Atheneum Books for Young Readers (October 22, 2024)
E ARC provided by Netgalley
**Spoilers**
It's now January of Ellie's 8th grade year, and things are changing as she and her classmates prepare for high school in their small town of Eufala, Oklahoma. Her best friend, Bert, has just returned from a Kentucky Young Environmentalists camp at Brighton Academy, and Ellie is surprised that she is starting to think that he is... cute. Bert, whose family runs the local Food and Co. grocery and has thirteen children, is very engaged with environmental issues, especially those concerning vegan diets and organic crops and excited to tell others about it. Coralee is still in the picture, and enjoying Ellie's baked goods, since Susie is always on a diet. Ellie still gets to visit her grandmother and grandfather at the Autumn Leaves senior living facility, although they have had to move up several levels of care as her grandfather's dementia has worsened. Hutch is still a supportive stepdad, and Ellie has made peace with her father, stepmother, and their new family. When she finds out that Bert is applying to go to high school at Brighton Academy, she is angry, and wishes that life would just stay as it always has been. After her grandfather has an incident in the kitchen where he threw things out of cabinets and injured himself slightly, the facility meets with the grandmother, mother, and Ellie to explain that it would be better for him to go into the secure health unit where he can have constant care. Ellie is very upset, and the grandmother demands that he be kept with her, since they haven't spent a night apart in 60 years. When Ellie's grandfather runs away and calls her from the lake, demanding to know who has stolen his boat, he has to be retrieved, and ends up in the hospital with slight hyperthermia. When he dies, Ellie is devastated. Her grandmother faces her new situation with stoicism, and Hutch offers to build a mother-in-law suite onto the trailer. Ellie has to come to terms with the fact that many things in her life will change, and there is nothing that she can do about it but to keep going.
Strengths: This wraps up Ellie's story (Roll With It and Time to Roll) nicely, and I appreciated that the covers were all similar in style, with different colors to differentiate them. Ellie continues writing letters to famous cooks and food companies (her letter to the Campbell company about green bean casserole is especially nice), and faces a lot of challenges that will resonate with middle school readers. I also liked the fact that while she had different feelings for Bert, she also realized that he was very passionate about his new interests, and that going to Brighton Academy would be the best thing for him.
Weaknesses: I wish that Ellie and the grandmother had not been so dead set against the grandfather going into nursing care, even if he couldn't take his favorite chair and have instant coffee whenever he wanted. The fact that he wandered off did, in fact, kill him, which is a good lesson that sometimes being in a nursing home insures a person's safety.
What I really think: This is a good conclusion for fans of the series, or for readers who enjoyed other books about a variety of middle school issues like Messner's The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
There have been a number of short story collections lately that highlight a particular cultural background, like Ali's Once Upon an Eid (Muslim), Khan's The Door is Open (Desi), Baron's On All Other Nights (Jewish), Rosen's Coming of Age (Jewish), Mbalia's Black Boy Joy, Smith's Ancestor Approved (Native America), and even Oh's You Are Here (Asian). These are especially nice to have on hand when students from those background want a "mirror" book, but the good thing about On the Block is the wide variety of cultures and ethnic backgrounds that are represented. Like Oh's Flying Lessons (also prepared in conjunction with We Need Diverse Books), this has a nice selection of backgrounds, and I loved the idea of setting the book up like an apartment building. I will definitely purchase this one, since language arts teachers have been using more short stories in the classroom. I do wish that the name of the authors had appeared at the beginning of the chapter so that I hadn't had to go back to the publication data page to see which author was writing. It was a nice touch to name the apartment building the Entrada; I'm assuming this was in support of Erin Entrada Kelly, who has been fighting cancer, but also means "entry" in Spanish.
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October 29, 2024 by Tundra Books
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
In this novel in verse, Luna McKenna is struggling with issues many eleven years old face. Her best friend Maggie isn't able to spend as much time with her because her parents are divorcing. While father who works in a science museum and her mother who is a florist are supportive and have fun things like Taco Tuesday nights, her older brother Leo is in high school and often doesn't spend time at home. Luna would like to be an astronaut and is applying to a space camp, and hopes that her project for Mr. Griffin will help with that, but when he has to be out and there is a substitute, Ms. Manitowabi, she worries that it will affect her application. She wants her science class to be about science, not art, but when Ms. Manitowabi, who is Ojibwe, tells the class about Indigenous Sky Stories, Luna is enthralled. She asks her father why she never knew about these. She ends up enjoying her time in class, and things work out, although there are many changes in Luna's life.
This is one of the few novels in verse I've seen that employed concrete poetry. It's a quiet story that might interest readers who enjoyed books with characters who are very interested in space.
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