One Crazy Summer

With summer coming we all are starting to make plans for how we will spend our time. In the summer of 1968 Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern travel from Brooklyn to Oakland, CA to spend time with the mother that abandoned them and their father 7 years earlier. This book vividly portrays the racial tension that was rampant in the county during the 1960's. The language used it true to the time, and the girls distress over not really knowing their mother is palpable. This is book is so well written and, even though it is set in the 60's, the over arching themes are still relevant today. Come check out this great book!

From School Library Journal:
It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and member Bobby Hutton was gunned down trying to surrender to the Oakland police, and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news. Delphine, 11, remembers her mother, but after years of separation she's more apt to believe what her grandmother has said about her, that Cecile is a selfish, crazy woman who sleeps on the street. At least Cecile lives in a real house, but she reacts to her daughters' arrival without warmth or even curiosity. Instead, she sends the girls to eat breakfast at a center run by the Black Panther Party and tells them to stay out as long as they can so that she can work on her poetry. Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way. Emotionally challenging and beautifully written, this book immerses readers in a time and place and raises difficult questions of cultural and ethnic identity and personal responsibility. With memorable characters (all three girls have engaging, strong voices) and a powerful story, this is a book well worth reading and rereading.

Heart of a Samurai

It has been such a long time since my last post. I have been doing lots of reading, and I have many new reviews to publish, but today I would like to start with the best book I have read in a long time. Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus is a 2011 Newbery Honor book. I was inspired to read it by recent events in Japan. This novel is based on the true story of Manjiro, a Japanese fisherman that was rescued following a shipwreck in 1841 by American whalers. The events that follow are truly amazing, and knowing that they all really did happen just makes them more incredible. Manjiro, later known to the American whaling crew as John Mung, is portrayed beautifully, and the descriptions of whaling in the 1800 are historically accurate, and horrifying to our 21 century minds. See below for a full summary, and come to the library to check it out!

From School Library Journal:A Japanese teenager living in the mid-19th century bridges two worlds in this stunning debut novel based on true events. Manjiro and his fellow fishermen find refuge on a remote island after a storm destroys their ship. When they are rescued by an American whaleboat captain and given the chance to return home with him, Manjiro accepts the offer. His encounters with a land that he has been taught is barbaric and his subsequent efforts to return to Japan shape him into an admirable character. Preus places readers in the young man's shoes, whether he is on a ship or in a Japanese prison. Her deftness in writing is evident in two poignant scenes, one in which Manjiro realizes the similarities between the Japanese and the Americans and the other when he reunites with his Japanese family. A sailor named Jolly and an American teen express the racism he experiences in America. Both of these characters gain sympathy from readers as their backgrounds are revealed, and as one of them comes to respect Manjiro. The truths he learns about himself and his fellow men and women are beautifully articulated. Manjiro's own drawings are well placed throughout the narrative and appropriately captioned. Preus includes extensive historical notes and a bibliography for those who want to know more about the man and the world in which he lived.