Mystery and Adventure

 Too Bright to See

Lukoff, Kyle. Too Bright to See. 186p. Dial Books for Young Readers. Apr 2021. Tr $8.99. ISBN 9780593111178.

    Bug lives in an old haunted house and recently lost her live-in Uncle. Until the summer of the events of the book, the ghosts never really made their presence known. Since Uncle Rodrick’s death, Bug feels something has shifted with the spirits in the house. The conflict in this book is internal more than anything else. Bug feels 2 main things, that something is off with them, and that Uncle Rodrick had unfinished business to tend to. These feelings end up being connected and through figuring out what Uncle Rodrick is trying to communicate, Bug learns about why something feels so off. Though this book is relatively short, it was honestly pretty hard for me to get through. Not much happens. It is narrated exclusively through Bug’s POV, which is fine, but it ends up being a lot of thoughts and observations, and I did not find it particularly interesting. As Bug starts searching more seriously for the message Uncle Rodrick is communicating to them, the plot picks up a bit, but is largely still anti-climatic in the actual events of the story. Even in the climax, when Bug figures out what Uncle Rodrick is trying to say, and wakes up with a shaved head, the story is still mostly communicated through Bugs thoughts rather than action. They talk about having a big realization and how things feel so different now, but very little actually happened to get them there. 

As an adult, and knowing this book won a Stonewall Award, it didn’t take much for me to see where the story was going. Though, the chapter where Bug thinks that Uncle Rodrick was trans and continually refers to him as their dead uncle or aunt, was the most entertaining to me as a reader. It is hard for me to say how predictable this book would be for the intended reader since everyone approaches each book they read with their own life experience. My life experience is that of a queer 25 year old who reads a lot of queer fiction, which made the journey of this book feel predictable. If I were a younger or less familiar reader, I may not have the same feelings.

I think this book could be a helpful resource for kids who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community or allies. The way in which Bug figures out they are trans may feel familiar to other trans kids or could be a good place to start learning and understanding as an ally. 

Jennifer Chan is Not Alone

Keller, Tae. Jennifer Chan is Not Alone. 265p. Apr. 2022. Random House. Tr $8.99. ISBN 9780593310557.

    The tension created in this book could be attributed to a number of things, which is what keeps readers hooked. Are there REALLY aliens at play, was it the infamous and unexplained “Incident”, is it something else? Going into this read, I was skeptical, I was really not in the market for another alien book/kids save the world from aliens book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t really what this book was about. The characters in this book demonstrate some of the most change and growth I’ve seen among all the books read this semester. This is especially evident in Mallory’s grappling with her values and decision making as she lives in the consequences of Jennifer’s disappearance. Once I realized this was not an alien story, but more of a “Dear Evan Hansen” or a “Chrissa Stands Tall”, that may or may not include aliens, I got so much more enjoyment from reading it. 

    While I do think the disclosure of “The Incident” could have come sooner in the story, especially considering the length of the book, I found the mystery of how real of a possibility the aliens were to be a really compelling component of the story. My library shelves this book in realistic fiction, but as a reader, I was totally with the main characters as they explored the possibility of alien intervention. I didn’t necessarily believe Jennifer was abducted, but I think looking for the connection between her obsession with them, and her struggles adjusting in her new community created a viable plotline for aliens to somehow be part of the puzzle. 

    This is a middle grade novel, I think more specifically, the target audience is probably middle school girls. When you strip back the aliens of it all, this is really a story about how people treat each other, and how we treat ourselves, played out through the dynamics of middle school through the eyes of a girl trying to hold onto her perceived social capital. There are lessons to be gleaned for any middle school aged reader, but the specifics of the social situations may not be universally identifiable in one's own experience. 

Fantasy and Sci-Fi

 Weird Kid

Eekhout, Greg Van. Weird Kid. 208p. Harper/Harper Collins. Jul 2021. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780062970602.

    Part of fantasy and sci-fi is buying into the world building and suspension of reality. Being a person who generally does not self-select media from either genre, this is something I struggle with. I don’t necessarily feel like an authority on whether or not this book moves from reality to imagination without breaking credibility, because it’s really hard for me to not bring questions of realism with me. The general idea of supernatural things happening in a suburb and it is mysterious and strange is believable. However, a mysterious thing crash landing in someone’s neighborhood, a couple going to investigate, and then just accepting it as a baby made of goo, that they are now going to raise? Not believable. Their first reaction to discovering goo that becomes a child, is to take it home? Raise it? Become its parents? The author does a good job at weaving different elements of the story together, information from the beginning comes back at the end, but for me, why this couple can just acquire a baby is a fairly distracting, and unexplored plot hole from the beginning.  

As a reader, I did not find the theme of this book to be overly obvious. It could be the distraction of how it was conveyed, but for readers of sci-fi, maybe it is more evident. Generally, the theme has to do with being yourself and being open and accepting. However, I do think this gets a bit convoluted in the end of the book where elements of selfishness and greed are explored through the foiling of the evil plot and big companies trampling over the less powerful. The story also touches on what and who is home. It did feel a bit like spaghetti at the wall, with an attempt at teaching too many lessons. 

I don’t think supernatural-suburb is groundbreaking, but it works for the story. It is clear that the author took creative liberties and used their imagination in this story. The writing was funny, especially the dialogue. The more sci-fi elements weren’t exactly for me, but I thought the imblobsters not making any sense was funny, I liked Gravy and Dairy and that they kept calling their mom their monkey. I thought Agnes was the most interesting and fully developed character, and enjoyed reading about her. As a reader, I found a disconnect between Jake being made of goo and uncontrollably shape-shifting due to the Hum, and the blobs taking over other forms. When it seemed like it was going the route of stress makes Jake shape-shift uncontrollably, I was following. But when it became, stress makes Jake shape-shift, and also, goo can take over any object and turn it into any mishmash of a creature, this was harder for me to track. I think if what the goo can do had been a bit more narrowed down, the end of the story would have come together more clearly for me. While there are brief moments of scientific relevance, such as the geosonicagitator, this book seems to be largely fiction, without a clear base of science. With Jake being ultimately accepted for who he is, goo and all, the book does raise ideas about how we treat other beings. 

Lola

Valenti, Karla Arenas. Lola. 247p. Knopf. Sept. 2024. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978059317006.

    The author self-categorizes this book as magical realism, which I agree with. The incorporation of magical elements into an otherwise normal setting is made even more believable by the fact that it is disclosed the parents do not see the magical elements. For a majority of this book, I had a hard time differentiating what was actually happening and what was a function of the characters imagination. However, in the last 3 chapters of the book the pieces started falling into place for me. While I wouldn’t have suspected it initially, this story does deal with universal truth. It is about life, death, acceptance, and grief. I’m sure the reader's own experiences will inform how they grasp and apply the themes, but it would be hard to walk away from reading this without taking away the basic understanding of those 4 main themes. The magical realism borrows aspects that felt reminiscent of other fantasy to me, the closet being a portal (The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe), sailing to the other realm (Where the Wild Things Are), the queen and food that changes your state(Alice in Wonderland). That being said, despite these not being never-before-tried ideas, it did feel like a fresh take to me. 

    Mexican culture is interwoven throughout the book, and while there is a note at the end that provides definitions for some of the Spanish vocabulary, I would have appreciated the inclusion of footnotes when new phrases were introduced. I gathered my own working ideas of unfamiliar words from context, but an earlier explanation could have been helpful. 

Contemporary Realism

     Roll With It

Sumner, Jamie. Roll With It. 256p. Atheneum. Oct. 2019. Tr $7.99. ISBN 9781534442566.

This book has no shortage of eccentric characters with a hodgepodge of personality traits. I think it is fair to say that many readers will be able to find something in the cast that they can identify with, whether it feels like a representation of themselves, or of someone they know. We do see character strengths and weaknesses, however, they are not as fully explored as they could have been. Ellie in particular has an attitude that should probably get her in more trouble with the other characters than it does, and could have been more fleshed out. 

I thought this book was fine. In my experience, there is no shortage of underdog characters in middle-grade literature. Their story usually ends up being something along the lines of “See! We’re all different but we’re all the same! These kids are just like you!”. Different versions of this story already exist, and I have enjoyed some of those more. It felt a bit like the author was throwing spaghetti at the wall, making the storytelling a bit trite. Overall, the progression flowed and made sense, but it felt like there were a couple of different storylines alluded to that don’t quite get fully mapped out, for example the possible budding romance between Ellie’s mom and her gym teacher. This could be a consequence of this being the first in a series of 3, but if that were the case, that is also confusing because this book does ultimately wrap up pretty predictably with a bow. 

The setting is described in detail as Ellie's move from Nashville to Oklahoma is central to the story. The plot explores the physical differences in these places as well as the cultural differences and what that means not only for a wheel-chair bound person in a non-accessible environment, but also the socio-economic differences in small towns. The setting is specific to the story, but the concepts it represents are general enough to copy and paste even if you can’t picture exactly where these places are.

There are parts of the story where the theme is laid out more explicitly than others. The novel at times leaves little to interpretation, but this does not seem out of the ordinary for a middle-grade book. While I think the themes of the book are worthwhile for kids to read about, this was not my favorite book to communicate these messages. 

The language is conversational, but occasionally off-color. While the year of the story is never explicitly stated, context suggests this is present day, however, Ellie regularly describes herself (a disabled person), as “crippled”, which is generally considered to be an outdated and derogatory term for people with disabilities in modern times. Additionally, throughout the book, Ellie writes letters to the bakers she gets recipes from, which feels out of place. Most of the book is told in either dialogue or Ellie's internal thoughts. Despite this, the letters appear out of nowhere in most cases, we are never with her as she writes them, and they do not come back.  They felt like a strange plot tool used for Ellie to grapple with big concepts. 

There is primarily body diversity and socio-economic diversity in this book. Ellie has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound. Bert is described as “probably on the spectrum”, but does not go much further than this. Ellie’s grandpa has Alzheimer's. There are examples of neurodiversity among the characters. The other chief example of diversity is in the socio-economic class of the characters, the main characters live in a trailer park, and spell out the difference between them and the kids who live in the other neighborhoods. Ellie having a disability and also living in the trailer park is used as a device to demonstrate that she faces the same kinds of problems and discrimination as other people do, even without her wheelchair. This is a running thread throughout the book as Ellie grapples with the fact that in her new environment, not only does she feel she is perceived wheelchair first, but then trailer-park second, and her just as a person comes in last. 

Are You There God, It's Me Margaret 

Blume, Judy. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.172p. Atheneum. Jul 2022. Tr $9.99. ISBN 9781665921312.

At the original time of publication, this book was realistic fiction, however that was nearly 60 years ago, therefore, it feels more appropriate to categorize it as historical fiction. That in mind, some of the specifics of the text are quite dated, including specific references to music, clothes, and how the characters speak. In my evaluation, even the characters' disposition of the events in the story and what is important to them and how this is demonstrated, is quite dated. Margaret is easy to identify with in the aspect that she has friend trouble and feels misunderstood as a kid, but beyond that, I don’t know how resonate she would be with contemporary readers.
With an understanding of children’s literature, I know that Judy Blume was groundbreaking at the time she wrote this for her characters speaking so frankly about puberty- specifically periods and breasts. Her directness in talking about and questioning religion has also meant this book is highly challenged and frequently banned. At the time of the original publication, the head on confrontation of these subjects probably was fresh and original. However, 60 years later, I do not think this is the case. I think there are contemporary stories that perhaps owe Judy Blume for being a trailblazer, but are better stories. 

Margaret grapples with religion and puberty throughout the book. You can really see the places where she is impacted by peer influence, and places where she is more willing to follow her own mind. While I don’t know that the ways Maragaret thinks about these topics are universal, as those can be personal experiences, I think the normalization of such content is meaningful for kids to see. 

Judy Blume is a famed writer. However, her writing lacks interesting and descriptive language, and she rarely if ever deploys the tool of show, don’t tell. Blume often will write what is about to happen and then repeat it in some form of dialogue. This makes the story drag. 

This book contains little to-no-indication of diversity. There is some religious diversity represented but only in the forms of Christianity and Judaism. The depictions and attitudes of the young girls are stereotypical and male-centered. The depictions of young boys are the same.  

Those Kids From Fawn Creek

Kelly, Erin Entrada. Those Kids From Fawn Creek. 319p. Greenwillow Books. Mar 2022. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9780062970350.

The ensemble cast of this novel creates an opportunity for typical readers to find familiarity represented somewhere among the characters. We certainly see the many sides of the characters as they navigate middle school dynamics and decide who they are going to be. This is especially true of Abby, Janie, and Greyson.

I really enjoyed this book. The story was engaging, as a reader you get the impression that perhaps something is amiss with Orchid pretty early on, but I wasn’t quite sure what it would be. Seeing how the other characters handle the information they learn about her speaks to the impact she had on the community even without all the flashy stories she tried to sell about herself. I did not think the conclusion was inevitable. The way the book ends almost implies that Orchid was just a plot device who just served to take the rest of the characters on a personal journey- sort of like Nanny McPhee- showing up when you need her and then moving on to someone else. This was not a satisfying ending for Orchid in my opinion, because she wasn’t just a plot device she was a driving character. The climax happens around 30 pages before the book ends, and it's pretty full-steam-ahead from there. We get to see how the other 3 main characters in the altercation wind up, but not Orchid.

The setting is small town America. While technically Louisiana, it can easily be copy-and-pasted onto a small town in whatever community is familiar to the reader. The setting is a major influence on the characters and the themes of the book. The setting makes the characters believe certain things about themselves and the lives they are destined to live, it shapes their perception of reality, so much so that Orchid fabricates a whole new backstory to try and distinguish herself from the familiar narrative when she moves to Fawn Creek. 

The themes of self-discovery and expression, and message that you get to decide who you are going to be, are certainly worthwhile for the middle grades audience. While the characters in the book experience an amplified version of these things due to their small community, who you are and who you are going to be are concepts that many kids begin to question and navigate within the target ages for readers of this book. 

The book takes place over about a 3-week time period with history and context given to what things were like prior to the events of the narrative. Chapters are separated out by the weeks and days that lead up to and immediately follow the school dance. I think the author handled the dialogue really well in this book. This was especially true in their handling of Greyson's character. Without explicitly saying it, it is clear that this middle schooler is struggling with his sexuality, this happens throughout the book and comes to a head in the climax where a kid from a different community shouts a slur at him, but the author intentionally does not include the actual word that was used. I thought this was a really good way of handling this interaction. As an adult reader, using context, I know what the intended word probably was, but if I had read this in middle school, I likely wouldn't have, which is fine. You don’t need to in order to understand the intended effect and I think this is a really skillful way to go about navigating such a topic in an age-appropriate way.

While there is not an afterword, as previously mentioned, we get to see what happens to the other 3 main characters involved in the final altercation but not Orchid. If not included in the main text, I would have appreciated some kind of epilogue that indicates how she recovered from the climax beyond that she moved.