(2) 4-6 Twelve-year-old Summer is excited for her annual visit to her maternal grandparents and extended family on a Cree reservation in Canada. After crossing the border, Summer falls asleep in the car and dreams that she is a young Cree girl trying to escape a residential school. Shortly after she wakes up, she and her mother pass the residential school the government once forced her mosom (grandfather) to attend. The strange dreams continue while she's on the rez; Summer learns that the young Cree girl's name is Buffalo Dreamer, but the school calls her Mary. When Summer tells her cousin Autumn about her dreams, the two decide to investigate what became of Buffalo Dreamer. Along with providing a glimpse into life on a Cree reservation today, Duncan's middle grade friendly narrative introduces readers to the devastating impact of residential schools. For example, readers learn that Mosom had to learn Cree customs from his wife because the school prohibited him from engaging in them. The chapters that follow Buffalo Dreamer reveal the dangers of trying to escape from the school. An author's note adds personal context; a glossary (unseen) is appended.

Reviewer: Nicholl Denice Montgomery | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) YA When Skye was six years old, her parents, both physicists, divorced. She and her brother, Finn, spent alternate weekends with their dad, but he became increasingly obsessed with physics and would forget to feed and interact with the kids, leaving them to fend for themselves. When the book opens, Skye (now twelve), her mother, and her mother's kind boyfriend are celebrating Finn's "MIA birthday," because Finn was kidnapped by their father and has been missing for four years. Miraculously, he is found soon after and returns home: "And then he's there. A tall Black boy with short, tiny dreads, fat headphones looped around his neck. Finn. My brother. My Finn." Skye is excited that her brother is back, but she realizes that the boy who has returned is a different person. This Finn is "so sad and lost, like he carries so much pain inside"; rather than accept the fact that her brother has changed, Skye believes that he is an imposter, whom she calls "Not-Finn." Skye must come to terms with some tough and tangled truths, including admitting to herself that she feels rejected because her father didn't kidnap her. This engaging coming-of-age story gives voice to complicated and traumatic feelings caused by divorce and estrangement, to changes in family and friendships, and to the difficulty of accepting the inevitability of change.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) YA Alternating narrators Rosie, Caro, and Zeke find themselves transplanted to Jersey City, New Jersey, where each struggles to relate to the people around them. Sisters Rosie and Caro arrived with their mom from the Dominican Republic years earlier, escaping an abusive and absent father who has gone on to start a new family. After losing his mom, Zeke (who is of Jamaican and Panamanian descent) has moved to the area from Miami for a fresh start. Each teen battles their own anxieties through a series of misadventures that uncover hidden truths about themselves and their family histories. They are helped along the way by Rosie and Caro's aunt, whose spiritual practices explain the power of several magical objects that enter their lives: a pink jacket, two rings, and a baseball bat. Gomera-Tavarez offers a fast-paced plot with relatable characters who represent distinctive Afro-Latine experiences. Zeke also navigates his emerging queer identity, and the young women deal with gender-based pressures about appearance and sexuality, demonstrated through a strained relationship with their mother. While the story touches upon various types of trauma and abuse, it does so in a way that can help readers identify tactics for recognizing and processing pain and suffering, especially with the help of loved ones.

Reviewer: Nicholas A. Brown | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(4) YA In their small Ontario farming town, five best friends are known as “good girls,” the rule followers and peacekeepers. But when a classmate has an abortion and the parents of the boy who got her pregnant erect a pro-life billboard on their property, the friends are incensed. As their senior year unfolds, each girl makes a birthday wish to undertake a subversive action taking aim at the patriarchy, and the group vows to help pull it off. While the premise is intriguing, the acts themselves are mostly low stakes and don’t feel as consequential as the characters make them out to be. The girls’ voices are indistinguishable in each first-person chapter; family histories and town gossip slow the plot. What is palpable is the rage these girls feel at being underestimated, undervalued, and written off.

Reviewer: Jennifer Hubert Swan

(1) YA Jane, sixteen, lives with her father, Vernon; her younger brother, Henry; house staff; and a rat in a Victorian-style mansion that has been in her mother's family for generations. Mom is a punk rock star (a "feminist archangel of compassion") who is often out on tour and is made a prisoner when at home: she's confined to a system of human-sized pneumatic tubes installed throughout the house. Jane doesn't think to question the setup -- manipulative, controlling Vernon having so thoroughly and cruelly turned her and Henry against their mother -- until she discovers "home movies" (i.e., surveillance videos) that allow her to witness the truth. She begins a process of unlearning that includes writing a punk opera called Free Mother, alerting school administrators to her educational neglect (Vernon has nominally homeschooled the children since the COVID-19 quarantine), tanking forced encounters with "suitors," and embracing her queer identity. The story begins in September 2024 and ends in March 2025, with frequent jumps in time, digressions into the fantastical and surreal, and variations in storytelling format: Jane's main narrative, song lyrics, video transcripts, lists, postcards, the rat's first-person perspective, and more. The emotional landscape is similarly vast: bewilderment, rage, regret, sorrow, empathy, enlightenment. "How easily tricked we can be. How easily influenced. How mean. How simply honest we can be. How beautifully influenced. How kind," observes Jane, in a well-earned and cathartic ending.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(2) 4-6 Having written several works of historical fiction with d/Deaf characters, LeZotte (Show Me a Sign, rev. 9/20, and sequels) now turns to a setting in which the issues that compromise the mental and physical well-being of d/Deaf children are contemporary and immediate. This first-person, present-tense verse novel accelerates suspensefully in a series of vignettes, events, and reflections. Effie lives with her older sister and alcoholic father, having been cast out of her mother and stepfather's house. None of her family has learned American Sign Language, the only language fully accessible for her; it's left to her school interpreter, Miss Kathy, to provide deep refreshment to Effie's love and communication-thirsty soul. In brief, spare entries, Effie conveys her fears and isolation, enjoys a new friendship with a classmate with cerebral palsy, and finally finds a way to tell Miss Kathy about her stepfather's sexual predation. Miss Kathy applies for custody, which is granted after a tense three-day hearing; Effie's father is found to be an unfit guardian because he refuses to learn ASL. (LeZotte reports in her author's note that she based her plot on a similar, historic case in the d/Deaf community, and that three out of four hearing parents do not learn to sign with their deaf children.) LeZotte packs a great deal into this very quick work, and while the complexity of anguish, isolation, language trauma, and sexual abuse Effie suffers could merit fuller expression, the story can pique interest and raise awareness of what it is like to grow up d/Deaf in a non-signing family, using ASL interpreters, or confronting false assumptions about disability.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(2) 4-6 Eleven-year-old Tig has been abandoned by her mother and has lived for four months on her own, with no money, no food, and no electricity. Now Uncle Scott and his partner, Manny, are at the police station to take her home. Tig has been traumatized by the circumstances of her life: her father died when she was four, her mother used to disappear for days at a time before leaving for good, and her mother's boyfriend Eddy was abusive. Reflecting on ending up with Uncle Scott and Manny, Tig says, "It's like how abandoned animals stop trusting humans. They go wild and crazy and when they're rescued it takes ages for them to calm down, to love and be loved again." Smith sensitively delineates Tig's gradual road to recovery and love, and an uneasy one it is: Tig smashes the new television, purposely drops a hammer on Manny's foot, and tells Uncle Scott his house is a dump and he's garbage. A major plot twist adds poignancy and drama. Tig does come to love Uncle Scott and Manny, who are steadfast in their love for each other and for her. A good match with other recent stories of abandoned children, such as Rudd's How to Stay Invisible (rev. 7/23) and Fipps's And Then, Boom! (rev. 5/24).

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(2) YA Sharkita is always waiting for the other shoe to drop, although her life finally feels like it is on the right track. Her mom is now employed and sober, and Kita has been reunited with her two younger siblings, Lamar and Lilli. Letting her guard down slowly, she tries to be a regular middle schooler hanging out with friends and even trying out for the twirl squad. Unfortunately, the stability of her family begins to unravel, and a series of events lands the siblings in foster care once again. After an assault leads to her hospitalization, Kita finds she needs to summon her courage to start over, and hopefully this time will be different. A heart-wrenching tale of family disruption, this story is one of adaptation and resilience. However, the trauma of separation that the protagonist is forced to endure fills her with anxiety. Despite the efforts of such helpful adults as the new assistant principal, she constantly attempts to put on her bravest face to protect the fragile snippets of peace at home. Winston's (The Braid Girls, rev. 7/23) story will resonate with some while offering others a window into a life of abuse and upheaval.

Reviewer: Monique Harris | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(2) 4-6 In this cautionary tale, the sequel to Finally Seen (rev. 1/23), the perks and perils of social media play a pivotal -- and educational -- role. The Gaos still struggle with bills, and Lina's mom joins Instagram to sell more bath bombs. Fifth grader Lina gets her first smartphone, and while technology offers some positives (video-chatting with her Beijing grandma, promoting her neighbors' small businesses), they are outweighed by the negatives. She envies her classmates' fancy homes, worries about her physical appearance, and experiences cyberbullying (as both a target and a bully); and her best friend gets catfished by an adult. Everything converges when the school holds a "Dangers of Social Media" event and a "Justice Session" to discuss student online behavior. Yang integrates facts about how social media is addictive and detrimental to people's mental health into the story and back matter. She helpfully shows readers a way to cut through social media's downsides -- by having honest conversations "brainstorming how to break the dopamine loop. How to not be played by the algorithm."

Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(1) 4-6 If only life were as straightforward as the Rubik's Cube that Laura loves to solve. When this Virginia-set verse novel begins, the Puerto Rican sixth grader is on her way to a kinship foster-care placement "on the other side of town" with her titi Silvia, whom Laura has never met. Pulled from her admittedly chaotic life with her parents, who are struggling with addiction, Laura copes with the overwhelming changes that a new caregiver, new rules, new school, and new peers bring, while suffering with extreme guilt over making the 911 call that resulted in her parents' being placed in rehab. Laura finds purpose in training a dog she rescues near Titi's house to be a therapy animal; her plan is to bring the dog to the rehab facility so she can finally see her parents. Arango's writing is intimate and heart-breaking, tackling such hefty issues as cultural identity, addiction, the pain of displacement and the anxiety it causes, and the adulation and rationalization that a child in pain can offer to adults they love. Arango (Newbery honoree for Iveliz Explains It All, rev. 9/22) accomplishes this with the believable voice of a girl in crisis and by tapping into compassion for all the characters amidst moving scenes of joy and connection.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(2) YA For troubled sixteen-year-old Alicia, the past year has been one of betrayal (she was cut out of her best friend's life "like a tumor"), parental divorce and dysfunction, and social isolation and slut-shaming. Sexual assault by a revered teacher has thrown her into a personal and academic tailspin, leaving her enraged and disillusioned with the adult world. Only through connections with new friends and with a girls' discussion group is Alicia able to see beyond her psychic pain and forge a stronger, healthier sense of self. Racial and cultural awareness (Alicia is white; new friend Deja is Black; another new friend, Geneva, is Pakistani and white) and the highlighting of multiple forms of sexuality and the power of women supporting women help broaden the story's scope beyond its indictment of pervasive predatory male behavior. Alicia's visceral first-person free-verse narrative, full of acerbic and angry barbs, makes for difficult reading at times. Readers are privy to all that she is processing, including her destructive choices and her inability to ask for the support she needs. Interspersed letters to the mythological Medusa express Alicia's modern-day emotions: "A woman doesn't get... / so mad that her hair turns to snakes / so mad that her rage turns blood to boulder / so mad that she withdraws into a cave and dares the world to follow / all on her own." Being able to sit down with compassionate peers and talk about things makes a world of difference.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) YA In this unflinching dual-perspective coming-of-age story, a California teen who at first loathes being Vietnamese gains pride in her heritage while also coming to terms with her emotionally distant, physically abusive refugee father. It's the summer of 1999, and Jane Vu, seventeen, is about to leave San Jose to attend UCLA. She is excited about college but worries about leaving her seven-year-old brother with their single father, Phúc. In lyrically written chapters that alternate with Jane's narrative, readers follow Phúc's traumatic youth in war-torn Vietnam, including acts of love and of violence within his family, and his harrowing escape by boat on the Pacific Ocean. He survives attacks by Thai pirates and starvation only to lose his final shred of innocence with the titular panda-killing. The twin tales of complicated family love come together when Jane gains sympathy for her father after she learns more about his experiences from cousins at a family reunion, and then later while visiting her grandparents in Da Nang. Hoang does a skillful job in capturing multigenerational trauma with Jane's teenage angst and Phúc's damaging voyage. Pair with the adult graphic memoirs 7Vietnamerica7 by G. B. Tran and The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (illustrator of A Different Pond, rev. 9/17).

Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(1) YA Two "migrant kids"--first-generation immigrants to Australia from China--aspire to escape their dysfunctional lives and constricted futures by being accepted to a prestigious, government-funded high school. Wen Li Zhou, thirteen, and her best friend, Henry Xiao, face different challenges. Wen's controlling, verbally abusive father strictly monitors and restricts his wife's and daughter's every move. Henry is brilliant at math and science but fears his English isn't good enough to pass the high-school entrance exam. When tragedy strikes the Xiao family, Wen becomes defiant and takes big risks to help Henry survive academically and emotionally; her mother, Teresa, joins the effort, at even greater risk to herself. Lim's prose realistically conveys the anguish and fear felt by Wen and Teresa as they hide their charitable deeds and growing involvement in the neighborhood from the tyrannical Mr. Zhou. Ultimately, empathy and kindness prevail in this novel as mother and daughter both learn it is better to risk everything to do what is important rather than take no action, turning a bleak story into one about resilience and change.

Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(1) YA "Most people didn't live in hollowed-out trees behind their middle school," but twelve-year-old Raymond does. A seventh grader at River Mill Middle School in North Carolina, he had lived in a rented trailer with his feckless parents three miles from school. But one day he comes home to discover that they have abandoned him, and now here he is living in the woods with his dog and doing his best to fly under the radar. He saves food from cafeteria lunches, does nighttime dumpster dives, and sometimes has luck fishing. He does have a new friend in Harlin, who in an act of kindness chooses as a bingo prize a sleeping bag for Raymond instead of the NASCAR tickets he'd wanted. Gradually, Raymond finds a circle of caring people (and a coyote) in his orbit: Lexi, his first girlfriend; Stigs, a former army surgeon who lives in a cabin nearby; and various teachers who don't let Raymond remain invisible. The third-person narrative allows for fully realized secondary characters who play important roles in Raymond's life and, ultimately, in his rescue. Rudd's straightforward, meticulous prose perfectly captures the daily routines and occasional drama of life in the woods. A worthy match for My Side of the Mountain and Hatchet the book Raymond checks out of the library toward the end of the novel.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) YA Translated by Marcia Lynx Qualey. Brothers Omar and Sufyan find their lives upended by the Syrian civil war. After their home in Raqqun is bombed, killing their father, the family moves to the more rural village of Al-Nuaman. They struggle to find food, and their mother's diabetes endangers her health, requiring difficult-to-obtain medicine. Fifteen-year-old Omar is bookish, meek, and tries to be the man of the family; twelve-year old Sufyan also wants to help but is impatient, impulsive, and "has endless secrets." The book alternates between their points of view, offering readers differing perspectives on the same home life. Eventually, Sufyan's story becomes the central one when he goes missing: he is lured and kidnapped by a militant Islamic group, given military training, and being prepared for combat and death (martyrdom). This short but intense book, with its abrupt ending, deals with complicated aspects of war and how youth are often forced to take on the burdens of caretaking and problem-solving for an entire family before their time. A moving portrait of the horrors of armed conflict and a window into the epidemic of child abduction during war and the psychological effects of extremist religious grooming and indoctrination.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) YA Twelve-year-old Sparrow's life revolves around keeping their mother happy; a difficult task given her struggles with mental health and addiction. Sparrow believes that by being the perfect child they can keep Mom's "shadows" at bay and deflect any attention from well-meaning outsiders. This includes hiding their shifting gender identity and sexuality. When Mom is unexpectedly put in rehab, Sparrow is sent to live with family members they've never met in the childhood home Mom has only ever discussed disparagingly. Sparrow is surprised to find not only that Aunt Mags is a source of comfort and support but also she's trans herself and the renamed "Rainbow House" is now a community of loving families and gender-diverse individuals. Sparrow is caught in a tug-of-war between trying to be the daughter Mom wants them to be and the person they truly are. Sparrow's own magical shadow, a trickster-like creature, provides guidance and pushes them toward realizing their identity. This fantastical touch, as well as the friendships Sparrow forges with new classmates Sully and Wynn, add some lightness to the protagonist's difficult circumstances. Van Otterloo's authentic and inspiring transgender adult characters serve as mentors to Sparrow on their journey of self-discovery, but perhaps more importantly as essential representations of trans adulthood for young readers.

Reviewer: Hill Saxton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(1) 4-6 This is a neatly constructed story of two parallel characters. Gladys is a small, bright, intense eleven-year-old with a sensitive nature and quirky clothing sense. Her mom runs an in-home daycare. Jude, also eleven, is big for his age, the son of a single mother and the frequent caregiver for his little brother. Their stories are told in alternating chapters (in different typefaces) and come together when each encounters True, a neglected dog in the neighborhood. True's rescue forms the core of the action. Springstubb (The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe, rev. 9/21) does a masterly job of creating two distinct voices and sustaining our interest in the two main characters equally. A supporting cast of flawed adults and hilarious preschoolers rounds out the picture. The setting--a town formerly prosperous but now on the skids, where folks are just scraping by, with subtle reference to the opioid crisis and the collapse of the manufacturing economy--is one that is underrepresented in contemporary middle-grade fiction, and it mitigates against the potential soppiness of a dog-rescue story. The writing is fresh, sharp, and authentic: "This could be trouble, said his brain. Open the door, said whatever the opposite of a brain was." It's Because of Winn-Dixie (rev. 7/00) for a new generation.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Bryan Collier. In free-verse poems, Watson describes key experiences in Maya Angelou's life. She highlights influential family members, such as Maya's brother (a source of strength) and Momma (grandmother and shrewd store owner) as well as ­historical figures such as Malcolm X and Dr. ­Martin Luther King Jr., close friends in her adult life who invite her to speak, write, and work toward the cause of freedom for all. Watson doesn't shy away from addressing tough topics, including Maya at age seven being attacked by her mother's boyfriend, which left her mute for years. Collier's accomplished illustrations have a strong narrative pull. Two spreads are particularly compelling. "Caged In" zooms in on the top half of Maya's face, enlarged to show eyes full of pain, with a cage and shadow of a bird, while the following spread shows the bottom half of that same face with her mouth encircled by a lotus-like flower and that cage imprisoning her words. Both illustrations are drenched in the blue of sadness that Collier describes in his illustrator's note. This eloquent picture book is a portrait of a resilient woman with a deep capacity for using words to find hope in the world.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

(2) K-3 Translated by Shelley Tanaka. Illustrated by Nathalie Dion. "He didn't need to huff or puff or blow the house down...The big bad wolf just walked in the door." With this chilling opening, a young girl describes the abuse she and her mother suffer at the hands of her mother's new partner. Pictured as a fairy-tale "big bad wolf" who stands on two feet and casts a menacing shadow, the abuser berates the mother when she is late, leaves bruises on the narrator's arm that she must hide with long sleeves, and enters the child's bedroom without her permission. "He paid no attention to a barrier made of wood." So the girl "built a fort made of bricks. I put it up around my heart," and she protects herself thus until the day she and her mother escape to a shelter for abused women and children. There, "the big bad wolf can huff and puff all he wants. This house will not fall down." The familiar folkloric language and motifs work brilliantly to describe a terrifying, but ultimately hopeful, story of domestic violence. The illustrations effectively convey a child's point of view. The wolf, for example, takes up more visual space than either the child or her mother. When the wolf is "spitting mad" and yelling at the child's mother, his large dark shape curves and looms over her, blocking any escape. Still, as difficult as the content is, a gentle palette of cream and yellow, with accents of red, gives the reader some respite and foreshadows the hopeful ending. A skillfully crafted, emotionally honest treatment of a very challenging subject.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2021

(2) YA Eighteen-year-old Bea runs away from a home situation that includes an abusive stepfather; a mother who takes his side; and her confused and angry fifteen-year-old brother, Ezra. The novel is composed of messages she sends from a secret email account, and Ezra's responses, with brief why-haven't-you-answered-me missives lending real-time immediacy amid the longer emails delivering the narrative (with perhaps an unrealistic amount of detail, but then, it's their only means of communication). While the conflict at home heightens and Ezra goes to stay with Bea's boyfriend's family, Bea meets up with a "Mystery Guy"--and it isn't revealing too much to say that she believes he's one long-lost family member...and he's actually another. That encounter leads to the uncovering of more and more secrets about Bea and Ezra's past, which keep the pages turning, but the crux of the novel is the siblings' emotional realizations as they begin to process their experiences, allowing themselves and each other space to be flawed. Appended with resources for those experiencing abuse.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax