Review by Lyn Miller Lachman Review Source: Pirate Tree Book Author: Joe López, a seventh grader who loves to draw, is tired of seeing eighth grade bully Martín Corona push smaller kids around and steal their lunch money. When he disrupts the shakedown of Luis, one of the smaller sixth graders, Martín demands that Joe give […]
Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton
Reviewed by Lyn Miller Lachman Review Source: Pirate Tree Book Author: Don Tate’s biography Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton (Peachtree, 2015) achieves that balance. Drawing on Horton’s own writings, biographies and histories, and archival sources, this picture book for elementary-age readers begins with his listening to sermons and surreptitiously peeking over the […]
Sylvia & Aki
Reviewed by Rethinking Schools Book Author: This historical novel for middle school readers is based on the true stories of Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu Nakauchi, who were 3rd graders during World War II. When Aki’s family is forced to leave their home in Westminster, Calif., for a Japanese American internment camp in Arizona, the Mendez […]
Somos Como Las Nubes / We Are Like the Clouds
Reviewed by Beverly Slapin Review Source: DeColores Book Author: Even before the Monroe Doctrine, which declared that all of the Americas belonged to the U.S., this country has wreaked havoc through invasion, setting up companies to put native products in the hands of American corporations, and creating and supporting regime change to fit the agenda of big […]
How to Build a Museum: Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture
Reviewed by KT Horning Review Source: Reading While White (Full Review) Book Author: Tonya Bolden recounts the 100 year (100 years!) history behind getting the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) built which started at a GAR gathering of African-American Civil War veterans in 1915 (1915!) with a desire to build a […]
Eighth Grade Superzero
Reviewed by Sam Bloom Review Source: Reading While White Book Author: Rhuday-Perkovich’s debut works on many levels. It’s a classic school story with engaging middle school characters (though Donovan’s bad guy act is a bit over-the-top). Reggie’s family is supportive and the problems they face ring true. But the volunteerism central to the story is something […]