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Book List: Get Ready for Black Children’s Book Week!

Black children's book week logo

 

February 27-March 5 will be the first celebration of Black Children’s Book Week, which extends Black History Month into March.

Black Children’s Book Week is a global celebration of Black children and the people who ensure Black children are represented in books and other children’s media. While the week is administered by Black Baby Books, events are hosted by both the Black Children’s Book Week Committee, and celebrants throughout the world!

Read Across America Day is also during the first week of March, so look for that week to be a huge celebration of children reading!  To get you started, here’s a short list of some really cool scary books to share with kids next week,  or really any time!

 

cover art for Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

Amari and the Night Brothers  by B.B. Alston  (Bookshop.org)

Thirteen-year-old Amari Peters, on a mission to find her missing older brother,  mysteriously receives a scholarship to the training camp for the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, which has the mission of keeping supernatural creatures secret while also protecting humans. Amari navigates both the supernatural and social obstacles she encounters with her street-smarts, resourcefulness, and resilience.  Read the full review here.

 

 

 

 

cover art for The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown

The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown (Bookshop.org)

India Hill Brown joins Mary Downing Hahn as a true storyteller of the middle-grade ghost tale. Iris discovers an abandoned cemetery in a wooded area near her neighborhood. Soon she is having nightmares and is drawn back to the cemetery by the ghost of Avery Moore, a girl buried there. She and her friend Daniel discover it is a Black cemetery, dating back to when Black and white people were segregated even after death. Although they bring it to their town’s attention successfully, Avery won’t be satisfied until she has Iris as a “forever friend”. While there are many similarities to Hahn’s Wait Till Helen Comes,  Brown takes the story to a new and more complex level that deals with racism, segregation, and student activism among the scares.

 

 

 

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. (Bookshop.org)

These stories have the eerie feeling of truth to them, possibly because of McKissack’s introduction, where she describes listening to the stories the adults around her told when she was a child. This is a Caldecott Award winner, and also a Coretta Scott King award winner, but beyond that, it’s just really good storytelling, made even better by the dramatic illustrations. This is one of the books that you really need to hold in your hands and see the artwork complementing the story across a double page spread, to truly appreciate. Don’t let the award for children’s book illustration fool you: this book is often used with and appreciated by middle school aged kids and older.

Everyone talks about how seminal Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is, but The Dark-Thirty is just as essential.

 

cover art for Root Magic by Eden Royce

Root Magic by Eden Royce (Bookshop.org)

After Jezzie’s grandmother, a root worker, dies, her grandfather decides to teach her the basics of root magic, for purposes of protection, and she starts to develop supernatural powers. Her “witchiness” is causing her problems at school, though, and a racist police officer who knows her family are root workers is harassing them. Root Magic takes place around the time of the Kennedy assassination, during the time of Jim Crow. Eden Royce has written an excellent Southern Gothic novel with vivid description and plenty of scares about the traditions of the little-known Gullah-Geechee people. Read our full review here.

 

 

Posted on February 20, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff

Too Bright to See by [Kyle Lukoff]

Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff

Dial Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593111154

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook  ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

 

Bug lives in a haunted house, but has only felt, not seen, the ghosts. Bug’s uncle and best friend, Roderick, also believed the house was haunted. Now Roderick is dead, leaving Bug and Bug’s mom behind, grieving.

 

It is the summer before sixth grade and Bug’s friend Moira is determined to make both of them over so they can fit in when they start middle school, but Bug doesn’t feel right about makeup and dresses.  Uncle Roderick may be haunting the house, Bug is having nightmares, and everything feels unsettled, scary, and somehow wrong.

 

With the help of Uncle Roderick’s ghost, Bug finally realizes that he is a trans boy. What’s lovely about Lukoff’s book is that, unlike a lot of coming out stories, where the protagonist faces negativity and bullying,  Bug is supported and loved by the people around him: his mom, his friends, his principal, teachers, school, and classmates.  His struggle is in realizing his identity as a trans boy, dealing with his grief over the death of his uncle, and the many changes that come with entering middle school.

 

All The Bright Places is a haunting, perceptive, optimistic story that all middle grade students should be able to relate to. It handles grief, identity, and growing up beautifully: jts designation as a Newbery Honor title is well-deserved. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on January 28, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Ghost Girl by Ally Malineko

cover art for Ghost Girl by Ally Malineko

Ghost Girl  by Ally Malineko

Katherine Tegen Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063044609

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com )

 

Knobb’s Ferry is a sleepy little town, just south of Sleepy Hollow, home to the tale “Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman”, is the kind of place tourist stop to fill up with a tank of gas or have a slice of pie on the way, and it’s also home to sixth grader Zee Puckett, who has just discovered she is gifted with the ability to see ghosts.

Zee is an outsider with a prickly personality, but she is also a born storyteller, and she especially loves making up and telling ghost stories, much to the delight of her peers. She lives with her older sister, Abby. Their father has been out of town for six months, looking for work, and they haven’t heard from him, so the girls are scraping by. While Abby works, Zee goes to school and hangs out at the cemetery with her friend Elijah. Elijah’s mother is ill, and his father was an athlete and is now a mechanic. Elijah is bright, but uninterested in sports or cars, a disappointment to his dad. During a field trip to the library, Zee sees her first ghost. She’s spotted by her frenemy, popular Nellie Blake, who announces on the bus home that Zee thinks she was talking to a ghost, earning Zee the nickname “Ghost Girl”.

In the meantime, the principal has disappeared, leading to the appointment of a new one, Principal Scratch. Principal Scratch encourages the students to put themselves first, and focus on their own desires, and Zee watches as the people around her start to see their hopes miraculously come true. After a visit from Principal Scratch, the girls’ father starts regularly calling Abby, Eli’s mother is suddenly healthy again, and Nellie finds her missing dog.  Everyone in town loves Principal Scratch, yet the townspeople are drained of energy. Only Zee can see that something is wrong, and she helps Eli and Nellie break Principal Scratch’s hold over them. Can the three of them stop Principal Scratch and break his hold over the town?

Early in the book Principal Scratch muses that sixth grade is a testing time, “a strange, in-between time… when we walk that delicate line between good and bad. Between bully and friend.”  Malineko portrays the growth of Zee and her friends in that liminal time, as they realize people, including each other, have more going on than they show to the world, and that that line is not as solid as it appears.

With vivid descriptions, terrifying hellhounds, gruesome moments, plenty of suspense, and a librarian in their corner, Malineko has created a dark story, told with compassion, about family, friendship, becoming comfortable with yourself, and standing together, that ends with real hope. Kids who enjoyed A Tale Dark and Grimm or the Shadow School books will find a lot to like here, and parts of the book reminded me of Tuck Everlasting. Knobb’s Ferry may not have a headless horseman, but it does have a ghost girl. Recommended for grades 4-7.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on November 15, 2021 by , Reply
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