title: Some Places More Than Others author: Renée Watson date: Bloomsbury; 3 Sept 2019 main character: Amara Baker fiction This review is based upon and advance copy. Amara Baker, a suburbanite African American girl, is about to turn twelve and she feels ready to start finding her place in the world. She’s asked her parents… Read More review: Some Places More Than Others
This month, Florida’s Commissioner of Education released a back to school reading list. There’s been pushback on Twitter and in SLJ. An important critique comes from @ofGlades, teens who actually live in Florida, who are acutely aware of the problematic books on the list and who go a step further to recommend books to the… Read More Listed in Florida
If you’ve tried to access my blog today, you were probably met with a new look ever few minutes for a good hour. Sorry if there was any inconvenience! Every year or so, I decide to go for a new look. I want something that’s the same, but different. Something fresh, yet comfortable. I think… Read More Newness
title: The Last Last Day of Summer author: Lamar Giles illustrator: Dapo Adeola date: Versify; April 2019 main characters: Otto Alston and Sheed Alston SFF Review based on an advanced copy Otto and Sheed are young Black boys, cousins actually who live with their grandmother in Logan County, Virginia. The two couldn’t be more different.… Read More review: The Last Last Day of Summer
I recently reviewed The Bridge Home and today, I have a wonderful interview with the author, Padma Venkatraman. “THE BRIDGE HOME is that long overdue promise. It was, indeed a very hard story to write, because in writing it I had to revisit some very painful times in my childhood and adolescence and that’s always a bit… Read More interview: Padma Venkatraman
Edi Cotton Quilts 