Books, Reading, Libraries, and Learning Blog

Book Review of Burn Baby Burn   BIBLIOGRAPHY Medina, Meg. 2016. BURN BABY BURN. Somerville, MA : Candlewick Press . ISBN 9780763674670. PLOT SUMMARY Nora Lopez and her best friend are about to graduate from high school. They plan to make the summer after they graduate the best one of their lives, but issues in Nora’s life, as well as city-wide arsons, electrical blackouts, and a spate of killings make this anything but a happy time in their lives.     CRITICAL ANALYSIS 1977 New York City was an intense, stressful year for its residents; and Meg Medina captures the anxiety perfectly in her young adult novel, BURN BABY BURN. The protagonist is Nora Lopez. She is about to turn 18 and graduate from high school with her best friend Kathleen MacInerney. The author captures the events occurring in the city, arsons, killings, and electrical blackouts, in all their terrible glory. Nora’s younger brother, Hector, is a juvenile delinquent, responsible for some of those aforementioned arsons. Com

Book Review of The Book Thief   BIBLIOGRAPHY Zusak, Marcus. THE BOOK THIEF. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York. ISBN 9780375831003.   PLOT SUMMARY Liesel is adopted by a German couple. They raise her in a medium-size town during World War II. She, her family, and friends live through increasingly difficult times as the war goes badly for Germany. Her best friend is Rudy. Together they have many adventures together. At great risk to themselves, Liesel’s family takes in a young Jewish man who is hiding from the German authorities. The man eventually leaves them to protect them from possible repercussions from the authorities. After that Liesel’s street is bombed by the allies, and her mother, father, and best friend are killed. At the end of her life, she is living in Sydney, Australia where she passes away from old age.   CRITICAL ANALYSIS The accuracy and

Book Review of Salt to the Sea   BIBLIOGRAPHY Sepetys, Ruta. 2016. SALT TO THE SEA. New York, NY: Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. ISBN 9780399160301.             PLOT SUMMARY Four young people take turns telling the story of their lives as they negotiate their singular roles in 1945 wartime Germany and the surrounding countries. Their paths unite in different places, merging at the end in a tapestry of intensity and pathos.       CRITICAL ANALYSIS This is an outstanding novel. It takes a little while to get used to cycling between the main four characters, but once you learn who is who, you develop a true concern for three of them, and a disgust for the fourth. Sepetys’ use of this one despicable character reinforces the positive attributes of the other three main characters, as well as that of their companions. As I read the novel, I found myself rooting for the three “good” characters, and, in a strange way, looking forward to reading the di

Book Review of All American Boys   BIBLIOGRAPHY Reynolds, Jason and Kiely, Brendan. 2015. ALL AMERICAN BOYS. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division . ISBN 9781481463331. PLOT SUMMARY Rashad Butler, a black high school student, experiences police profiling and brutality when he is arrested for alleged shoplifting. His schoolmate, Quinn Collins, witnesses the arrest and is shocked by it. It is even more shocking because the officer is the older brother of one of his high school basketball teammates. This older brother had helped raise Quinn after his father had been killed in Afghanistan. The beating that Rashad experiences at the hands of the policeman lands him in the hospital for a number of days with significant injuries. Quinn tries to come to grips with the situation. He wants to support his schoolmate Rashad, but he also wants to support his teammate (the brother of the police officer) and his teammate’s b

Book Review of The Fault in Our Stars   BIBLIOGRAPHY Green, John. THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. New York, NY: Dutton Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. ISBN 9780142424179.   PLOT SUMMARY Hazel Grace Lancaster is a teenager with cancer. At a group therapy meeting she meets another cancer survivor named Augustus “Gus” Waters. Hazel and Gus fall in love. They develop an appreciation for each other’s taste in books. They end up traveling together to Amsterdam to visit a writer for whom they have questions. The questions go unanswered, but the trip increases their love for each other.   CRITICAL ANALYSIS Hazel Grace is the teenage protagonist and narrator of the story. Cancer has touched many people’s lives in the real world and this novel does an excellent job reflecting the topic of cancer, and the people that it impacts, accurately and in a true-to-life way. One dichotomy in our world today is that cancer has either impacted your family, or it hasn’t. Young adult

Book Review of The Hate U Give   BIBLIOGRAPHY Thomas, Angela. 2017. THE HATE U GIVE. New York, NY: HarperCollins Children’s Books, a Division of HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9780062498533.             PLOT SUMMARY Starr Carter is an African-American living in a ghetto neighborhood with her family. She witnesses the death of her friend after he is shot by a policeman. Eventually, the policeman goes to trial. The events that happen before, during, and after the trial showcase the world that Starr lives in.               CRITICAL ANALYSIS This book poignantly reflects race relations today in the United States, as well as the history of those relationships for the past number of decades. References throughout the novel are made to Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Tupac, and other iconic members of the civil rights movement and modern American society. The title of the book is explained by the teenage protagonist of the story, Starr Carter. “Pac said Thug Life stood fo