Book Review: Gum Girl!: Book 1, Chews Your Destiny

Gum Girl!: Book 1, Chews Your Destiny

written and illustrated by Rhode Montijo
pub date: July 9, 2013

In this fun early chapter book graphic novel hybrid, Montijo begins a series about a girl who discovers she has new superpowers as Gum Girl. Gabby Gomez loves to chew gum. She loves it so much that she even chews gum in bed--until the morning she wakes up with a wad of the stuff stuck in her hair. While her mom is able to get the gum out with peanut butter, she outlaws gum chewing for her daughter. Poor Gabby doesn't know what to do without her chewable obsession. Fortunately/unfortunately, she finds a piece of "limited edition MIGHTY-MEGA ULTRA-STRETCHY SUPER-DUPER EXTENDA-BUBBLE BUBBLE GUM" in her pocket and gives into temptation, despite her mother's new edict. Gabby gets what's coming to get for disobeying sooner than later though when she blows her biggest bubble ever and consequently gets electrocuted. She ends up covered in gum, but soon discovers that her gum-covered self has new stretchy, gummy powers that allow her to right wrongs and help people in need.

Book Review: Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel

Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel 

 by Diana López 
pub date: June 11, 2013

Erica Montenegro, known by her nickname "Chia", is used to only having to worry about her witty t-shirt collection, her annoying younger siblings Carmen and Jimmy, "close encounters" with cute boys, and her expansive Chia pet collection. All that changes the summer before eighth grade when Erica learns her mother has breast cancer. When her family journeys to a special church, to pray for her mother to be healed, Chia makes a promesa to God in el cuarto de milagros (the Miracle Room) that in thanks for her mother surviving cancer, she will make a sacrifice. When Chia decides her sacrifice will be participating in the Race for the Cure breast cancer awareness walk, as well as getting 500 sponsors for the walk, she knows it will take effort. But walking in the hot San Antonio sun is harder than she thought, and getting people to open their doors and hear her out--let alone sponsor her--seems nearly impossible.

Book Review: Not a Chance

Not a Chance

written by Michelle Mulder

Dian has been traveling from her home in Canada to the Dominican Republic with her doctor parents every summer since she was five-years old. This year she's thirteen and ready to stay at home, but her parents drag her along anyway. The only bright spot in her summer is seeing her best friend, Aracely, who is fourteen and lives in the small town where Dian's parents set up their clinic. Even this small happiness soon fades though when Aracely tells Dian she is engaged to be married. Dian is flabbergasted--Aracely had planned to move to Canada with Dian's family in a few years, later study to become a doctor, and ultimately return to help the people in her rural village. Learning that her friend has never really wanted to do any of these things is a further blow to Dian, who cannot understand why Aracely would choose what Dian views as a typical village life over the opportunity to study in Canada. She is further concerned by Aracely's fear that she'll never get another chance at marriage, due to the scar she bears on her cheek, relic of an accident when she was four.

Book Review: America the Beautiful: Together We Stand

America the Beautiful: Together We Stand

poem by Katharine Lee Bates

illustrated by Chris Soentpiet, Mary GrandPre, Raul Colon, Sonia Lynn Sadler, Bryan Collier, Jon J Muth, Yuyi Morales, Diane Goode, LeUyen Pham, and John Hendrix

This tribute to the poem and song, "America the Beautiful," features a different illustration for each line of the first stanza of the song from a truly impressive collection of artists. The art in this book displays an incredible amount of diversity which left my heart thoroughly warmed.

Book Review: The Summer Prince

The Summer Prince
by Alaya Dawn Johnson

In the future city of Palmares Tres, located in modern-day Brazil, a Summer King is elected every five years. In a city ruled by women, the position holds little power--the main purpose of a Summer King is to reaffirm the right of the Queen to reign for another five years. This affirmation is given as the Summer King dies, sacrificed on an altar, his throat slit by the Queen herself. When June Costa's father takes her to see her first Summer King sacrificed, she is eight-years old and horrified by the bloody practice. However, by the time she is eighteen she is used to the tradition, but everything changes the year Enki, a beautiful, defiant young man, is elected as Summer King. The entire city falls in love with Enki--including June and her best friend, Gil. Like June, Enki is an artist, and together they produce some incredible art that shakes the very foundations of the principles their city is built upon. But unlike June, Enki wasn't raised in privilege, and his willingness to sacrifice his life to be Summer King is rooted in a purpose more radical than June is willing to accept. The closer June gets to Enki, the harder it is to accept his impending death. In the end, June will have to choose whether following the rules to achieve her dream of becoming a successful artist is more important than her principles.

Book Review: Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

With such a seemingly sensational title, I expected this book to be little more than YA fluff entertainment. I couldn't have been more wrong. Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (available March 2013) is a well-written, affecting story about a girl dealing with the horrors of bullying.

Book Review at Coastline Books: Planet Middle School

If you're looking for a realistic middle grade book, take a gander over to Coastline Books where Sara has posted a lovely review of Planet Middle School by Nikki Grimes.



Sara says: "Written in free verse, Joylin’s flowing narrative voice is pitch perfect. She navigates the highs and lows of early adolescence with her two best friends KeeLee and Jake and when she questions “Where is a parallel universe // when you need one?”, I had to smile. Ah, middle school. How many times did I have that thought, although never quite so poetic!"

To read the review in its entirety, click here.

Storycorp Interview with Walter Dean Myers/Book Review: Darius & Twig

There are a few things we'd like to do here on the blog in honor of Black History Month. One is to feature interviews or profiles of Black writers and illustrators. We're a bit late getting started, but here is our first offering: an interview from StoryCorps with National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Walter Dean Myers, talking to his son, author and illustrator Christopher Myers, about his relationship with his own father (specifically pertaining to his father's feeling about Myers being a writer).

(l to r:Christopher Myers, Walter Dean Myers)