As someone who grew up with a young single mother in a quirky desert town, I never imagined I would read a book that captured the richness, humor, heartbreak, and beauty of those years in a novel. Patron has managed it.
I can smell the air just before a monsoon. I can see the sky bursting with stars. I know Short Sammy, Dot, Bridgette, and all the survivors at the 12-step meeting. I know Lucky.
Zooming in, I’m impressed with Patron’s ability to gently poke fun at Lucky, exploring her grandiosity, misconceptions, and pseudo-scientific understanding of how things work.
Zooming out, I love watching how the town’s remoteness, its proud nonconformity, and its residents’ honesty allow Lucky to navigate grief and change.
This book is lovable and funny, tackles tough subjects with compassion and grace, and is just plain wonderful to read. I didn’t want the story to end.
Lucky, age ten, can't wait another day. The meanness gland in her heart and the crevices full of questions in her brain make running away from Hard Pan, California (population 43), the rock-bottom only choice she has.
It's all Brigitte's fault -- for wanting to go back to France. Guardians are supposed to stay put and look after girls in their care! Instead Lucky is sure that she'll be abandoned to some orphanage in Los Angeles where her beloved dog, HMS Beagle, won't be allowed. She'll have to lose her friends Miles, who lives on cookies, and Lincoln, future U.S.…
This is a nonfiction novel in verse, every word of which was drawn from the autobiography of the 18th-century enslaved man Olaudah Equiano. Equiano’s book was the first widely read autobiography by an enslaved person in the English language and tells the story of how he works towards, and achieves, his freedom.
I love the concept of verse adaptations of primary sources and am enthralled with the approach, especially for young readers, but for adults too. The novel itself is masterful, and Equiano’s life is astounding.
Everyone should read this story.
As a writer, I’m always on the hunt for a strong narrative arc with rich thematic threads. Equiano’s story has both. Not only as he works towards freedom but as he untangles his life from the slave trade, at great risk to himself. I also loved the adventure, and how much Equiano experiences in his life.
Millions of Africans were enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade, but few recorded their personal experiences. Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano is perhaps the most well known of the autobiographies that exist. Using this narrative as a primary source text, authors Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge share Equiano's life story in "found verse," supplemented with annotations to give readers historical context. This poetic approach provides interesting analysis and synthesis, helping readers to better understand the original text. Follow Equiano from his life in Africa as a child to his enslavement at a young age,…
Character, character, character. A great novel is built on vivid and memorable characters, and Erin Bow delivers and then some with this funny, tender, and quirky book about a boy who moves to a small town in an effort to help him recover from PTSD.
I loved getting to know Simon, Agate, and Kevin, laughing at their madcap schemes, and suffering and healing with each of them in turn.
It is not often that a perfectly paced, brilliantly crafted middle-grade novel comes along. As both a writer and a reader, I applaud Bow on an impeccable novel. This book deserves every accolade.
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
“Funny, poignant and—most important—hopeful.” —New York Times
For fans of Kate DiCamillo and Jack Gantos, a hilarious, wrenching, hopeful novel about finding your friends, healing your heart, and speaking your truth.
Simon O’Keeffe’s biggest claim to fame should be the time his dad accidentally gave a squirrel a holy sacrament. Or maybe the alpaca disaster that went viral on YouTube. But the story the whole world wants to tell about Simon is the one he’d do anything to forget: the one starring Simon as a famous survivor of gun violence…
As a child, Carrie Chapman Catt asked a lot of questions: How many stars are in the sky? Do germs have personalities? And why can’t Mama vote? Catt’s curiosity led her to become the president of The National American Woman Suffrage Association. Catt knew the movement needed a change, and she set to work mobilizing women and men to dare to question a woman’s right to vote.
On August 18, 1920, Catt pinned a yellow rose to her dress and waited while lawmakers in Tennessee cast their deciding votes. After a seventy-year campaign, had women finally won?
Stirling's suspenseful retelling of the dramatic final "yea" that changed the history of women’s rights brings the past vividly to life for young readers.
