MMGM- Dog Trouble and Star Sailor

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Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
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Always in the Middle 

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Unleashing Readers

Varner, Kristin. Dog Trouble 

October 29, 2024 by First Second

E ARC provided by Netgalley

**Spoilers**

Ash lives with his mother, a busy nurse who is also taking classes for her CCRN certification, in a large coastal city. This starts with a memory all of us can relate to; having to wait at school for a parent who is running late to pick us up*. He doesn't see too much of his father, who lives about an hour away on Ferncliff Island with his new wife Cheryl and her daughter Parker. When Ash makes a bad choice to skateboard with friends in an abandoned warehouse after having some other problems, his mother decides to send him to his father's for the summer. Not only that, but he's required to do community service every weekday. He thinks about going to a senior center, but he still misses his gradfather, who recently passed away. Instead, he ends up at the animal shelter, where the supervisor, Joanna, has him working with dogs, even though he doesn't like them very much. There's a ton of work to do, and Ash uncomplainingly does piles of laundry, updates dog's fecal scoring charts, cleans, posts on social media, and eventually walks dogs. He starts with the dogs who are very well behaved, and takes a liking to one dog, Cooper, who has some behavioral issues because he has been neglected (sound familiar, Ash?). Ash also finds that there is a skateboard park in town, and meets Joanna's young relative Bella there. She introduces him to mountain biking, and the two get along well. Ash likes his step family, but has some small irritations with them. The same is true of work, as well, but he has a positive attitude and starts coming early to work because he enjoys it. He does make some mistakes, like letting a dog off the leash, but Joanna is very understanding, and uses the moments to teach Ash valuable information. She is also good about rewarding his diligence. One afternoon,  he takes Cooper on a walk in the woods, carefully keeping him on the leash. He asks his dad if they can adopt Cooper and keep him at the father's house,  but the next time he comes to the shelter, Cooper has passed away after suffering a fatal spider bite. Ash is understandably beside himself with grief and guilt. He fights with Bella, but does manage to still be nice to Parker. He has made friends with a man who runs a local restaurant, and when the man gives him a bone for Cooper, as is his wont, Ash is upset, and the man helps him process his emotions a bit. Joann asks for Ash's help with Roxy, a tripod, and shows him that even though things didn't end well with Cooper, he is making a difference in the lives of dogs at the shelter. Ash is able to make up with Bella and make plans for spending more time on the island with his father and his new community. 

Strengths: Where to start? First of all, there's skateboarding, which needs to be portrayed a LOT more in middle grade literature. I love that Bella was into the sport, and introduces Ash to mountain biking as well. There's great depictions of family dynamics that are very realistic. Single moms are often overworked, and tweens often get into trouble. A father and hour away might be more distant, even if the relationship is cordial. There is a ton of good information about the work that animal shelters do, and there are notes about a wide variety of activities and terms associated with rescues. The animals' problems are well explained, and I adored how Joanna used things that went wrong to help Ash learn things. I rather hoped that Ash would get to stay on the island, but it's reasonable that he had to go home. The cover on this is fantastic, and I know that this will fly off the shelves like kittens at an adoption event.
Weaknesses: Normally, I would complain about the grandfather dying, as well as Cooper passing away, but these events are both really used to inform Ash's character and are not "soggy" at all. Bad stuff happens, and I think that tweens process bad stuff more like Ash does; there's other stuff to worry about as well, and so even big, sad events aren't necessarily dwelt upon. But yes, Cooper does die. 
What I really think: This was really quite brilliant. Do I buy two copies, or three? This might be one of my favorite graphic novels after Tatulli's Short and Skinny, and I am not personally a fan of the format. Readers who enjoyed Lloyd's Allergic or Fairbairn and Assarasakorn PAWS series will definitely want to pick this one up. 

*To be fair to my mother, the reason that she was late to pick me up from Burtonsville Elementary School in 1972 was because a subcompact had run up onto the trunk of her Buick Electra as she was waiting to turn into the school where she was substituting. Had she been driving the Opel she usually drove, she probably would have been killed. The Electra was folded like an accordion, but she taught that day and did call the school. The injury she sustained, along with a childhood of spreading chemicals on farm fields with her bare hands, may have led to her Parkinson's. As Dog Trouble points out, life is messy, and a lot of unsuspected things can happen, both good and bad. 

Bolden, Charles F., Jr. and Bolden, Tonya. 

Star Sailor: My Life as a NASA Astronaut

October 22, 2024 by Candlewick Press

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

This was a fantastic career biography of long time astronaut "Charlie B." Bolden, but I was very distracted, reading faster than I should have because I wanted to know HOW he was related to Tonya Bolden. He's not, but how wonderful that the two were able to work on this together!

While there is a little bit of personal biography at the end of the book in a fantastic illustrated time line (let's see more of those, please!), this concentrates more on the arc of Bolden's career, starting with a chance meeting in the late 1970s with Ron McNair, who encouraged him to apply to NASA. I did not know about this accomplished scientist and astronaut at all, even though he did so many things! This was somewhat similar to Massimino's Spaceman, Buckley's Michael Collins: Forgotten Astronaut, Kelly's Endurance, and Melvin's Chasing Space, but is much better formatted, with lots of great photographs and side notes. I will definitely purchase this for fans of Harris' Segregated Skies and the fantastic Sally Ride: A Photobiography by O'Shaughnessy. 

From the publisher:

Space science and shared humanity shine as the first Black head of NASA offers an up-close and thrilling account of his shuttle missions, including some of the defining moments of NASA’s history. With immersive full-color photos.

Sail the stars with astronaut Charlie Bolden as he recounts his amazing shuttle missions, including deploying the Hubble Space Telescope, training with Sally Ride, and leading the first US space mission that included a Russian cosmonaut as a crew member. Charlie even got to congratulate Star Wars creator George Lucas at the Academy Awards—from space! Follow Charlie’s incredible story, from watching movies as a kid about Flash Gordon flying to Mars—from the balcony where Black people had to sit—all the way to becoming the first Black NASA Administrator. From the thrill of watching lightning storms from the mesosphere to the heartbreak of the Challenger disaster, Charles’s life as a star sailor is full of adventure and discovery, told in his own words along with award-winning author Tonya Bolden. In-depth looks at how astronauts train, work, and live are complemented by diagrams, highlighted vocabulary, scientific sidebars, and incredible personal photographs. Back matter includes an author’s note and timeline.