The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

January 13, 2016December 21, 2015 | Tasha

Released January 26, 2016.

From the outside, Vicky’s life looks perfect. Her father is wealthy, her step mother loves to take her shopping, and her sister is a high achiever. But Vicky can’t get over the loss of her beloved mother, whom she cared for during her last months. So Vicky turns to the only solution she can see and tries to commit suicide. When she wakes up in a mental disorders ward, she starts the process of putting her life back together. She meets three other teens who have lived very different lives from her and yet they all are part of each others recovery. Slowly Vicky starts to see that she suffers from depression and what it will mean to return to her life after her time in the hospital.

Stork has once again created a book for teens that will speak directly to them. He takes on mental illness here in a forthright way, showing the way that depression can creep up on a person and change the way they perceive things. He also shows how a person’s life can be glamorous and yet stifling and not fulfilling. It is a book that speaks to the importance of support from a therapist, of medication and of creating a group of people who understand you in your life. It’s a brilliant novel that is complex and deep with plenty to explore and feel.

Vicky could have been a very different character in a lesser writer’s hands. With Stork’s skill, he hints at a superficial look at Vicky’s wealthy life and then goes much more deeply into why she is experiencing life in the way she is. She is a poetic soul caught in a capitalistic family, driven by high achievement but in ways that she cannot relate to. With the loss of her mother, her father changed, her sister distanced herself, and Vicky had no one to turn to for support any more.

Organic and real, this novel has a diverse heroine and cast of characters that will appeal to a wide range of readers and deals with a serious subject in an uplifting way. Appropriate for ages 13-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Arthur A. Levine Books.

The Story I’ll Tell by Nancy Tupper Ling

January 13, 2016January 12, 2016 | Tasha

The Story I’ll Tell by Nancy Tupper Ling, illustrated by Jessica Lanan (InfoSoup)

An adoptive mother knows that her son will eventually ask her where he came from. She dreams of what she will tell him. Perhaps that he floated down from a hot-air balloon. Or that he was delivered by horseback by a man in a cape. Or that she found him in the garden among the tiger lilies. Or that she rescued him from a dragon queen. But the story of where he really came from is special enough, filled with joy and tears, with winged flight over the ocean. That is the story to tell.

Each of the stories that the boy’s mother creates contains a touch of truth. Throughout there is a tie to China, there is flight, crossing long distances, and a story of rescue. This imaginative look at the power of international adoption and the formation of a family is endearing and magical. The stories create a beautiful rhythm among themselves, dancing and weaving a tale that invites children to see their adoption as something particularly special.

Lanan’s art evokes that same special magical feel. Throughout the book, there are creatures in the clouds, dragons rising into the sun, roosters summoning dawn. Each shows a future part of the story, the tiger lilies gracing the garden gate long before they are mentioned in the book. Fish float on walls, ribbons tie each experience to the next. It is a rich tapestry of illustration filled with Chinese symbols.

A gem of a book for adoptive families, this picture book conveys the joy of adoption and the wonder of finding one another and forming a family. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from e-galley received from Lee & Low Books and Edelweiss.

Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban

January 12, 2016December 21, 2015 | Tasha

Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban

Manami loves her home on Bainbridge Island where she can walk with her grandfather and his dog on the beach. Everything changes when Pearl Harbor is bombed in 1941. Manami and her family along with the other Japanese Americans are gathered up and forced to move to internment camps far from the sea. Manami’s grandfather has arranged for someone to care for his dog, but Manami cannot bear to leave him behind so she hides him in her coat. But she is not allowed to bring the dog with them. Heartbroken, when they reach the camp, Manami stops speaking entirely, unable to force words past her dusty throat. Manami keeps hoping that their dog will find them, sending pictures on the wind to him.

Told in spare and elegant prose, Sephaban captures the devastating impact of World War II policies on Japanese Americans. Losing all of their property and belongings except what they can fit into one suitcase each, the families work to put together a semblance of a life for themselves and their children. Sepahban sets this story in a prison camp that had a riot break out and one can feel the tension building. This novel manages to show the impact of loss of civil rights and also be a voice for moving forward to embracing diversity and differences.

Manami is an amazing character. Her pain is palpable on the page, her voice buried under guilt and compounded by their internment in the camp. Everything changes for her in one moment, taken from the place she loves, removed from the life she has been living. Manami has to find a way to make a new life, but it is devastating for her as she is unable to forgive herself for what she has done.

Beautiful writing, a complex heroine and a powerful story make this short historical novel worth reading and sharing. Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from e-galley received from Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Edelweiss.

2016 Amelia Bloomer Project Top 10

January 12, 2016January 11, 2016 | Tasha

The Amelia Bloomer Project has recommended 58 titles this year with the following being their top 10. Books are selected by the Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association. They must have significant feminist content, excellent writing, appealing format and be age appropriate for young readers. Here are the top 10 titles: