MMGM- Opening the Road and The Good War

It's

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
 at 

Always in the Middle 

and #IMWAYR day 

at 

Teach Mentor Texts 

and 

Unleashing Readers.

Keila V. Dawson and Alleanna Harris (Illustrator)

Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book

January 26th 2021 by Beaming Books

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

This picture book gives a great overview of the social conditions for Black Americans starting in 1936, and discusses the reasons why the Green Book was necessary. It follows Green's process in putting together this document while he was working as a mail carrier, and shows  how people used it when they traveled. Picture books can be a great way to introduce topics about which students aren't really aware, and this was particularly well done. The illustrations definitely add to the period flavor and make the stark realities that Black travelers faced even clearer. I didn't know that there had been a similar guide for Jewish travelers, not did I know that there are some current attempts to construct updated, online guides for the Black community, highlighting Black owned businesses. There needs to be a poster of the timeline in the back of the book; it was really visually appealing and informative. I don't buy a lot of picture books, but this is an excellent addition to a middle school library both for sparking an interest in further research, or for teachers who want to cover historical topics with class read alouds. Of course, this book makes me want to spend hours looking at the digitized collection of Green Guides posted by the New York Public Library. 

Strasser, Todd. The Good War

January 26th 2021 by Delacorte Press

E ARC provided by Netgalley

Caleb is glad he was able to help his school get eight  new computers with a grant so that an eSports club could be started, and the school would have access to come new technology, since the computers are more powerful and can run 3D modeling programs. The teacher who worked with him, Mrs. B., wants Caleb to invite Zach to join the group. Zach is a student who struggles a lot and is picked on by the obnoxious Crosby and Gavin, who no longer have a football team to subsume their energy, since it was disabanded due to budget cuts. Emma, who has a crush on Caleb, is also interested in the group, but she is not happy when Mackenzie and her minion Isabella show up at the meeting.  The eSports group decides to play the game The Good War, which is really popular, and divide into two groups. Caleb, Zach, Emma, and new student Nathan play the Allied side of the game, and Gavin, Crosby, Mackenzie, Isabella and Tyler are on the Axis side. Nathan is a bit leery of hanging out with his teammates, since he is trying to align himself with the popular kids, and Caleb especially is looked down upon as "Extra Credit Caleb", and a bit of a suck up. The games get going, and the Axis players start exhibiting worrisome signs. They wear t shirts with lightning bolts (a Nazi symbol), and when those are banned, wear gray with German army medals. Crosby is leading these efforts, having had conversations online with a guy in his twenties who keeps talking about white supremacy. Wanting to impress him, Crosby starts internalizing some of these ideas. While Caleb starts to become better friends with Zach and Emma, the tensions start to escalate at school. When the computers are a target of malware when the competition starts to get heated, the eSports club is in danger of being shut down. Racial tensions outside of school pose a danger to members of the club as well. Will The Good War end up being a bad idea?

Strengths: There are a lot of good, realistic moments in this. Anyone who remembers Channel One News will know that struggling schools have long depended on grants and corporate sponsorship to provide much needed technology to students. Mrs. B. is concerned for her students, and reads them well. Encouraging Caleb to approach Zach is something I can see teachers doing. The eSports club was harder for me to get my mind around, but with the popularity of this (along with the very realistic cutting of football teams) means that we will see more and more of this sort of club. I really enjoyed the fact that Emma was into the game, and her interest in Caleb, as a friend, teammate, and crush, was spot on. Like this author's The Wave (1981), this addresses important and timely topics of race relations and troublesome ideologies. 
Weaknesses: When Mrs. B. saw that Crosby's group was internalizing Nazi ideas, she should have immediately broken up and rearranged the groups. I wouldn't have allowed that particular game any longer. Of course, then there wouldn't have been much of a story!
What I really think: This had more of a YA vibe, especially regarding the pacing and character descriptions at the beginning o the book. Still, this is an interesting topic, and the video gaming is a topic for which my students are constantly asking, and which is difficult to find. I will purchase, but would have written parts of this very differently. 

On a personal level, there was some discussion about how soldiers in the Wehrmacht were not very different from the Nazis (Crosby and his friends were saying that they were just being like those ordinary soldiers, and a teacher rejects the idea that they were innocent). I had a very dear friend thirty years ago in Cincinnati who was in the Wehrmacht. He didn't want to be, but there was little choice. He was barely 20, his family home had been taken over by Nazi soldiers, and he couldn't find a way to get out of being in the army. His unit was on almost every major front of the war, but he survived. He ended up in Russia, waiting for the Allies to come so that he didn't have to fight for the Germans any more. Both he and his wife wished they had been able to do more, but honestly did not know the extent of what was being done to the Jewish people during the war. I'm sure there is a range of experiences, but just because someone wasn't able to help the Jewish people doesn't mean that they were evil.