Reviewed by Linda Boyden Review Source: The Pirate Tree Book Author: After a terrible storm flooded their school, most of the classroom books were destroyed and for the first time, the school’s bookshelves were empty. For three days school staff and volunteers helped to clean water damage and remove sludge from the school’s classrooms. The […]
One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance
Reviewed by: Padma Venkatraman Review Source: The Pirate Tree Book Author: I, for one, am immensely grateful that one last word will not be the last word by this talented author whose work has gained much well-deserved recent attention. There are few books that I treasure not just for the writing but also for the artwork, […]
The Head of the Saint
Reviewed by Lyn Miller Lachmann Reviewed Source: Pirate Tree Book Author: Translated fiction for teen readers is not easy to find. Despite the recent success of adult titles by Elena Ferrante, Steig Larsson, Roberto Bolaño, Haruki Murikami, and others, and the growing number of acclaimed picture books from other countries, middle grade and young adult […]
American Street
Reviewed by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Review Source: Pirate Tree Book Author: In Ibi Zoboi’s debut novel, American Street, 16-year-old Fabiola Toussaint has just arrived from Haiti to the United States with her mother, but things have gone terribly wrong. While Customs & Border Patrol officials wave Fabiola through—because she was born in the U.S. but returned to […]
The Knife and the Butterfly
Reviewed by Lynn Miller Lachman Book Author: Ashley Hope Perez Review Source: The Pirate Tree Last October I spoke on a panel with four other authors, including fellow Pirate Tree-huggers J.L. Powers and Nancy Bo Flood, on the topic of children’s literature and war. My part on children as combatants included G. Neri and Randy DuBurke’s […]
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 […]