Internment by Samira Ahmed

Internment by Samira Ahmed is a work of activism.  Seventeen-year-old Layla Amin lives in a United States "fifteen minutes into the future" where Islamophobia has become so rampant that there are burning of books by Muslim authors and curfews are imposed.  Layla's college professor father has been removed from his job and her chiropractor mother's clinic has fewer and fewer clients.

And then the relocation authority comes for Layla and her parents.  Their only crime is that they professed their faith on the census. So they are being sent to a camp,  can pack only what they can carry and, of course, have to give up their phones.  

Soon, they are on a train that will take them to the Owens Valley.  From there, they board buses that take them farther into the desert.  

The beginning of this story will feel uncomfortably familiar.  Not only is it referencing our current political climate, but it also follows the path traveled by the Japanese-American families living on the Pacific coast in World War II.  Right down to the fact that Layla and her family drive past Manzanar, which was the first Japanese internment camp to open during the war, on their way to their new camp.  

I am very familiar with this event in history because my small community has the distinction of being the first place where the Japanese-Americans were removed from their homes.  Layla and her family recreate their journey in many ways, including just how established the infrastructure of their removal to the camps is.  There's a special train, buses, guards, numbers that identify your family and... at the end... there is a camp with "Mercury Homes"-- RVs-- instead of tar paper shacks but still organized into blocks around a mess hall.  

And, just like the camps from 50 years ago, there is dust.  Always dust.  

There is no familiar historical script for Amin to follow once she has her characters at the camp, which is yet another uncomfortable place for the reader to be.  We will not be watching our characters live in a camp until the war is over, because there is no declared war that we are dealing with here and we have no idea what the resolution will be.  

The cover art has Layla wearing a baseball cap with the word "RESIST" on it and that is what she does, in spite of her parent's surprising hope that she will go along with camp administration's plans and goals.  She is aided by an unlikely partner, one of the guards who's interest in helping her demonstrates that there are many others outside of the camp that are working to destroy the system from within, 

There are many reasons why I think that this novel is going to be popular with my students.  Layla is a strong heroine, the action is fast-paced and there is much to talk about in terms of comparing with history and with today as well.  

Great transgender reads for 2019!

Here are two excellent new young adult novels with transgender characters.  

Birthday by Meredith Russo.  

Birthdays!  They're a time to feel celebrated and loved, especially if you share your birthday day with one of your besties from childhood.  And that's the way it is for Morgan and Eric.  

Here are two kids who have been a part of each other’s childhoods ever since their parents gave birth to them on the same day and at the same hospital during a freak September blizzard.  Their friendship gets even more solid during years of learning to play football together and also through family tragedies like the death of Morgan’s mom. 

On the birthday day right before they start middle school, Morgan considers letting Eric know a deeply held secret.  Morgan is questioning his gender.  

The reader gets to check in with during their next birthdays, which is a great way to allow time to move quickly.  We will get to see Morgan and Eric all the way through high school and beyond. Their years are filled with major changes that test their friendship.  But they always seem to find a way to spend at least a part of their birthday day together.  

I read this in one evening because Morgan’s story is so compelling. Morgan’s father and community make it very difficult to live her truth. There is one chapter closer to the end that is particularly heartbreaking as Morgan attempts to live up to community and family expectations.  

This is Meredith Russo's next novel after her excellent If I Was Your Girl.  

And She Was by Jessica Verdi 

Dara's life after high school plan is to play professional tennis and she has the skill and the coaching to achieve this goal.  What she doesn't have is a mother who believes in her life path and the money to support her while she does this. 

She also does not have a passport to get her to the Canadian tournament that she needs to start getting noticed for her abilities.  So she asks her mom for her birth certificate.  Her mom insists that it has been lost and refuses to talk about it any further. 

So Dara does what any thwarted 18-year-old would do.  She tears the house apart, eventually finding the lock box under her mom's bed, the key to the lock box, and--finally-the certificate. 

Which does not have her actual name on it.  More intriguingly, it also doesn't have the right parent names either. 

Dara spends a few hours thinking that she was abducted at birth before her mom comes home.  When confronted, she tells the truth.  Her mom is actually her biological father.  She transitioned after Dara was born.  

Dara is rocked to the core by this news.  When she learns that she also has a set of grandparents that she has never known, she decides that she is going on a road trip to find them.  She takes along her childhood best friend and neighbor. 

At some point in time, her mom starts to send her emails explaining the whole story from the very beginning.  These two story lines start to link up as Dara finds her lost family and starts to realize what they may be able to do for her. 

Dara's identity struggles and anger towards her mother is honest and riveting. 

Salt to the Sea

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Chronicling the end of World War II and a massive catastrophe that has been overlooked in history, this story follows four individuals and some of their companions as they band together in the hopes of surviving and reaching safety. Florian is a Prussian with a secret that he keeps in his pack, Joana is a Lithuanian girl who has become a nurse, Emilia is a Polish girl who is carrying secrets of her own and Alfred is a German sailor who has been drafted very late in the war.

I picked up this book after one of my students said that it made her cry and I decided that it was exactly what I needed to enjoy on a rainy day in May. It didn't disappoint. All the characters are real and you will feel for their struggles. The cover art of empty life preservers floating on a choppy sea makes you realize that many of them are likely doomed in some way or another.

In the end, it is a hopeful book that I was glad to have read.



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Genre fiction for LGBT-Q young adults -- Not just reading from the Rainbow list

I'm returning to a high school library this year and one of the things that I wanted to do was to increase the number of LGBT-Q titles available for students.  So I wrote a small grant and won it and then went to my student LGBT-Q affinity group and asked for help.  I thought that we'd just wind up pulling from the ALA's Rainbow List. 

The president is a big reader and her biggest frustration was that so much of what is available is geared towards the "coming out" stories.  She's a reader of fantasy and mystery and sci-fi and just wanted to be able to read books with diverse characters in them.

So the public librarian, local bookstore buyer and I made it our mission to find more good genre fiction.  Malinda Lo, author and blogger (and many other things) was particularly useful.  Here is part 5 of her five part series on avoiding the LGBT-Q stereotypes in YA fiction. 

And here are two books (one is Lo's Cinderella variant!) that I bought and enjoyed recently!

Ash by Malinda Lo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A Cinderella tale with a sweet and different ending. Any YA who is into fairy tale variants will love this one. Ash is our unhappy Cinderella who is not chasing after the prince but her step sister definitely is. He will choose to marry someone before the year is out and Ana is determined that it should be her.

Ash's own life is complicated by the fact that a fairy named Sidhean may have claimed her for his own. Meanwhile she finds the King's lead huntress, Kaisa, to be fascinating. In this Kingdom, the lead hunter is always a woman but that seems to be the only way in which the kingdom departs from the regular fairy tale stereotypes.


I'm going to make sure that I read more Malinda Lo. Very satisfying.

Unbecoming by Jenny Downham

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It all begins when Katie's mum is called to the hospital to pick up a grandmother that Katie has never met. There's a reason why grandmother Mary and mother Caroline are estranged and it has a lot to do with family secrets that are starting to unravel.

But Mary is suffering from dementia and her secrets are locked away in a mind that is beginning to fail her. Mom and Katie have secrets of their own. Katie has just tried to kiss her best friend and the girl is no longer talking to her because of it. Does Katie like girls? She's not so sure.

All three storylines weave together in a complicated way. All three women are sympathetic even though they aren't always kind to one another. The secrets kept me guessing and that made the reading move fast.



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Cellar Door by Brett Gadbois -- New Middle Grade Fantasy Fiction

My little island in the has its share of authors and this is a new book by one of them.  The Cellar Door by Brett Gadbois starts with a father-son fishing trip to Minnesota but it quickly turns into a fantastic adventure complete with shape shifting creatures and dangerous villians.

Sam Bixby accidentally falls through a cellar door while investigating a house that he should not have been in.  There he finds a different world with no easy way to return to his home.  The first creature that he meets helps him learn how to shape shift into different animals and objects but gives him the caution that he should NOT try to stay in that new shape for too long or to try to shift into another shape without returning to your own.

It is up to Sam to try to use this talent to make his way in this new world and try to find the path to return to his own.  The best part of the story comes when the villains enter.  They are pictured on the front cover.

Mr. Gadbois talent lies in his descriptions of place and action.  One of my other favorite parts of this story comes at the beginning, when Sam is testing out his new abilities and turns himself into a cloud. A teacher could easily use that section to spark some great student creative writing.  

I have a few students who are reading this book right now with the plan that he will come on our morning televised broadcast and be interviewed. 

For more information and to BUY A BOOK, please see Brett Gadbois' own site at www.brettgadbois.com

Popular Clone by M.E. Castle

I just reviewed this for School Library Journal and liked it.  It has a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid/Alex Rider/Mysterious Benedict Society" vibe, if you can imagine that.  Our hero is Fisher Bas, son of Nobel prize winning scientists and no slouch when it comes to science experimentation of his own.  He would much rather hang around his house an conduct his own research accompanied by his sidekick, FP (a "flying pig" that his mom created on a dare).  He can also always count on the sage advice of his sentient toaster who happens to speak and dream in an English accent.  All of the appliances happen to be intelligent in the Bas household, by the way. But the toaster is very special.

So Fisher has decided to achieve this dream of not having to attend school where everything is ruled by thugs that he calls "The Viking" by using his mother's new growth hormone to grow his own clone.  This experiment succeeds but what he does not expect is that his clone will have a mind of his own and also has the skills to become wildly popular at school!  Can he rein in his own clone? And why is "Two" so socially successful when Fisher does not have the same skills?

While trying to manage his clone, he's also having to deal with the dangerous Dr. X, who has his own nefarious plans for Fisher's mother's growth hormone. 

 
This is a very fun book.  I wish that the cover were a little different.  I feel that it might keep more mature readers from picking it off the shelves.  I'll do some experimentation myself at school this week.  My hypothesis is that the cover will make it a tough sell even to its target demographic of intelligent boys from ages 9 to 13.  I think that the fact that it has a lethal popcorn gun might help sell it, however. 

I especially liked page 161 where 'Two" attempts to quote Napoleon: "Don't stomp a slug unless you want goo on your shoes." Fisher One protests that Napoleon never said that and "Two" says: "But Wikipedia!

 To see more about my "love/hate" relationship with Wikipedia and to download my FREE SIM GAME on how it is created, click here.

And at least one other blogger has reviewed it.  Click the icon below to find out out what Donna and her 5th grade son have to say about it.