Book Lists

Diversity in MG Lit #8 Black Girls

By on April 15, 2019   /   Book Lists, Diversity, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers  
For the month of April I’m featuring books with amazing black girls.
With the Fire on High  by Elizabeth Acevedo, Harper Teen
This YA novel will appeal to mature MG reader. The main character Emoni is a teen mother in her senior year of high school. With the help of good friends and a mentor teacher/chef, Emoni discovers a passion for cuisine and hones the discipline she will need to succeed. There is some mild swearing but there is also a romantic relationship with a boy respectful of Emoni’s boundaries making it a nice choice for older middle grade readers on the cusp of their dating years.
Black Enough: Stories of being Youn and Black in America edited by Ibi Zoboi, Balzar & Bray
This anthology is a mix of MG and YA short stories about the wide ranging experience of being African-American in all its variety: urban and rural, immigrant and 10th generation American, wealthy and struggling. I’m a big fan of short stories for kids who are almost ready for YA and feeling unsure about where to start. This collection features 17 of the strongest Black writers being published in this decade.
Blended by Sharon M. Draper, Atheneum
Biracial children are the fastest growing demographic so I was particularly thrilled to see Blended take on such an important topic head on. Sharon Draper uses the conflict between her protagonist Isabella’s divorced parents to illuminate Isabella’s own conflicting feelings about her identity. This book addresses the pain of micro-aggressions head on and the topic of lynching comes up in a history class so although this is a solidly MG title it is also gritty in the very best way.
A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée, Balzar & Bray
It’s always great to highlight debut authors. Lisa Moore Ramée’s story features a tender-hearted 12 year old who gets very anxious about conflict. A transformative experience at a Black Lives Matter rally helps her face her fears and learn to stand up for change even when the consequences of change are hard. There’s plenty of humor and heart even as this book takes on difficult topics.
Love Like Sky by Leslie C Youngblood, Hyperion
Another debut, this one from Leslie C Youngblood is set in Georgia and covers the challenges of moving into a blended family, into a new neighborhood and into a period of family illness. It should resonate with blended families and is a lovely tribute to the bonds among sisters.
My Life as an Ice cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi, Dutton
This delicious summer read will be out in August but I couldn’t help talking it up now. The cover is charming. The fairly familiar ground of a middle school aged child moving from a small town (Huntsville, AL) to a big city (Harlem, NY) is made fresh and engaging by introducing a grandfather who was a NASA engineer. He inspires his grandchild’s fascination with space and feeds her science fiction habit. The story is set in 1984 and includes a few very short sections of graphic novel. Sure to be a winner with Star Trek fans and space enthusiasts.
A Streetcar to Justice: How Elizabeth Jennings won the right to ride in New York by Amy Hill Hearth, Greenwillow
I’m going to end with a really terrific biography of Elizabeth Jennings the woman who was a forerunner to Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin. In 1850 in New York City she was forcibly ejected from a public streetcar. She took the trolly company to court and won the right of black citizens to ride a public street car alongside white passengers. In 1850! I had not heard of her before this book and I’m thrilled to see it join the canon of books about civil rights. It’s a slim volume but it’s packed with maps and photographs and first person sources.
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BOOK LIST FOR A BLACK HOLE

By on April 12, 2019   /   Articles, Book Lists  

Black Hole Photo History

It’s been an exciting week for space enthusiasts, space fiction fans, rocket scientists, and computer scientists. For the first time ever, we have an idea of what the elusive, oft-written-about black hole looks like.

Beautiful, right? Incredible even. What’s amazing to me is that we took pictures of light in a place where light gets sucked in but never spit out again. I always imagined that we could never see anything once that big vacuum cleaner in the cosmos had swallowed it, not even if we built the world’s strongest computer with the most sophisticated brain.

Fortunately for all of us, I’m not an astrophysicist or a computer scientist. Even more fortunately for all of us, Dr. Katie Bouman is. Bouman is a computer scientist who was part of a team that created a set of algorithms that took the “sparse and noisy data” collected from telescopes and turned them into an image. According to TIME magazine, Bouman says what really makes her tick is “coming up with ways to see or measure things that are invisible.”

The MIT postdoctoral fellow shared this photo of herself “watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed.”

Encouraging More Women in Space and Science

What’s great about Dr. Bouman’s story is that in addition to raising the profile of all the brilliant women researchers in #STEM, we get a chance to talk again about books that focus on women in STEM, computer science, black holes, and the study of space. (And we get to say Event Horizon Telescope a lot, which is just plain fun.)

Unfortunately, the numbers on women researchers in STEM fields are still dismal, hovering somewhere around 30% by many estimates. Clearly, we’ve got a lot of work to do encouraging and supporting women in these fields–and it begins with our middle-grade readers.

Book List for a Black Hole Moment

Here’s a handful of books to help stir our girls’ imaginations and spur them to become the next Dr. Katie Bouman.

NON FICTION

A Black Hole is not a Hole, by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano

If a black hole is not a hole, then what is it? Find out what black holes are, what causes them, and how scientists first discovered them. Learn how astronomers find black holes, get to know our nearest black-hole neighbor, and take a journey that will literally s-t-r-e-t-c-h the mind.

 

Exoplanets, by Karen Latchana Kenney (Twenty-First Century Books TM)

Until the mid-1990s, scientists only guessed that the universe held exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. But using advanced physics and powerful telescopes, scientists have since identified more than three thousand exoplanets. This work has revealed fascinating worlds, including a planet that oozes lavalike fluids and a planet that glows bright pink.

Even more fascinating, scientists think that some exoplanets might contain life. Many orbit in the Goldilocks zone, the region around a star that’s not too hot or too cold for liquid water, a key ingredient for life. This book examines exoplanets, the possibilities for life beyond Earth, and the cutting-edge technologies scientists use to learn about distant worlds.

This book features astrophysicist Sara Seager.

 

Astronaut/Aquanaut, by Jennifer Swanson (National Geographic)

Margaret on the Moon, by Dean Robbins and Illustrated by Lucy Knisely (Knopf)A true story from one of the Women of NASA!

Margaret Hamilton loved numbers as a young girl. She knew how many miles it was to the moon (and how many back). She loved studying algebra and geometry and calculus and using math to solve problems in the outside world.

Soon math led her to MIT and then to helping NASA put a man on the moon! She handwrote code that would allow the spacecraft’s computer to solve any problems it might encounter. Apollo 8. Apollo 9. Apollo 10. Apollo 11. Without her code, none of those missions could have been completed.

Dean Robbins and Lucy Knisley deliver a lovely portrayal of a pioneer in her field who never stopped reaching for the stars.

FICTION:

 

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux/Square FIsh)

Not a new entry, not even from this century, but I couldn’t resist reminding everyone that an early and definitive female character in a book about space was Meg Murray.

A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe. They are in search of Meg’s father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem — a wrinkle in time.

A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal.

 

 

 

Beep and Bob, by Jonathan Roth (Simon and Schuster)
In this adorable chapter book series that School Library Journal said is for “kids who love funny stories but may be too young for books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” space-school attendee Bob and his alien bestie Beep star in hilarious intergalactic adventures.
Does anyone have any other books that should make this list? Let us know in the comments. And in the meantime, let’s keep reading and encouraging our girls to reach for the stars.
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Interview with Bone, Main Character of Lingering Echoes by Author Angie Smibert & a Giveaway!

By on April 11, 2019   /   Articles, Author Interviews, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians, For Teachers  

I am a huge history buff. I also love all things spooky, otherworldly, and magical. Oh, and book series. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard about this book, LINGERING ECHOES by Angie Smibert. It’s the second book in her middle grade Ghost of Ordinary Objects series, set in the 1940’s that centers around a girl who can see stories in objects. How interesting!

Wouldn’t it be neat to chat with this girl?

Well, we’re in luck. Bone, Lingering Echoes’ main character, is here to visit with you!

Hi Bone! It’s wonderful to have you here. Before we begin, let’s share the book with our readers.

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgTwelve-year-old Bone uses her Gift, which allows her to see the stories in everyday objects, to try to figure out why her best friend, Will Kincaid, suddenly lost his voice at age five. This supernatural historical mystery is the second title in the acclaimed and emotionally resonant Ghosts of Ordinary Objects series.

In a southern Virginia coal-mining town in October 1942, Bone Phillips is learning to control her Gift: Bone can see the history of a significant object when she touches it. When her best friend, Will Kincaid, asks Bone to “read” the history of his daddy’s jelly jar–the jelly jar that was buried alongside his father during the mine cave-in that killed him–Bone is afraid. Even before Bone touches it, she can feel that the jar has its own strange power. With her mother dead, her father gone to war, and Aunt Mattie’s assault looming over Bone, she can’t bear the idea of losing Will too. As Will’s obsession with the jelly jar becomes dangerous, Bone struggles to understand the truth behind the jar and save him Featuring a beautiful, compelling voice, this novel weaves a story of mystery, family, and ultimately, love.

Okay, Bone. You’re up! Tell us about yourself and what an average day is like for you.

I’m 12 years old. Daddy and me live in the boardinghouse in Big Vein; only Daddy is off to war.

Oh, Wow.

Uncle Junior is living there now—for the duration, he likes to say. Mrs. Price and Miss Johnson live there, too. She’s my teacher. She slips me the National Geographic to read when she’s done with it.

My day is none too exciting. I walk to school up the mine road, sometimes stopping at the parsonage to pick up my cousin, Ruby. At school, I sit at the back with the rest of the seventh grade. Not too many of us left. All sorts of folks have left on account of the war. Or like my best friend Will, they’ve gone down the mines to work. At lunch, I usually get asked to tell a story, like Stingy Jack or Ashpet. I know just about all of the stories from hereabouts.

After supper, Will usually stops by—unless he obsessing about that dad blame jelly jar again. (Don’t worry. I help him figure out the mystery.)

I can’t wait to hear more about that. What was it like when you first discovered you had this Gift?

Well, it about knocked the breath plumb out of me. I touched this arrow head Ruby and me found down by the river. And, wham, all of a sudden, I’m seeing that arrow strike a deer.

Oh my goodness! #yucky

That poor deer stumbled into the river and… Let’s just say I saw and felt it die.

?

Of course, this is your second journey seeing stories within items, so you’ve already gotten your feet wet. But could you ever have imagined that your friend Will’s jelly jar was more than a simple story? Were you more frightened or curious about it?

I could feel right away that jar was different, like it had its own gift or power. It pulled at me. And it was so powerful I could see things without even touching it. So yes, it scared me—but I was curious, too. I didn’t touch it, though, until I felt like I had to—to help Will.

Will is lucky to have such a wonderful friend in you. And I want to say how sorry I am about your mother and that your father is off to war.

Daddy got himself drafted a couple months ago. He couldn’t say in his last letter where they were shipping him to. Uncle Junior thinks it’ll be North Africa or Italy. I keep having this nightmare about him wandering around lost in the woods—just like Stingy Jack. You know, the fellow the Jack O’Lanterns are named after.

Hmm . . . no, I don’t think I’ve heard this. Please, share.

Folks say he wanders the woods around Halloween with an ember from the coal fires of hell in his carved pumpkin.

Well, that explains a lot. Thank you. How would you describe friendship?

A friend is there for you through thick and thin. And you’re there for him or her, too. Even if he’s acting like an obsessed fool.

Can you share a story about you and Will?

He’s kind like one of those big rocks out in the middle of the river that I like to sun myself on. He’s always there, steady and strong, no matter how high the water is. He also listens to my stories—and is a lot smarter than folks give him credit for.

Sounds like you and Will have true friendship figured out. Thank you so much for stopping by to share your story with our readers. Looking forward to seeing what comes next for you!

Smibert is the author of the middle grade historical fantasy series, Ghosts of Ordinary Objects, which includes Bone’s Gift (2018), Lingering Echoes (2019), and The Truce (2020). She’s also written three young adult science fiction novels: Memento Nora, The Forgetting Curve, and The Meme Plague. In addition to numerous short stories, she’s published over two dozen science/technology books for kids. Smibert teaches young adult and speculative fiction for Southern New Hampshire University’s creative writing M.F.A. program as well as professional writing for Indiana University East. Before doing all this, she was a science writer and web developer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. She lives in Roanoke with a goofy dog (named after a telescope) and two bickering cats (named after Tennessee Williams characters), and puts her vast store of useless knowledge to work at the weekly pub quiz. For more on Angie, follow her on social media: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Be sure to check out BONE’S GIFT, book one of Bone’s story.

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgIn this supernatural historical mystery, twelve-year-old Bone possesses a Gift that allows her to see the stories in everyday objects. When she receives a note that says her mother’s Gift killed her, Bone seeks to unravel the mysteries of her mother’s death, the schisms in her family, and the Gifts themselves.

In a southern Virginia coal-mining town in 1942, Bone Phillips has just reached the age when most members of her family discover their Gift. Bone has a Gift that disturbs her; she can sense stories when she touches an object that was important to someone. She sees both sad and happy–the death of a deer in an arrowhead, the pain of a beating in a baseball cap, and the sense of joy in a fiddle. There are also stories woven into her dead mama’s butter-yellow sweater–stories Bone yearns for and fears. When Bone receives a note that says her mama’s Gift is what killed her, Bone tries to uncover the truth. Could Bone’s Gift do the same? Here is a beautifully resonant coming-of-age tale about learning to trust the power of your own story.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway winner will be announced on Friday, April 19th via Twitter! Good luck!!!

 

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