An Ellis Island Christmas by Maxine Rhea Leighton illustrated by Dennis Nolan

This is a curious Christmas book to share here in Australia because it recounts the history of migrants to the US who arrive in New York and who were 'processed' on Ellis Island. 

Publisher blurb: Krysia does not want to leave her home and her friend, Michi, but there are soldiers with guns on the streets and her mother says that they must go. Krysia, her two brothers, and her mother pack their favorite belongings and begin the long, harrowing journey to America. Krysia is scared but she finds courage when she thinks of her father waiting for her in America with the promise of a better tomorrow. Inspired by Maxinne Rhea Leighton's father's journey from Poland to America, this is a powerful reminder of the beacon of hope and opportunity that Ellis Island symbolized and the importance of family at Christmastime.

I enjoyed the discovery of this book because many years ago I visited Ellis Island (on the recommendation of a friend) and I did the audio tour where you follow the footsteps of someone arriving on Ellis Island. Later I also did a fabulous tenement tour where you also followed on family and discovered how they lived between 1892 and 1924. How did I come to read this book? Well, I found it at a recent charity book sale for just $1. This book was published in 1992. I wonder how this copy came to Australia and who has had it on their shelves before it reached the book sale?

"Upon reaching the New York harbour, steerage-class passengers were transferred from the steamship to a barge that took them to Ellis Island. After disembarking, they walked under a canopy, through the baggage room, and up the stairs. In the Registry Room each person had to go through a routine inspection and medical examination that lasted between three and five hours. ... Passing meant entry into America; failing meant detainment or deportment back to the very country the immigrant had just left. "

Here are other books illustrated by Dennis Nolan - his style is very painterly. 

Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry by Mildred D Taylor

“I didn’t say that Lillian Jean is better than you. I said Mr. Simms only thinks she is. In fact, he thinks she’s better than Stacey or Little Man or Christopher-John—” 

“Just ’cause she’s his daughter?” I asked, beginning to think Mr. Simms was a bit touched in the head. “No, baby, because she’s white.” Mama’s hold tightened on mine, but I exclaimed, “Ah, shoot! White ain’t nothin’!” Mama’s grip did not lessen. 

“It is something, Cassie. White is something just like black is something. Everybody born on this earth is something and nobody, no matter what color, is better than anybody else.” “Then how come Mr. Simms don’t know that?” “Because he’s one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big.”

“Baby, we have no choice of what color we’re born or who our parents are or whether we’re rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we’re here.” Mama cupped my face in her hands. 

“And I pray to God you’ll make the best of yours.”

Cassie lives with her three brothers, mother, father and grandfather in the Southern US in the 1930s. Her father has work albeit far away working building railway lines and her mother has a job as a teacher. The family also have a farm where they grow cotton and Cassie's grandmother is able to take produce to a local market so unlike other local families the Logan's are not living in dire poverty. They do, however, have to be careful with their money because there is a farm mortgage/tax payment due every month and a local, white, landowner who wants to reclaim their land. Cassie is only vaguely aware of the differences in her community and the ways white adults and children treat her and her family differently. One of the earliest incidents that introduce this to the reader comes when we read that Cassie and her brothers have to walk to school along dusty and sometimes very muddy roads. The white children travel by bus to a different school and every day the horrid bus driver deliberately sprays the Logan kids and their friends with dirt or mud by driving his bus close to the side of the road.

Finally, when the bus was less than fifty feet behind us, it veered dangerously close to the right edge of the road where we were running, forcing us to attempt the jump to the bank; but all of us fell short and landed in the slime of the gully.

Cassie is a feisty girl and she is not prepared to suffer this injustice. She hatches a plan to trap the bus in a huge hole in the road which is disguised by all the mud. Her plan works but then Cassie realises this could put her family in danger. Big Ma her grandmother takes Cassie into the town of Strawberry and on this day Cassie sees even more ways her family suffer discrimination. 

There is a local boy named TJ who is 'sort of' a friend to the Logan kids especially Stacey. TJ keeps failing at school but he is filled with bravado. I knew from the start he was a dangerous boy to have as a friend. He 'swindles' Stacey out of his wonderful new coat and then he fails school again and takes his anger out on Mrs Logan. Finally, he joins up with some local white boys but he is so naive he has no idea they are using him and as the book ends it is TJ who is headed for execution. 

Two of the strongest scenes in this book (for me) were when Cassie's mother pastes brown paper over the ownership grid at the front of the text books that have been 'donated' to the school. 

Then there is a way more harrowing scene where Cassie and her siblings are taken to visit the man who was the victim of the recent lynching:

She took a sheet from a nearby table. “Gots to cover him,” she explained. “He can’t hardly stand to have nothin’ touch him.” When she was visible again, she picked up a candle stump and felt around a table for matches. “He can’t speak no more. The fire burned him too bad. But he understands all right.” Finding the matches, she lit the candle and turned once more to the corner. A still form lay there staring at us with glittering eyes. The face had no nose, and the head no hair; the skin was scarred, burned, and the lips were wizened black, like charcoal. As the wheezing sound echoed from the opening that was a mouth, Mama said, “Say good morning to Mrs. Berry’s husband, children.”

Read the opening scene which gives you a good sense of Cassie's voice:

“Little Man, would you come on? You keep it up and you’re gonna make us late.” My youngest brother paid no attention to me. Grasping more firmly his newspaper-wrapped notebook and his tin-can lunch of cornbread and oil sausages, he continued to concentrate on the dusty road. 

He lagged several feet behind my other brothers, Stacey and Christopher-John, and me, attempting to keep the rusty Mississippi dust from swelling with each step and drifting back upon his shiny black shoes and the cuffs of his corduroy pants by lifting each foot high before setting it gently down again. Always meticulously neat, six-year-old Little Man never allowed dirt or tears or stains to mar anything he owned. Today was no exception. 

“You keep it up and make us late for school, Mama’s gonna wear you out,” I threatened, pulling with exasperation at the high collar of the Sunday dress Mama had made me wear for the first day of school—as if that event were something special. It seemed to me that showing up at school at all on a bright August-like October morning made for running the cool forest trails and wading barefoot in the forest pond was concession enough; Sunday clothing was asking too much. Christopher-John and Stacey were not too pleased about the clothing or school either. 

Only Little Man, just beginning his school career, found the prospects of both intriguing.

There are some delicious descriptions of food in this book and I loved the small phrases used by Mildred D Taylor:

There was little I could do in a dress, and as for shoes, they imprisoned freedom-loving feet accustomed to the feel of the warm earth.

I would wear threadbare clothing washed to dishwater color ...

“Shoot,” I mumbled, taking one of the buckets from Stacey, “by the time a body walk way back here, they’ll have bunions on their soles and corns on their toes.”

Here is a list of the characters in this story.

Description of Mr Morrison (I hope we learn more about him in the subsequent books): The man was a human tree in height, towering high above Papa’s six feet two inches. The long trunk of his massive body bulged with muscles, and his skin, of the deepest ebony, was partially scarred upon his face and neck, as if by fire. Deep lifelines were cut into his face and his hair was splotched with gray, but his eyes were clear and penetrating. I glanced at the boys and it was obvious to me that they were wondering the same thing as I: Where had such a being come from?

This US classic was published in 1977 but I am not sure if many readers of my generation would have encountered this book in Australia. 

Awards for Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry:

• Newbery Medal 1977
• National Book Award finalist 
• Coretta Scott King Award Honour

Publisher blurb: Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect.

Until now, Cassie had been well protected by her family from racism, and she had no idea just how important it was that her family had their own piece of land. She learns about racism quickly the year the Night Riders come to town, as many dangerous, scary, and ill-natured things happen. Ultimately, Cassie learns that she and her family have something nobody can take away from them. Thanks to her ability to speak her mind, readers experience the heavy truth of the often brutal and intense way African Americans have been treated. Children's Book Review

I started reading this book (ebook version) on a train journey to my volunteer library job and I read more than one third of the text but then I decided to leave this book for a week because I needed to be quiet and calm and have the time and emotional strength to cope with the scenes I predicted were coming in this story for example when the family cross the bridge and don't let the white driver go first and Mama says “But one day we’ll have to pay for it. Believe me,” she said, “one day we’ll pay”. 

I picked this book up again a week later and then in the early hours of the morning, around 2am, I finished my reading and discovered I now need to read the sequels. I have read The Gold Cadillac and Mississippi Bridge without realising they were part of this series or connected to Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry and I have discovered Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry is actually book four in this series. 

• Song of the Trees
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
• Let the Circle Be Unbroken
• The Friendship
• The Gold Cadillac
• Mississippi Bridge
• The Road to Memphis
• The Well
• The Land
• All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt

My father is with God, just as the minister here says. But God didn’t call him there because God had work for him to do. My father died because he was doing God’s work here. 

He wanted the people of Malaga Island to live in a place that was their own.”

I started reading this book four days ago, but I kept having to put it down because there are so many utterly terrible scenes. On the one hand I wanted to keep reading but I also felt the need to protect myself from the vicious scenes. 

This book is utterly harrowing and upsetting but I really do appreciate the journey Gary D Schmidt has taken me on. About halfway through this story I began to worry there might not be a happy ending so I decided to skim through a few reviews. Some said the ending was tragic, but I also read that the ending was hopeful. This means that when the most dreadful and devastating things happened to Turner, I simply did not believe them. 

I should have read the Kirkus Star review more carefully:

There can be no happy ending to this story, but the telling is both beautiful and emotionally honest, both funny and piercingly sad.

Bookseller blurb: Set in 1912 and centered on a historical event, the moving and compelling coming-of-age story of Turner, a white minister's son who discovers joy through his friendship with a black girl, Lizzie, and finds his own strength and voice after painful losses transform his life. In this powerful and moving novel, Turner Buckminster, a preacher's son newly arrived in in Phippsburg, Maine, meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a strong, spirited black girl from Malaga Island, a nearby island community founded by former slaves. All of Phippsburg, especially Turner's repressive father, disapproves of their friendship, but Turner ignores them; Lizzie is the wisest, most knowledgeable person he ever met. On top of knowing everything, she can row a boat and pitch a baseball like a champ. The town's move to turn the island into a tourist attraction destroys the powerless community, a historical event that occurred in 1912. It is the catalyst for a wave of personal losses that shakes Turner's world but leaves him whole.

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a Young Adult title and I would say this book is best for ages 14+. The treatment of and prejudice towards African American citizens as explained in this story set in 1912 in Maine is certain to shock teenage readers here in modern Australia.  It is also important to read the back notes which explain the actual historical events that inspired this novel.

If you are book talking Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy I would use the four covers I have shared above as a way to interest your library or class group. In the light of my earlier comments it is interesting to think about the age intention of these cover designs. I wouldn't use this with a high school group but I do wish I could find a soundtrack of all the hymns Turner plays to Mrs Cobb. 

Take a look at this review. Here are some text quotes from this book:

Opening sentence: Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for fifteen minutes shy of six hours. He had dipped his hand in its waves and licked the salt from his fingers. He had smelled the sharp resin of the pines. He had heard the low rhythm of the bells on the buoys that balanced on the ridges of the sea. He had seen the fine clapboard parsonage beside the church where he was to live, ...

He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. Maybe somewhere out West there really were Territories that he could light out to, where being a minister’s son wouldn’t matter worth a . . . well, worth a darn. He hoped so, because here, being a minister’s son mattered a whole lot, and pretending that it didn’t matter to him was starting to peck at his soul.

Readers let's meet Lizzie Bright: She looked out at the thrusting tide, clenched her toes into the loose sand, and smelled the salty, piney air. At thirteen, she was, as her grandfather liked to remind her, one year older than the century, and so a good deal wiser. Too wise to stay on Malaga Island, he said, but she planned to stay there forever. Where else, after all, did the tide set a pale crab on your toe?

“More to the point,” said the tallest of the group—the one with the most expensive frock coat, the most expensive top hat, and the most expensive shiny shoes—“one less colored on Malaga Island.” Laughter from the group, louder than the gulls. “Though the issue is much larger than one colored.” His eye searched the pine shadows across the water for the girl, as if he sensed her watching him. His hands moved to the lapels of his coat. “The issue is how to relieve Malaga Island of the girl, her family, her neighbors, what she would call her house, what they would call their town.”

“Reverend Buckminster, behold the cross we bear in Phippsburg: a ragtag collection of hovels and shacks, filled with thieves and lazy sots, eking out a life by eating clams from the ocean mud, heedless of offers of help from either state or church, a blight on the town’s aspirations, a hopeless barrier to its future.”

The afternoon had become as hot as meanness, and since the shirt he was wearing had enough starch in it to mummify two, maybe three, pharaohs, he began to feel he could hardly breathe. The only thing that saved him from absolute suffocation was the sea breeze somersaulting and fooling, first ahead, then behind, running and panting like a dog ready to play.

In the clearing, sixty graves lay quiet and still, restful. Wood crosses with printed names too faded to read stood at their heads. Some had piles of pink-grained stones gathered from around the island placed carefully at the foot of each cross. Some had sprigs of violets, some fresh evergreen boughs.

She took a deep breath, and she wasn’t just breathing in the air. She breathed in the waves, the sea grass, the pines, the pale lichens on the granite, the sweet shimmering of the pebbles dragged back and forth in the surf, the fish hawk diving to the waves, the dolphin jumping out of them. She would not ebb.

And suddenly, Turner had a thought that had never occurred to him before: he wondered if his father really believed a single thing he was saying. And suddenly, Turner had a second thought that had never occurred to him before: he wondered if he believed a single thing his father was saying.

Turner felt the cold of the place come into him. He could not move. It was as though the bricks surrounded him and him alone. He felt that he would never escape them, never see anyone he loved again, never see the ocean waves again. That he would always be cold, and the cold would be in him more than around him.

Companion book:

Stella by Starlight

You may have read my previous post about the Newbery Award where I set myself a challenge to read more of the honor book titles. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004) was one title on my list - partly because the title sounded intriguing and partly because I recognised the author's name.

I previously read these books by Gary D Schmidt:

Orbiting Jupiter

The Wednesday Wars

Tru and Nelle by G Neri

About Tru:

• Truman Capote was born on 30 September 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana, originally named Truman Streckfus Persons. He changed his name to Truman Garcia Capote in 1935 – from his stepfather, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born New York businessman.
• Capote’s parents divorced when he was very young, and he was subsequently primarily raised by his mother’s relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. He formed a special bond with his distant relative, Nanny Rumbley Faulk – ‘Sook’.
• Truman Capote’s best friend in Monroeville was the girl-next-door, Nelle Harper Lee, who later based the precocious character of Dill Harris on Capote in her famous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Similarly, Capote also used Harper Lee as an inspiration for the character Idabel Tompkins in his debut novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms.
• Truman was classified as a “lonely child,” and before he even entered formal schooling, he used that loneliness (along with his obvious smarts) to teach himself how to read and write. By 11, he was already writing his first short stories.

About Nelle:

• Harper Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee. Her first name is a backwards spelling of her grandmother’s name—Ellen. When pursuing her writing career, Lee dropped her first name because she didn’t want people misprinting or mispronouncing it as “Nellie.”
• She did not seem to have many companions during her childhood except her neighbor and friend Truman Capote. 
• Lee met Truman Capote when they were both around five years old, and she was his protector from neighborhood bullies for much of their early years.
• Lee’s mother probably had some psychological ailments and this left a profound impact on her. Truman also faced domestic problems and the two found an outlet in each other to pour out these grievances which later came out through their writings.
• The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family and neighbors in Monroeville, Alabama, as well as a childhood event that occurred near her hometown in 1936. The novel deals with racist attitudes, the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children.
• Her father was a former newspaper editor, businessman, and lawyer, who also served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. ... Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged.

G. Neri skillfully weaves all of these facts into a brilliant story for readers aged 11+. I do need to give a warning - there are two very confronting scenes from Chapter 24 through to Chapter 26 - one involving the Klu Klux Clan and the suggestion of a lynching and the other is a dreadful staged fight between two enormous snakes where men bet on the outcome. Read this sentence - king = snake, moccasin = snake, green backs = money, hood = the Clan.

"Meet me this afternoon at the snake pit ... Indian Joe done got a king and a moccasin goin'. We gonna make enough green backs to cover my hooch costs. And bring my hood, boy. We got fireworks tonight."

Listen to an audio sample and here is the publisher blurb: Long before they became famous writers, Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) were childhood friends in Monroeville, Alabama. This fictionalized account of their time together opens at the beginning of the Great Depression, when Tru is seven and Nelle is six. They love playing pirates, but they like playing Sherlock and Watson-style detectives even more. It’s their pursuit of a case of drugstore theft that lands the daring duo in real trouble. Humor and heartache intermingle in this lively look at two budding writers in the 1930s South.

Every time I go to our local charity Lifeline Book fair I seem to pick up a truly surprising book. How did this book published in the US in 2016 end up in a book fair in Sydney, Australia? There is a clue on the back cover. This book was purchased from an Australian independent book seller (now closed) for $25. It was added to their shop shelves in November 2016. Who purchased this book? There is a clue inside the front cover. Very very childish writing says "This book belongs to Leda". If the writing matches the age of this child then I am certain Leda did not read this book - so of course it is in mint condition with the dust jacket intact. On the final day of the fair every book is half price if you spend over $30 so I picked up this book for $1.50 - amazing. You can read more plot details here.

Betsy Bird shares two videos made by G (Greg) Neri about Monroeville and his book. These will give you a fabulous insight into the background to this book. 

Here are a couple of text quotes to give the flavour of the writing:

"They decided to pay a social call on Mr Yarborough (owner of the drugstore) to straighten out the facts. The plan was to just sit there and chat away, enjoying an ice cold Catawba Flip or a fluffy Cherry Dope at the soda fountain. Then using their wiles and charms, they'd get Mr Yarborough to reveal some crucial bits of information which would solve the case."

"Because it was Halloween, the Boular house reminded Nelle even more of an old graveyard. Surrounded by spooky trees and a rusty bent fence, the house was built of dark wood and was rumored to be haunted. It was foreboding and sagged in the middle like it was on its last legs. The yard was an overgrown tangle of scuppernong arbors and wild pecan trees. If you hit a ball into ol' man Boular's yard and he was home, you could consider that ball lost forever."

The charming and elegantly written novel doesn’t shy away from issues of mental illness, child abandonment, and racism, but they are woven neatly into the fabric of the characters’ lives in the tiny Southern town. Kirkus star review

Many readers are given To Kill a Mockingbird as a High School text. Tru and Nelle could be an interesting way to explore the background to that famous book. Take a look at this page on the author website. Here is the sequel to Tru and Nelle which I plan to read as a ebook:

Companion reads:

How High the Moon

Stella by Starlight

Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Manifest verb: to show something clearly, through signs or actions

Manifest adjective: easily noticed or obvious

It's taken me a few days to read this 2011 winner of the Newbery Medal and I am glad I didn't rush because this book does require some concentration as we shift between 1917-1918 and 1936 and also juggle a myriad of small town sightly eccentric characters. I finished this book around 2am last night and on page 320 I gasped out loud because Clare Vanderpool made me care so much about the people of this town and, well I can't tell you what happened on October 28th, 1918 only to say this is a very sad moment and a powerful turning point in the story. Another marker of a great story to me is when I finish my journey, in this case to Manifest, I then am so keen to think of another reader who will enjoy this book - that's one of the many things I do miss about working in a school library. 

Here are a few of the characters:

• Abilene Tucker, a brave 12-year-old girl.
• Shady Howard, pastor, bootlegger and owner of the home where Abilene lives in Manifest
• Gideon Tucker, father of Abilene.  He sends her to Manifest. [absent parent]
• Miss Sadie Redizon, a mysterious Hungarian fortune teller who only tells stories about the past.
• Jinx, a boy that comes to Manifest.
• Soletta (Lettie) Taylor, Abilene's friend who is helping find the Rattler and Ruthanne's cousin
• Benedek (Ned) Gillian, friend of Jinx

Minor characters

• Hattie Mae Harper, the town's newspaper reporter who helps Abilene research her family's past.
• Sister Redempta, the town's school teacher nun, also helps with other affairs.
• Mr. Underhill, an undertaker
• Velma T Harkrader, chemistry teacher
• Eudora Larkin, president of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Manifest

Publisher blurb: The movement of the train rocked me like a lullaby. I closed my eyes to the dusty countryside and imagined the sign I’d seen only in Gideon’s stories: Manifest—A Town with a rich past and a bright future. Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was. Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it’s just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos, including some old letters that mention a spy known as the Rattler. These mysterious letters send Abilene and her new friends, Lettie and Ruthanne, on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt, even though they are warned to “Leave Well Enough Alone.” Abilene throws all caution aside when she heads down the mysterious Path to Perdition to pay a debt to the reclusive Miss Sadie, a diviner who only tells stories from the past. It seems that Manifest’s history is full of colourful and shadowy characters—and long-held secrets. The more Abilene hears, the more determined she is to learn just what role her father played in that history. And as Manifest’s secrets are laid bare one by one, Abilene begins to weave her own story into the fabric of the town.

The mementos in the box are a fishing lure; a tiny doll from a nesting set; a silver dollar; a skeleton key and a cork. "To me they were like treasures from a museum, things a person could study to learn about another time and the people who lived back then." And that's exactly what happens. Abilene loses her father's lucky compass in the local graveyard. It turns up in the home of Miss Sadie hanging from the roof of her verandah. Abilene breaks a huge pot in the garden when she climbs up to retrieve her precious compass and so as payment she has to do chores and gardening for Miss Sadie. Over the coming weeks Miss Sadie tells Abilene stories of the town specifically events of 1917-1918 and each story mysteriously mentions one of the objects from that cigar box she found under the floorboards at Shady's place. I do enjoy stories that feel like making a jigsaw. It is not until you reach the end of the story that the whole picture is revealed - this is very satisfying. 

Listen to an audio sample from chapter one. Ms Yingling did not really like Moon over Manifest but she does give a good story summary as usual. 

I just can’t even begin to tell how enamoured I am of this book. It is one of those deceptively simple slow-burning stories: the kind that needs to be savoured little by little so that the reader can truly absorb its subtle themes and its hidden meanings. It features stories within stories and the power that those stories hold in preserving memory as well as changing the future of a place. The Book Smugglers

Kirkus star review.

Clare Vanderpool is an American children's book author living in Wichita, Kansas. Her first book, Moon Over Manifest, won the 2011 Newbery Medal, becoming the first debut author to achieve the feat in thirty years. I am now very keen to read her second book published in 2014

Here is a list of Newbery winners from 2001 onwards:

• A Year Down Yonder (2001)
• A Single Shard (2002)
• Crispin (2003)
• The Tale of Despereaux (2004)
• Kira-Kira (2005)
• Criss Cross (2006)
• The Higher Power of Lucky (2007)
• Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! (2008)
• The Graveyard Book (2009)
• When You Reach Me (2010)
• Moon Over Manifest (2011)
• Dead End in Norvelt (2012)
• The One and Only Ivan (2013)
• Flora & Ulysses (2014)
• The Crossover (2015)
• Last Stop on Market Street (2016)
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon (2017)
• Hello, Universe (2018)
• Merci Suárez Changes Gears (2019)
• New Kid (2020)
• When You Trap a Tiger (2021)
• The Last Cuentista (2022)
• Freewater (2023)

These might seem like strange choices but here are some companion reads:

Pony

The Parker Inheritance

One came home

Someplace to call Home

Walking with Miss Millie

Three times Lucky

Maizy Chen's Last Chance by Lisa Yee

Fortune Cookie wisdom  

Good friends are friends for life. 

Talk is overrated. True friendships are not.

Maizy and her mum have driven to Last Chance, Minnesota because Opa (Grandfather) is very unwell. Maizy has never visited her grand parents or seen their Chinese restaurant before. Mum and Oma (Grandma) are not on speaking terms. This is just one of the puzzles Maize has to unravel. She also needs to hear the story of her family going all the way back to the 1850s. Opa tells the story of Lucky - his great great grandfather all the while teaching Maizy how to play poker - the card game and the life game.

"In my family, some times what's not said takes up more space than what is."

"It's not just the cards you're dealt. It's what you do with them that matters most."

"You're not interested in stuff like sailing ships, outlaws and a gold mountain are you?"

"It's funny how one insult can ruin your day or how one compliment can make someone so happy."

Take a close look at the cover - the tiny details here are important to this story - fortune cookies; Grandma (Oma) and Grandpa (Opa); a large brown wooden bear; the Chinese restaurant; and even the LA T shirt worn by Maizy herself.  There are 81 chapters in this book - they are all so short the pages just fly by. This book truly is a page turner. I can understand why this was a 2023 Newbery Honour Book.

If you are sharing this book here in Australia I would use this quote as a way to start a discussion about the themes of racism which are explored in this story:

"Does this girl even know how beautiful she is? I wonder what it would be like to be blond and beautiful. Or just blond. Or just beautiful."

I was called for jury duty today and because this is a long process I took along my ipad which has a few Kindle middle grade books. At 9am I settled down to wait and I read over 60% of this book and then when I arrived home (everyone was dismissed - no one was needed for a jury today) I finished off Maizy Chen's Last Chance. Now I need to head out to my local Chinese restaurant and devour some delicious food - this book is filled with tantalising dishes. It was great to see so many people who were sitting in the court holding area today reading books and ebooks. 

Here is a video with Colby Sharp talking about this book. He mentions the minor characters and I totally agree. I loved the way Maizy needed to discover each of their back stories and motivations. Take a look at the author page about this book. Here is an in depth interview between Lisa Yee and Roger Sutton (Horn Book). Here is the Kirkus Star review.

This was a perfect balance between a fun setting and characters, and more serious issues and history. Ms Yingling (she also mentions The Parker Inheritance as a related text). Read her review for more plot details. 

Maize asks Principal Holmes if she can borrow books from his high school library over the summer months while they stay in Last Chance. Specifically she asks for this book which I have now added to my own enormous to read list:

Companion books to read after Maizy Chen's last chance:

Zadie Ma and the dog who chased the moon

Danny Chung does not do Maths

Front Desk (this is the cover here in Australia)

Tiger Daughter (for readers aged 12+)

Little Sure Shot by Matt Ralphs

Annie lives in Ohio. Her real name is Phoebe Anne Mosey. She lives with her Pa, Ma, four older sisters, a baby sister and a young brother. They are poor but surviving and this is a loving family. Annie is a little different from her siblings because she loves to go out with Pa hunting and he can see she has skill so he is teaching her, even though she is only six, to load his gun and how to shoot wild animals to give the family food. 

Pa sets out one day with grain for the Mill but on his return journey the weather takes a terrible turn and Pa arrives home frozen and desperately unwell. The family all try to keep him alive in the hope that he might recover but sadly, after a few months Pa dies. Things now become desperate and so Ma is forced to give her baby to a childless couple and then she decides Annie will need to go to the Infirmary. Luckily the people there are kind and Annie can eat well and have some freedom but all of this is cut short when a farmer requests a girl to come and help his wife with her new baby. Annie does not want to go but there is a promise of $2 to be sent to her Ma each week. 

Mr and Mrs Grace are despicable people. They starve Annie and beat her but she stays and tries to survive in this horrible place because she knows the money will be helping her family. Little does she know (spoiler alert) no money is actually being sent. Eventually the violence becomes so bad that Annie runs away back to the Infirmary. Now her luck and fortunes change. Annie is very skilled with a gun and this comes to the attention of a local butcher. He enters her in shooting competitions and she begins to win some money - enough money to help her family. Then Annie comes to the attention of a hotel owner and he takes her to see a sharp shooter called Frank Butler. From there she goes on to meet Chief Sitting Bull (yes this really did happen to Annie Oakley) and later Buffalo Bill or Wild Bill Cody. She joins his show with her new husband Frank Butler and she then travels all over the US, Canada and even Europe.  

Publisher blurb: Annie’s family work hard to survive on their Ohio farm. Annie’s happiest when hunting game with her pa, and she doesn’t care one bit that it’s not the kind of thing girls are meant to do. When tragedy strikes, the family is thrown into deepest poverty. Until one day, Annie dares to pick up Pa’s old rifle, and find a way to feed her starving family. As the family’s fortunes worsen, Annie is sent away to work, and life becomes an ever greater struggle. Yet Annie has the courage and pluck to survive – and her brilliance with a rifle starts to gain her more than just turkeys for the pot. Can Annie’s amazing skills take her all the way to fame and fortune?

Little Sure Shot is the story of Annie Oakley but readers will not know this until the final pages and the Afterword. I really enjoyed this story of courage and survival. As a young reader I loved books set in the pioneering days of the US such as the Little House books and Children of the Oregon Trail. Readers who enjoy stories about real people are sure to enjoy meeting Annie. I was totally caught up in her story. I sat down to read a few chapters of Little Sure Shot just after breakfast today and I then I kept reading right to the end (287 pages).

I do need to give a warning - the book is filled with guns and shooting and also the domestic violence in the scenes with Mr and Mrs Grace are very distressing. I would recommend this book for mature readers aged 11+.

Shot-through with courage and adventure, Ralphs’ rendering of Oakley’s incredible rags-to-riches story is an inspiration. Love Reading4Kids

Read more about Annie Oakley:

National Women's History Museum

History.com

Companion read:

May B: A novel

Matt Ralphs is the author of Fire Girl and Fire Witch - two books which totally engrossed me. Little Sure Shot is very different in setting and style but it is just as engrossing. 

The Summer We Found the Baby by Amy Hest

 

Julie Sweet and her little sister Martha find a baby on the steps of the library. The sisters have come to the library because today is the day the new children's library will be opened and they are hoping a very special guest will arrive to cut the ribbon. Julie, aged eleven, has even made a cake for the celebration but all of this goes out of her mind when she sees the baby on the library steps in a carry basket. 

Julie picks up the basket and heads off to the beach with her little sister tagging behind. Where did this baby come from? Bruno sees Julie pick up the basket. He sees there is a note inside. He and Julie used to be friends but something has gone seriously wrong and she won't speak to him even though he lives next door.  Little Martha adores Bruno's mum Mrs Ben Eli. Mr and Mrs Ben Eli run the local store in this seaside place and Summer is their busiest time. Bruno is sure Julie is kidnapping the baby so he feels he has to follow her. He did have a more urgent plan for that day having just received a letter from his brother who is serving in the army. The letter told Bruno to catch the train to New York to find his brother Ben's girl friend, Tess. 

This story is told in three voices - Julie, Martha and Bruno - and as we read we slowly piece together the events of the Summer, why Julie is not speaking to Bruno, the importance of letters from young soldiers and a little about Julie and Martha's mum who died many years ago. 

I selected this book because I have read and enjoyed other books by Amy Hest and as you can see I have given this five stars. I highly highly recommend this book for readers aged 9+. It is a short book with lots of white space and empty pages between scenes. I read the whole thing in less than an hour. Read more plot details by Ms Yingling.

Warm family stories laced with some sorrow and great joy. Kirkus star review

Throughout the tale, Hest juxtaposes childish bickering with the heavy weight of grief and ultimately hope in the form Eleanor Roosevelt. Historical novel society

This brief story unfolds in short vignettes which prove surprisingly engaging and will draw the reader in quickly. Kids Book a Day

Gold Rush Girl by Avi

"San Francisco was set amidst steep, scrubby hills the colour of dead straw, with dusty, sandy dunes an little shrubbery. ... (There was a) muddle of low, wretched, lopsided buildings. These pathetic structures came right down to the water as if they had slid off the hills into a great jumblement."

Times are hard for the Blaisdell family who live in Providence Rhode Island so father declares he will travel to San Francisco where gold has been discovered. Even the US President has declared this land is filled with gold. Surely it will be easy to gather enough gold to restore the family's fortunes. The plan is for father with travel with his young son Jacob while Mother and Victoria (Tory) aged fourteen will join them in a few months.  This plan, however, does not suit young Tory who longs to break away from convention and find adventure.  Her life motto from Jane Eyre is:

Your will shall decide your destiny

Tory contrives a plan to stowaway and travel with her father but she has no idea about the dangers she will meet and her first sight of San Francisco is so very different from the town of her imagination. Then father heads off to the goldfields and Tory and Jacob are left to fend for themselves. This place is filled with crime, gambling, drinking and wild men. Tory does find a way to survive, she is such a resourceful and sensible girl, but then one day Jacob disappears.

Gold Rush Girl was published in 2020 but the paperback has only just arrived here in Australia.

In this video Avi reads chapter 6.

Avi describes his book: Victoria Blaisdell longs for independence and adventure, and she yearns to accompany her father as he sails west in search of real gold! But it is 1848, and Tory isn’t even allowed to go to school, much less travel all the way from Rhode Island to California. Determined to take control of her own destiny, Tory stows away on the ship. Though San Francisco is frenzied and full of wild and dangerous men, Tory finds freedom and friendship there. Until one day, when Father is in the gold fields, her younger brother, Jacob, is kidnapped. And so Tory is spurred on a treacherous search for him in Rotten Row, a part of San Francisco Bay crowded with hundreds of abandoned ships.

Middle-grade readers will thrill over this swashbuckling adventure  ... Historical Novel Society

A splendidly exciting and accessible historical adventure. Kirkus

His storytelling is rich and visual and will stimulate your senses. Readers will smell the stench of San Francisco — the rotting boats,  street sewage, drunken and sweaty men, and soaked sailcloth tents. They will feel what it’s like to trudge through thick mud and dense fog. Children's Books Heal

This book would be a terrific class read aloud book especially if you are studying the Gold Rush era or teachers might select one or two scenes to read aloud such as when Tory and her new friends finally find Jacob but Tory is confronted by a wild man with a gun and then the ship catches on fire.(Chapter 40 and 41).  

Here are some other books about the Gold Rush ears with Australian and US settings. You might also be able to find a wonderful book called The Rusty Key Adventures by Gary Hurle (sadly long out of print):

Image from To the Goldfields by Rachel Tonkin (published 1999)

Here are some other books by Avi:

The Button War

The Book without Words

I first discovered US author Avi through is Poppy book series.