Inside Out and Back Again
by Thanhha Lai
Books in Verse
Historical Fiction
Award Winner
* * * * Stars (Great!)

Ha is 10 years old when her life is interrupted. The horrors of the Vietnam War reach her family in Saigon and they make the difficult decision to steal away on a ship and make their way out of South Vietnam. The family – Ha, her brothers, and their mother – find themselves in the United States, in Alabama, sponsored by a man who looks to Ha like a cowboy (that’s what she calls him – ‘their cowboy’) and struggling to fit into American society. Although they are slowly learning English, it is difficult for them. Ha’s classmates – many of them – are not kind to her, and her brothers must find ways to use their skills and education to advance. Their mother must try to support them all while they find their feet, though she may be the one who suffers most, having had to leave her husband (who was MIA) in Vietnam.

Ha’s story is based on the author’s own experiences –fleeing Vietnam after the war and coming to live in the United States, where she had to struggle to fit in. Told in spare verse, this really gets to the heart of Ha and her family’s struggle. Ha’s spirit and her spirited frustration come across loud and clear in this format. This would be a good introduction for kids and teens learning about the Vietnam War, or about immigration. Not graphically violent (even though part of it takes place in war-torn Vietnam), it’s also flavored with Vietnamese words and cultural references. A quick and thought-provoking read.

Find this book/Place a hold!

Cherry Heaven
by LJ Adlington
Dystopia
Future
Science Fiction
* * * * Stars (Great!)

Kat and her sister Tanka and their aunt and uncle are moving to The New Frontier to start over. It’s been about 10 years since the war ended and the sisters’ real parents were killed for being Galrezi. There’s still a lot of tension between the different gene clans (Atsumisi, Mazzini, and Galrezi), and the Atsumisi are at the top of the pecking order. Since both Kat and Tanka are Atsumisi they have nothing to worry about as far as discrimination goes, and, in fact, Tanka can be pretty outspoken and racist against the Galrezi. What they don’t know is that their new home, Cherry Heaven, once belonged to a family of Galrezi who were murdered during the war, and one of them – Luka Papillon – has just escaped from The Factory (where they bottle Blue Mountain water products and the workers are treated no better than slaves, are considered expendable, and are regularly beaten and abused by their boss) to tell her story, but also to get revenge. As they adjust to their new lives, Kat begins to suspect that The New Frontier is not the shiny, happy, perfect place it purports to be.

Although this clocks in at over 400 pages, it’s a quick read (large type, small pages, and SUSPENSE! move the story along quite rapidly). This takes place in a human colony in another world in the future (science fiction/dystopia) where the colonists have gills (sounds like they genetically engineered these), and one of the things they love to do is slip into warm pools and let the water cover their gills (blissing out). Cherry Heaven doesn’t get into the real specifics of the different gene clans or the war, but there are enough clues/context sprinkled throughout for readers to pick up the general/important details. Cherry Heaven takes place in the same world as The Diary of Pelly D, and features some of the same characters (although they play lesser roles). I’m looking forward to reading The Diary, because I loved Cherry Heaven. Imaginative and intriguing.

Find this book/Place a hold!

The Space Between
by Brenna Yovanoff
Angels
Demons
Fantasy
Supernatural
* * * * Stars (Great!)

Daphne is the daughter of Lucifer (the fallen angel) and Lilith (Adam’s first wife) and she has lived all of her life in Pandemonium, a city in Hell. She has no reason to leave until her brother, Obie (after announcing his intentions to stay on Earth and marry a human girl), disappears under mysterious circumstances. Fearing for his safety, Daphne sets off to find him. The only person who might know his whereabouts is a self-destructive teenager – Truman – who may not live long enough to be able to help her. Meanwhile, the avenging angel Azrael has unleashed the creature Dark Dreadful to hunt down and destroy all of the demons on Earth. It has already killed one of her sisters, and Daphne could be next.

This takes a little while to get going, but once it does it’s both fascinating and suspenseful. Daphne is a resourceful and strange being and the world of Pandemonium is a mysterious place. She is powerful, too, but only just learning the extent of her strengths and abilities. Striving to be different from her sisters – succubi who feed on human emotion – Daphne still finds herself tempted to take away Truman’s pain (not just because she has feelings for him and it might save him, but also because it would be delicious). The Space Between is shivery and otherworldly in all the right ways.

Find this book/Place a hold!

Bunheads
by Sophie Flack
Realistic Fiction
* * * * Stars (Great!)

Hannah Ward is a young dancer with the Manhattan Ballet Company. She has been on her own since she was 14, living in New York City, following her dream of becoming a principle dancer. Now, at 19, she is starting to take on some more advanced roles, but she is also discovering that there is a whole world outside of ballet that she knows almost nothing about. When she meets and hits it off with Jacob (a NYU college student and musician) at her cousin’s restaurant she starts to realize that maybe there’s more to life – at least for her – than dancing.

I was so afraid for Hannah throughout this book because I was sure that Sophie Flack – her creator – was going to make terrible things happen to her, like, a career-ending injury, or a devastating eating disorder, or falling victim to a backstabbing fellow dancer or rabid ballet fan. It was a relief to have her successfully navigate all of these potential pitfalls and come to her own decision about where ballet was taking her and where she really wanted to go. Thank goodness. I’m weirdly fascinated by ballet dancers and their “world.” It seems so mysterious and glamorous and insidious all at the same time. Sophie Flack has a fair amount of experience with it (which definitely shows), having had a career in ballet herself (maybe this is a little bit autobiographical?). Nice work, this is an excellent debut.

Find this book/Place a hold!

Shades of Gray
by Ruta Sepetys
Historical Fiction
* * * * Stars (Great!)

When Russian Communists invade Lithuania at the beginning of WWII, many Lithuanians are rounded up and sent off to labor camps and prisons on the pretext of being “anti-Stalinist.” Whether or not they actually are isn’t something their jailers examine closely. 15-year-old Lina and her family are evicted from their comfortable home in the middle of the night and are put on a train bound for Siberia. Lina’s father is sent to prison for helping another family escape, and the rest of her family (her mother and brother and herself) end up in a farming commune before being taken even further north. They suffer terrible tragedies along the way – brutal cold, hunger, illness, and guards that treat them as less than human. They watch their friends and neighbors and hopes die. Lina records it all in her drawings and letters, which she leaves behind to be found by later generations so that someone will know the story of what happened and what they all endured.

Stalin’s invasion of Lithuania (as well as other Baltic nations) during the early part of WWII was unknown to me – and to many, according to Ruta Sepety’s author’s note that follows her heart-breaking and harrowing story. The country was subsequently invaded by Nazi Germany, and many of the Russians took up the possessions and names of the people who had been rounded up and sentenced to death (essentially) in Siberia. It was not until 1991 that the Baltic nations regained their “independence and dignity,” and that some of the truth of what had happened during those dark times came to light. Disturbing and sorrowful, yet beautiful in its telling, this historical piece makes one wonder how these atrocities were allowed to come to pass and makes one determined never to allow such things to happen again. Excellent, but terribly sad.

Find this book/Place a hold!

Akata Witch
by Nnedi Okorafor
Fantasy
* * * * * Stars (Amazing!)

Sunny is a young albino American-Nigerian who has been living in Nigeria since her mother had a premonition that something bad was going to happen to her if she stayed in the States. Her father never wanted a daughter and certainly never wanted to go back to Nigeria, so he holds a grudge against her. When Sunny’s classmate, Orlu, introduces her to Chichi (a Nimm princess), Sunny begins to discover her true heritage as a Leopard person. Late to her knowledge and late to her powers (all Leopard people have some sort of magical ability), Sunny is struggling to learn as much as she can before she and her friends are called upon to perform a great service and save the world from an adept who has dabbled too much in evil juju.

I suspect that Okorafor was able to draw on her own Igbo (Nigerian) cultural tradition in her creation of Akata Witch. It’s all new to me, so I found this very refreshing, incredibly original, and absolutely riveting. There’s also a comfortable familiarity - a secret magic society, magical instruction, a group of kids sent to fight the greatest evil their people have known – it’s a bit reminiscent of Harry Potter, but with a dramatic change of scenery (and a more reasonable page count). Loved this.

Find this book/Place a hold!