naturally as the book progresses.

Much to Bird’s delight, science teacher Ms. Salonga, who hopes to become a teacher in space like Christa McAuliffe, organizes students into flight crews as part of Space Month. Lively classroom scenes add to the anticipation of the launch. Bird yearns to one day blast off to become NASA’s first female mission commander. In a series of touching inner monologues, she imagines conversations with Challenger astronaut Judith Resnik.

Kelly vividly resurrects the 1980s with references to President Reagan, Madonna and Atari and integrates astronomy metaphors throughout her prose as the Challenger’s fateful liftoff approaches. Her sensitive description of that terrible day captures the shocking impact of the tragedy, particularly for classroom viewers like Bird and Ms. Salonga, whose enthusiasm and empathy provide a stark contrast to the Nelson-Thomas parents.

We Dream of Space offers an exceptional portrayal of the endless ways in which parental dysfunction affects every member of a family. It’s also a celebration of the need for optimism, compassion and teamwork in the face of disasters both individual and communal.

Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s latest novel is a work of historical fiction that pulses with contemporary relevance. We Dream of Space chronicles the lives of three siblings during the month leading up to the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986. 

Life in the Nelson-Thomas…

Children's & YAPicture Book

The Little Blue Cottage

Review by Alice Cary

A young girl and her parents enjoy idyllic summers by the bay year after year in The Little Blue Cottage, an endearing celebration of summer traditions and the ways those traditions inevitably change over time.

Author Kelly Jordan succinctly conveys the child’s bond to this special place. Days at the cottage are filled with sensory fun—the songs of seagulls, the smells of pancakes and sunscreen, the sight of boats with colorful sails in the distance. The cottage is a home away from home where the girl plays boisterously and, in quieter moments, sits on a window seat in a cozy alcove, gazes out at the waves and tells the cottage, “You are my favorite place.”

Illustrator Jessica Courtney-Tickle’s vibrant art imbues the cottage and its inhabitants with a classical feel while retaining a modern sensibility. The blue cottage gleams beside the bay’s turquoise waves and shimmers amid green hills and grass. Courtney-Tickle’s use of varying frame and image sizes is admirably effective, as in one spread composed of three long, horizontal panels that show the girl growing older and taller each year while befriending a redheaded boy.

Eventually, years creep by with no summer visitors at all, and the cottage grows dilapidated. Then one glorious day, the girl—now a mother—returns with her daughter, her redheaded husband and her white-haired father. Times do indeed change, but readers will find reassurance in this reminder that traditions can endure, even as they are transformed and passed on to new generations.

A young girl and her parents enjoy idyllic summers by the bay year after year in The Little Blue Cottage, an endearing celebration of summer traditions and the ways those traditions inevitably change over time.

Author Kelly Jordan succinctly conveys the child’s bond to this…

NonfictionMemoir

Inge’s War

Review by Alice Cary

Svenja O’Donnell was never particularly close to her grandmother, Inge, whom she describes as an “aloof, somewhat selfish woman.” Unexpectedly, though, when O’Donnell visited the East Prussian town where her grandmother grew up, Inge suddenly announced during a phone call, “I have so much to tell you.” Thus began what the author calls a “decade of discoveries” into the secrets that lay at her “family’s heart, unspoken, undisturbed, unsuspected for years.” At one point, her normally reticent grandmother even began hearing the voices of her dead friends and family in the form of “waking dreams.” The past had come back to haunt her.

As a seasoned print and television journalist and a former political correspondent, O’Donnell was well-equipped to track down her family’s buried truths. In Inge’s War: A German Woman’s Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival Under Hitler, she lets events unfold chronologically while seamlessly interspersing conversations with her mother and grandmother, both natives of Germany, with her own research and travel to important family landmarks in Europe.

In the midst of World War II, Inge became a young, unmarried mother while her beloved boyfriend was off fighting the war; his father forbade them to marry. Later, as the Russian Army approached, Inge, her toddler (the author’s mother) and her elderly parents escaped just in time to Denmark, where, as Germans, they weren’t well received. The tale of their flight is harrowing, and O’Donnell provides thoughtful commentary every step of the way, observing, “Silence has always dominated women’s experience of war.” She notes that German children like her mother had “to bear the weight of an identity that made them pariahs at birth” and that she herself remembers feeling uneasy during a school trip to a war museum in Normandy, as she was the only half-German student in her class.

Even so, O’Donnell makes no excuses for anyone, noting that many Germans conveniently hid behind the phrase “I did not know” when it came to the realities of the Holocaust. As she notes, the goal of her investigation was “to learn the truth of my family’s story, to recognize in its shifts, its hopes and its flaws, the hybridity that shaped my own identity.”

Mission accomplished—with Inge’s War, O’Donnell has created a story that reads like a novel filled with fascinating history and excellent detective work.

Svenja O’Donnell was never particularly close to her grandmother, Inge, whom she describes as an “aloof, somewhat selfish woman.” Unexpectedly, though, when O’Donnell visited the East Prussian town where her grandmother grew up, Inge suddenly announced during a phone call, “I have so much to…

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