Teaching Ideas Reviewed by María Cárdenas Review Source: DeColores Book Author: During the bloody Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992) between the military government representing the 12-family oligarchy of wealthy landowners, and leftist forces representing mostly impoverished peasants, US-supported government death squads terrorized, tortured, murdered and disappeared thousands of civilians, especially targeting students, intellectuals, and Indian people in […]
Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty
Reviewed by Lyn Miller Lachman Review Source: The Pirate Tree Book Author: We think of war as happening to children in other places. In doing so, we fail to think about young people in the United States whose everyday lives mirror the lives of young people in the world’s combat zones. For children who experience […]
Shame the Stars
Book Review by Araceli Méndez Hintermeister Review Source: Latinxs in Kid Lit Book Author: Eighteen-year-old Joaquin del Toro’s future looks bright. With his older brother in the priesthood, he’s set to inherit his family’s Texas ranch. He’s in love with Dulceña and she’s in love with him. But it’s 1915, and trouble has been brewing along […]
Wolf Mark
Reviewed by Beverly Slapin Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Joe Bruchac is not yet known for his YA werewolf/vampire/espionage novels, but this talented writer can sure pull off the genre(s). Middle readers who have the ability to suspend disbelief will relate to the teen protagonist, an Abenaki wolf-boy with multiple challenges. Such […]
The Mangrove Tree: Planting Trees to Feed Families
Reviewed by Deborah Menkart Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: The collage illustrations in The Mangrove Tree are stunning — each page invites the reader to take in the creativity and details created through the multicolored, textured cloth. The story itself is an important one, describing a community that was once ecologically devastated and poverty-stricken […]
Marisol McDonald and the Monster: Marisol McDonald y El Monstruo
Reviewed by Elsa Gall Review Source: Reading While White Book Author: Marisol McDonald loves the letter m, but there is one “m word” she does not like: ¡MONSTRUO! She knows that monsters are not real, but she hears them beneath her bed and her vivid imagination gets the best of her. After begging family member after […]