New Releases

September New Releases!

By on September 2, 2019   /   Diversity, New Releases  

If you were too busy for books this summer, September is the month to dive back in! Time to cozy up and grab a new middle grade read . . . and there are lots to choose from. Here are some of the latest out this month.

 

Owl’s Outstanding Donuts by Robin Yardi

Robin Yardi, author of The Midnight War of Mateo Martinez, tells a story full of mystery, feathers, and sprinkles. After Mattie Waters loses her mother, she goes to live with her aunt, the owner of a roadside donut shop in Big Sur, California. When an owl taps on Mattie’s window one night, Mattie looks out to see something suspicious taking place nearby. With help from her friends—and from Alfred, a stuffy but good-hearted owl—, she’ll set out to find the culprits, facing fears that have followed her since her mother’s death.

 

 

 

Guts by Raina Telgemeier

Raina wakes up one night with a terrible upset stomach. Her mom has one, too, so it’s probably just a bug. Raina eventually returns to school, where she’s dealing with the usual highs and lows: friends, not-friends, and classmates who think the school year is just one long gross-out session. It soon becomes clear that Raina’s tummy trouble isn’t going away… and it coincides with her worries about food, school, and changing friendships. What’s going on?

Raina Telgemeier once again brings us a thoughtful, charming, and funny true story about growing up and gathering the courage to face — and conquer — her fears.

 

 

Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor, Illustrated by Rafael López

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and award-winning artist Rafael Lopez create a kind and caring book about the differences that make each of us unique. Feeling different, especially as a kid, can be tough. But in the same way that different types of plants and flowers make a garden more beautiful and enjoyable, different types of people make our world more vibrant and wonderful.

In Just Ask, United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor celebrates the different abilities kids (and people of all ages) have. Using her own experience as a child who was diagnosed with diabetes, Justice Sotomayor writes about children with all sorts of challenges–and looks at the special powers those kids have as well. As the kids work together to build a community garden, asking questions of each other along the way, this book encourages readers to do the same: When we come across someone who is different from us but we’re not sure why, all we have to do is Just Ask.

 

The Women Who Caught the Babies: A Story of African American Midwives by Eloise Greenfield, Illustrated by Daniel Minter

The Women Who Caught the Babies highlights important aspects of the training and work of African-American midwives and the ways in which they have helped, and continue to help, so many families by “catching” their babies at birth. The blend of Eloise Greenfield’s poetry and Daniel Minter’s art evokes heartfelt appreciation of the abilities of African-American midwifes over the course of time. The poem “Africa to America” begins the poetic journey. The poem “The Women” both heralds the poetry/art pairing and concludes it with a note of gratitude. Also included is a piece titled “Miss Rovenia Mayo,” which pays tribute to the midwife who caught newborn Eloise.

 

If the Fire Comes: A Story of Segregation in the Great Depression by Tracy Daley, Illustrated by Eric Freeberg

It’s 1935, and the Great Depression and California drought has left eleven-year-old Joseph McCoy shining shoes to help his family survive. Through his hard work and games with his sister, Joseph has figured out how to get by as one of the few black people in a mostly white community. But the order of the town is disrupted when an all-black Civilian Conservation Corps camp comes to Elsinore, sparking racial tension. It isn’t long before prejudice spreads like wildfire and threatens to force the work camp to leave. Could Joseph’s secret project save the camp and bring his family hope for the future? If not, the whole town just might go up in flames.

Its the storytellers that preserve a nations history. But what happens when some stories are silenced? The I Am America series features fictional stories based on important historical events from people whose voices have been under represented, lost, or forgotten over time.

 

The Escape of Robert Smalls: A Daring Escape out of Slavery by Jehan Jones-Radgowski, Illustrated by Poppy Kang

The mist in Charleston Inner Harbor was heavy, but not heavy enough to disguise the stolen Confederate steamship, the Planter, from Confederate soldiers. In the early hours of May 13, 1862, in the midst of the deadly U.S. Civil War, an enslaved man named Robert Smalls was about to carry out a perilous plan of escape. Standing at the helm of the ship, Smalls impersonated the captain as he and his crew passed heavily armed Confederate forts to enter Union territory, where escaped slaves were given shelter. The suspenseful escape of the determined crew is celebrated with beautiful artwork and insightful prose, detailing the true account of an unsung American hero.

 

A Song for China: How My Father Wrote Yellow River Cantata by Ange Zhang

This is the fascinating story of how a young Chinese author, Guang Weiran, a passionate militant from the age of twelve, fought, using art, theater, poetry and song, especially the famous Yellow River Cantata ― the anthem of Chinese national spirit ― to create a socially just China. Set during the period of the struggle against the Japanese and the war against the Kuomintang in the 1920s and ’30s, this book, written and illustrated by Guang Weiran’s award-winning artist son, Ange Zhang, illuminates a key period in China’s history. The passion and commitment of the artists who were born under the repressive weight of the Japanese occupation, the remnants of the decaying imperial order and the times of colonial humiliation are inspiring.

Zhang’s words and wood-block style of art tell us the story of his father’s extraordinary youth and very early rise to prominence due to his great talent with words. We see and hear the intensity of what it meant to be alive at such a significant moment in the history of China, a country that understands itself as the heir to one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known. The humiliations and social injustice the Chinese people had endured in the colonial period were no longer bearable. And yet there were major factional differences between those who wanted to create a modern China. Ange’s words and art paint the picture for us through his father’s story, accompanied by sidebars that explain the historical context.

The book ends in a burst of glorious color and song, with the words of the Yellow River Cantata in Mandarin, as well as newly translated into English. This great song turns eighty years old in 2019, and will be sung and performed by huge orchestras and choirs around the world, as the Chinese diaspora has embraced the cantata as its own.

 

Stargazing by Jen Wang

Moon is everything Christine isn’t. She’s confident, impulsive, artistic . . . and though they both grew up in the same Chinese-American suburb, Moon is somehow unlike anyone Christine has ever known.

But after Moon moves in next door, these unlikely friends are soon best friends, sharing their favorite music videos and painting their toenails when Christine’s strict parents aren’t around. Moon even tells Christine her deepest secret: that she has visions, sometimes, of celestial beings who speak to her from the stars. Who reassure her that earth isn’t where she really belongs.

Moon’s visions have an all-too-earthly root, however, and soon Christine’s best friend is in the hospital, fighting for her life. Can Christine be the friend Moon needs, now, when the sky is falling?

Jen Wang draws on her childhood to paint a deeply personal yet wholly relatable friendship story that’s at turns joyful, heart-wrenching, and full of hope.

 

Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly

Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s debut fantasy novel is a gorgeous, literary adventure about bravery, friendship, self-reliance, and the choice between accepting fate or forging your own path.

When Lalani Sarita’s mother falls ill with an incurable disease, Lalani embarks on a dangerous journey across the sea in the hope of safeguarding her own future. Inspired by Filipino folklore, this engrossing fantasy is for readers who loved Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Disney’s Moana.

Life is difficult on the island of Sanlagita. To the west looms a vengeful mountain, one that threatens to collapse and bury the village at any moment. To the north, a dangerous fog swallows sailors who dare to venture out, looking for a more hospitable land. And what does the future hold for young girls? Chores and more chores.

When Lalani Sarita’s mother falls gravely ill, twelve-year-old Lalani faces an impossible task—she must leave Sanlagita and find the riches of the legendary Mount Isa, which towers on an island to the north. But generations of men and boys have died on the same quest—how can an ordinary girl survive the epic tests of the archipelago? And how will she manage without Veyda, her best friend?

Newbery Medalist and New York Times–bestselling author Erin Entrada Kelly’s debut fantasy novel is inspired by Filipino folklore and is an unforgettable coming-of-age story about friendship, courage, and identity. Perfect for fans of Lauren Wolk’s Beyond the Bright Sea and Kelly Barnhill’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

 

 

 

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Interview with Heidi Lang: Drawing from Personal Experience

By on August 21, 2019   /   New Releases  

Imagine packing up all of your belongings and living in a van. Do you think you could do it? Author Heidi Lang did. And she used her own experience as inspiration for her upcoming novel, Wrong Way Summer. After enjoying this read myself, I had the opportunity to interview her and learn more about how her own life (including her own #vanlife) helped shape this book.

Thank you for sharing Wrong Way Summer with me. Can you give a short summary about the book?

Claire used to love her dad’s fantastical stories, especially tales about her absent mom—who could have been off with the circus or stolen by the troll king, depending on the day. But now that she’s 12, Claire thinks she’s old enough to know the truth. When her dad sells the house and moves her and her brother into a converted van, she’s tired of the tall tales and refuses to pretend it’s all some grand adventure, despite how enthusiastically her little brother embraces this newest adventure. Claire is faced with a choice: Will she play along with the stories her dad is spinning for her little brother, or will she force her family to face reality once and for all? Equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking, Wrong Way Summer is a road-trip journey and coming-of-age story about one girl’s struggle to understand when a lie is really a lie and when it’s something more: hope.

A moving summer road-trip story for fans of Crenshaw and The Someday Birds.

What would you say was the spark for Wrong Way Summer? What came next? And what component organically fell into place later on?

There were a few sparks. For instance, I’ve always wanted to write a story about stories, something to explore my grandfather’s favorite motto. And then, of course, I fell in love with the idea of living in a van. But I’d say the real spark for this story actually happened before I ever heard of #vanlife. This spark hit me while I was listening to an episode of “This American Life,” where a woman recounted a childhood memory.

In this episode, the narrator talks about the day her parents gave her and her older sister painted metal tissue boxes for Christmas. At first she was devastated, until her older sister said the boxes had been painted by trained gorillas. And suddenly her gift went from being a terrible disappointment to becoming one of her prized possessions. Much later, the narrator found an old school report her sister had written where she’d talked about that gift. Only in that report, the sister said she’d made up the origin story of the tissue boxes because she knew her parents couldn’t afford gifts, and knew the boxes were something her dad’s friend had given as charity, and also knew what it had cost her parents to ask for that charity. And as she looked at her little sister’s tear-filled face, and looked up at her mom, and knew she was about to cry, too, this story about trained gorillas just spilled out of her. It saved the day, and everyone was happy. Except for this older sister, who went upstairs to her room and cried and cried. She wasn’t crying because of the gift, or even because of their financial situation. She was crying because she felt like, in that moment, she’d chosen to grow up before she was really ready for it.

That episode stuck with me. And I knew someday I wanted to write a story where a character is put in a similar position of “choosing” adulthood and all it entails in order to protect a younger sibling. But it took many years before I found the right way to tell that story.

You mention in your Author’s Note how you also lived the #vanlife. Did you know at the time that a story/book would form from your own Grand Adventure? If so, did you struggle at how to pursue it or was it obvious to you?

I actually became interested in #vanlife back in 2012, before I’d thought of writing Wrong Way Summer or even published my first book. My husband and I needed to get another vehicle for our dog walking business and started looking at Sprinter vans. From there, we discovered this whole world of people traveling, and even living full-time in their vans. I got caught up in watching youtube vidoes of DIY van conversions and reading blogs about boondocking, and when we bought our own Sprinter, we talked about converting it ourselves someday in the future.

But as we all know when it comes to social media, it only paints part of the picture. The romantic pictures I saw and the exciting posts I read were very different from what I began to notice right there in front of me: a lot of people living in their vehicles, just to get by. Most of them hadn’t chosen #vanlife for the fun of it. It was just the only way they could afford to stay in the area for school, or work, or family. And as rent in our area climbed higher, we realized there was a good possibility that if our landlord ever sold our place, we wouldn’t be able to find something affordable right away that would take our dogs. So the van went from exciting future travel vehicle to back-up home safety net.

When we sold our dog walking business in 2017 so I could try to write full-time, we decided the best way to afford that would be to actually try #vanlife living. So we moved in with my in-laws and began working on the van conversion. By that point, I did know I wanted to write a story about the experience, and I knew I wanted it to highlight both the good and bad of #vanlife living: the glamor and romanticism of being able to get away from it all and live a more free life on the road, as well as the desperation that often underlays that choice. The rest of the story formed pretty organically from my desire to show both of these aspects.

What is your connection with the dad’s storytelling? Are you a storyteller?

I would love to be a good storyteller! But I’m definitely much better at writing stories than I am at speaking them. However, I was fortunate to grow up around storytellers. My grandpep was actually the first person who ever told me, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” I guess it was something his older brother used to say all the time, too, and when I was a kid, I soaked it in as our family motto. Maybe that’s why I decided to become a fiction writer.

I enjoyed traveling with Claire, Patrick, and their dad. How did you choose the locations where they stopped?

That was definitely the hardest part of writing this book! There are so many cool places to see, I could have written about a hundred more pages, so narrowing it down was really tricky. I wanted to have a variety of experiences for the characters in my book, but I also needed them to stop at locations that would make sense for a family on a limited budget. In the end, I picked places that I’d been to that were meaningful to me, as well as places that I wanted to go to, so I could live vicariously through Claire and her family. I also ended up taking a solo train trip back and forth across the country before I started drafting Wrong Way Summer as a way to really get a feel for the changing landscape and see more areas than I might otherwise have had time to cover.

How much of Claire do you see in yourself?

Originally when I sat down to write Claire, I thought about one of my cousins, and what she was like at twelve years old. Her personality became the foundation of Claire, but as with every character I write, Claire also reflects different aspects of my own personality. For instance, I’m definitely a rule follower. Even if it’s a rule no one else is following, I feel anxious breaking it. And like Claire, I’m also trying to figure out that line between fact and fiction, and I’m very interested in the different ways a story can be used to hide or reveal the truth, and to inspire or manipulate other people. But one of the wonderful things about writing is how characters take on their own life, and I definitely feel that Claire evolved away from my cousin, and from me, to become someone all her own.

What ended up taking more time that you anticipated when researching/writing/revising?

Definitely planning Claire’s route and deciding on her family’s stops along the way. But part of that was because I was having a little too much fun researching and revisiting these places vicariously, so I took my time with it.

How can teachers use this book in their classrooms?

When I was young I basically assumed everyone’s lives were more or less just like mine. Just as I thought something was either true or false, right or wrong. I was very much a kid with well-defined edges. It was only as I slowly wandered into adulthood that I became aware of all those spaces in between, and how different everyone’s personal experiences can be. I think that it’s in middle school when kids start to become aware of those gray areas, and from there that they start to question the beliefs they always took for granted. To me, that’s the most important use of any book: the ability to open minds and make the reader ask questions. I’m hoping this book can do a little of that.

When does Wrong Way Summer come out?

This book will be out in the world on April 21st, 2020.

How can we learn more about you? 

Devi Pride Photography

I share a website with my sometime co-writer Kati Bartkowski at www.HeidiandKatibooks.com, or you can find me on Instagram and on twitter at the same handle, @hidlang.

 

Wow, so fascinating. And can you imagine how intriguing this book will be for kids? It is such a great example of using life to write a story.

And if you can’t wait for the release of her new book Wrong Way Summer, check out her other books, including Rules of the Ruff, which is also inspired by her life as a dog walker.

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