Riding the subway after a visit to the pool with his grandmother, young Julián notices three glamorous fellow passengers he's convinced are mermaids. And, of course, "Julián LOVES mermaids." Inspired by the company, the rest of Julián's train ride morphs into a dazzling underwater daydream...
For Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela, her oversized moniker is "'so long ...
*STARRED REVIEW Leigh and best friend Axel "figure out what the other person's feeling" by asking "'What color?’": "carbazole violet" for silence, "burnt orange" for anger, "Prussian blue" for hurt. Their unexpected first kiss sets off a "whole goddamn spectrum" of feelings Leigh doesn't have time...
Twelve-year-old Jerome was always "the good kid": "I've got troubles but I don't get in trouble." He's the son of a motel receptionist mother and sanitation officer father. His grandmother keeps house, so that he and his younger sister aren't home alone. At school, Jerome...
*STARRED REVIEW In Russell's new backyard stands a giant maple tree with "great big limbs and a trunk so wide, even Russell's dad could not wrap his arms around it." When Russell deems it ideal for a new fort, his dad initially hesitates: "'I don't know...
"Twirly-whirly,/ loop-dee-loop" takes Trampoline Boy up "into the blue, blue sky." Each "BOING" enables him to see something new, from his own backyard to far beyond the clouds. In the morning, after school, and "until the sky turn[s] pink," Trampoline Boy finds contentment in the...
With a name that means "cherry blossom," Sakura's favorite time of the year is understandably spring, when her namesake blooms. Her grandmother gently nurtures her floral appreciation: "Together they sat/ in the shade of pink petals/...
*STARRED REVIEW "We live in the same city, go to the same school, but each of us has a different story," a student observes. "What we have in common is trying to figure out how to tell it." Welcome back to Mr. Ward's English class, introduced...
As a boy, Nek Chand "played and planted, laughed and listened ...
African American legends like Serena Williams and Michael Jordan are household names, but not long ago, professional sports were strictly segregated. Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947; the National Basketball Association allowed Earl Lloyd to play in 1950; Brown v. Board of...
Monsters under the bed, specters hiding in closets, demons just outside the door seem to afflict – and limit – every child at some point in their young lives. But what if those "Shadows on the wall / Noises down the hall" could be confronted...
A young daughter is "having a hard time falling asleep tonight." To lull her to "dream," her mother offers a story about "a baby wrapped in a white sheet and her mother smiling at her." That baby is the titular jazz legend Nina Simone. Her...
Being part of a Jewish and South Asian Indian family surely has delicious perks: "Making Indian food that my mom ate as a kid for a Jewish holiday that my dad grew up with – that was a lucky combination." For the first-night-of-Hanukkah meal, a...
*STARRED REVIEW On November 4, 2013, two students on their way home overlap by eight minutes while riding the 57 bus across Oakland, Calif. Sasha, a private school senior, has Asperger's syndrome, was assigned male at birth, identifies as agender (neither male nor female), uses the...
*STARRED REVIEW For those unfamiliar with "golden shovel" poems, here's how they work: choose an existing poem, then create a new poem by ending each line with the exact words, in order, of the original poem. Here, Coretta Scott King Award winner Nikki Grimes opens with Psalm...
*STARRED REVIEW Boise, Idaho, is home to the James Castle Collection and Archive, commemorating an internationally renowned local artist who lived most of his 78 years in isolation. The sleek building stands in sharp contrast to the artist's actual lifetime studios: an attic, an abandoned chicken...
*STARRED REVIEW Miguel de Cervantes survived his onerous childhood – his gambler father's imprisonments, his family's constant fleeing from debtors – by losing himself in stories. Inspired by his mother's tales, "dazzling plays," and "storytellers on street corners," Miguel imagines he will someday conjure his own...
Somewhere in a city, people are homeward bound at day's end. Among the commuters are a skateboarding boy and presumably his father; walking slightly ahead are a violin case-carrying girl accompanied by a flower-toting woman, most likely her mother. Waiting for the subway, boy and...
*STARRED REVIEW Skipping and dancing home from school, a young girl carries in one hand a dream catcher she's made, and with the other she holds onto her Grandpa. "How do you say grandfather in Cree?" she asks. And suddenly their walk turns somber as Grandpa...
Short, skinny, 13-year-old David Cray mostly keeps to himself – until he experiences "a different kind of anger." He's got plenty making him mad: his father's run off with another woman, leaving David and his mother to relocate to a ramshackle old Victorian in downtown...
