SLAY by Brittney Morris

SLAY
By: Brittney Morris
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: September 24, 2019
Read via NetGalley

Did you know that girls game?

Did you know that girls can write games?

Kiera is a 17-year-old honors student, at a largely white school.  She just got into Spelman College. She has it all planned out.  Her boyfriend, Malcolm, will go to Morehouse.  They will both go to college in Atlanta and marry eventually with children.

But every night, Kiera is a Nubian Queen, named Emerald, on the Afro-centric, invitation-only, video game SLAY.  Kiera’s family and boyfriend don’t know about her other life. And, Emerald happens to be the creator of the game. She battles in the multiplayer online game and chats with the other person who helps with the game, Cicada.

When a young man is killed in the real world for his play in the SLAY world, the news starts labeling the game as racist and violent.  Then Emerald acquires an anonymous game-playing troll.  Can she protect the game, where she can be herself, without giving away who she is?

This book may be my number one purchase for my library this year.  The combination of dealing with video games (like Ready Player One) and handling being Black in America (like The Hate U Give) is a winning combination.

Recommended: Grades 7 & Up

 

A (Twitter) Type of Book Review: Grit

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Author: Dr. Angela Duckworth
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: 2016

I was on a two-hour flight.  Before I sat down, I carefully pulled a book out to read, my water bottle and snack, put my bag under the seat in front of me and sat down.  Once we were underway, I began to read.

Almost immediately, I read something that got me excited.  I wanted to make a note of it but had put my notebook in my bag under the seat.  It’s just awkward getting the bag out. So instead, I decided to take a picture and use the phone’s native photo editor to mark it up for later.

And, I kept reading.  And, it happened again. Still no notebook.  But a phone worked:

Wait a minute…maybe this was a different way to review a book.  After all, I’m looking for different ways for my students to review books.  Maybe I could try too.  The result is a Twitter thread that pulls out the parts of the book that jumped out at me. Check it out!

Book Review: The Names They Gave Us

The Names They Gave Us
By Emery Lord
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s
Publication Date:  2017

The Names They Gave Us is Christian fiction that does not follow the traditionally expected plan.  The pastor father and the steady boyfriend from the same church is only the starting edge of the story.  This is a story of cancer in the family. This is a story of having the base of your life shaken up and rediscovering the footing. This is a story of a teenager growing up and out in one small summer.

Lucy’s line is clear on Christian versus not Christian. But her definition of Christian immediately starts to fluctuate.  She finds that others are not as judgemental as she is.  She is not a perfect princess, but at the Daybreak summer camp, she discovers that she is lucky, even while facing problems.  She is off balanced by her mother’s cancer and the changes in her life. Yet she reaches to the campers to help them up.

This is a tapestry of secrets, changes, growing up, and a lovely romance to add to the weave.

Recommended: Grades 7 & up

Book Review: How to Hang a Witch

How to Hang a Witch
By Adriana Mather
Publisher: Ember, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
Publication Date: 2016
(Listened to as an audiobook provided by http://audiobooksync.com/ and read by the author.)

One of the Georgia Peach Award nominees for 2018-19 is the horror story How to Hang a Witch. It starts out with Samantha Mather and her stepmother moving from her only home in New York to her deceased grandmother’s house in Salem, Massachutes. Her father is in a coma in the hospital.  Like any normal teenager, the high school will be a big part of the problem. In this case, the problem comes in two forms: The Descendants and the name Mather. The Descendants are the high school clique made up of people descended from the 19 who were hung at the Salem Witch Trials. For historical references, in the late 1600s, Cotton Mather was one of the men who decided that witchcraft existed and encouraged the Salem Witch Trials.  High school isn’t the only problem Samantha faces. When a ghost invades her bedroom and people in Salem start dying, there is a bigger mystery to solve.

Horror or scary stories are not my favorite genre but this book does a very good job of balancing the story and the scary parts.  The only real problem was that in making the ghost real, it became a little too real. Having a personal relationship with a ghost did not make sense except to “humanize” him. But that was still weird. For me, the best part of the book is the author’s note at the end. Guess who is a direct descendant of Cotton Mather?

Recommended: Grades 7+

 

Kill Him or Kiss Him?

Not If I Save You First
By Ally Carter
Audiobook / Scholastic Audio
Listening length: 6 hrs. and 54 minutes
Release date: March 27, 2018
Downloaded from the DeKalb Decatur Library

Ten-year-old Maddie Manchester is the daughter of the head of the President’s Secret Service and best friend to the First Son, Logan.  Sixteen-year-old Maddie Manchester is a loner in Alaska, who has spent the last six years learning to live in the wilds of Alaska with her father, now a bush pilot.  Maddie wrote letters to her best friend, Logan.  And Logan never answered her letters.

Then, Logan shows up in Alaska as a punishment from his parents.  The morning after he arrives, Maddie’s father is gone on a trip and Maddie and Logan are in the woods arguing. Maddie is shot and Logan is kidnapped.  Spoiler alert: Ally Carter never had a female protagonist that ran away from danger.

The book is a fast, fun, suspenseful read.  Yes, it’s a little predictable.  Maddie’s letters start each chapter which is a lovely touch to let you know Maddie better.  Logan is not nearly as well developed as a character.  Maddie too suffers from a little underdevelopment though not as much. And there is no good explanation, even at the end, why Alaska instead of staying in D.C. Despite the few drawbacks, it’s a wonderful adventure in the wilds of Alaska, with a boy and a girl and a bedazzled ax handle.

Recommended: Grades 6 & up

 

 

 

Valient High Book Review

Valiant High
by Daniel Kibblesmith, Derek Charm, and Daniel Baron

Diamond Book Distributors
Valiant Entertainment
Publication Date: September 4, 2018
ARC from NetGalley

Valient High is a collection of the first four Valient High series of comic books.  Set in a high school for students with superpowers, the teens have to find their way through normal teen angst and hormones while contending with their super-selves.  No use of superpowers during school, of course.

The comics are a little off balance in the sense that the reader is not sure if the issue is teen angst or super issues.  And it is not clear that the writers are.  Students wear pins to prevent their use of powers but apparently, they can take them off very easily.  Then there is gym, where the students are expected to use their powers, but it is not clear that anyone is training them on (a) how to use their powers and (b) how to work together as a team. Even in the big fight (of course, there is a big fight), it is not clear that the students are truly working together or just highlighting one or two supers.

Will I buy a copy for my high school library?  Yes.  It has potential and I think it will appeal to a number of students.

Recommended: Grades 7+

 

 

Teenage Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

Published by: Random House
Publication Date: 2017
Series: DC Icons

Diana is the only child on the island of the Amazons.  Born from Earth, she is not battle-tested. Strong, fast and smart she still has the issues of being underestimated and un-tested in a small world where everyone has proven themselves.  Diana plans carefully to win the island race and receive the laurels.  But on her path to the win, Diana sees a boat explode and rescues a young human woman. And thereby imperils the entire world.

This is a story of mythology. It tells the tales of heroes and demons, gods and goddesses and tries to upend the “traditional” view.  There was no person Aesop and “slow and steady” never wins.  With the unlikely group of maligned teenagers, they go from the world of the super rich in New York to the olive groves of Greece in a race of time and space to end the legacy of the Warbringer and the wars that she incites.  It is a fast book to read and a great ride by a great author.

Note: Wonder Woman: Warbringer is on the Georgia Peach Award nominees for 2018-19.  Check the website for more great books.

Random House and DC have teamed up with a set of incredible authors to bring these YA stories.  Look for Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu, Catwoman: Soulstealer by Sarah J. Maas, and Superman: Dawnbreaker by Matt de la Peña to read next.

Recommended: Grades 7+

As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti

As You Wish

By: Chelsea Sedoti
Publisher:  Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date:  January, 2018

Eldon is a high school senior in Madison.  It’s a dusty, desert town on Nevada State Road 375.  His afternoon job is to man the full service gas station and charm people into thinking the town is ordinary and unimportant.  But Madison has a secret.

There is a secret cave where everyone on the day and hour of their eighteenth birthday gets to make a wish.  One wish.  And that wish will come true.  You can wish to be thin, popular, rich, the football star or anything else.  But most of the people in Madison seem to regret their decisions.  His birthday is coming up.  What will Eldon wish for?

Honestly, I wondered at the start of the book if Eldon would wish for what eventually happened.  The premise was set in the first three chapters.  Eldon is the book’s narrator and while you want to like him, all of his encounters with other high school students seem rude or offensive.  At the end of the book, he admits he needs to grow up, but I was waiting for it much earlier.  Then there’s the premise that any magical cave would hand over the power of a wish to an 18 year old.  Or that the townsfolk, with years of experience in bad wishes, doesn’t keep a chart and explain to students what they should wish for and how to word it.  Or even how large an effect it can be.

I do think the title needs changing.  As You Wish by Carey Elwes is a favorite (as is the movie The Princess Bride) and this is just so far removed from that humorous story.

Mildly recommended: Grades 6-8 (middle school only); I don’t think high school students would enjoy this.

 

before I let go by Marieke Nijkamp

before I let go

By: Marieke Nijkamp

Publisher: Sourcefire Books

Publication Date: 2018

Corey and Kyra are best friends in the very small town of Lost Creek, Alaska, pop. 246.  Corey’s mom moves the family to Winnipeg and days before she comes back to see her best friend, Kyra is dead.  It seems impossible for the bright, bipolar friend to be gone and Corey keeps her plane reservation and flies to Lost.  Gone just a few months, Lost is different.  Instead of the social outcast that Kyra had always been, Corey finds her honored.  Over and over Corey is told that she’s an outsider and that Kyra was loved by Lost.  Corey can’t believe that Kyra would be loved by everyone and she sets out to investigate her friend’s “murder”.

This is an incredible psychological thriller that will take you on a trip.  What really happened to Kyra? Who is to blame and why is Corey suddenly an outsider in this small community.  Kyra paints during her manic depression periods and then tears them up.  But suddenly her pictures are everywhere.  Will Corey find the truth?  Will anyone believe her?  Or will Kyra’s picture of her inside a burning building be a real prophecy?   No matter what anyone says, Kyra didn’t survive her town. “We call them hero days,” Kyra said, “because that is when we fight fear itself. And we win.”

The story bounces from the moment to any period in the last two years.  The girls conversations bounce to the action of the moment.  The story races along, back and forth in time, trying to give glimpses of what happened to Kyra and what danger Corey is in.

Highly recommended: Grades 8 & up.

Two Nights by Kathy Reichs

Two Nights

By Kathy Reichs
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: July 11, 2017

Sunnie is an ex-troubled kid, an ex-Army vet, an ex-cop and not the most pleasant to be around.  But, when she is dragged in to a case, she takes it strongly and personally.  There is a child, kidnapped and who-knows-what for the purposes of a fringe radical group.  It’s up to Sunnie, her twin brother, and the police on the job to find the child and stop the madness.  Only Sunnie’s constant anxiety keeps her alive.  Can she save the child?  Should she?

This is a fast-paced thriller with the interspersed vignettes that make little sense until you near the end of the book.  What is happening to the child?  Is it the vignettes?  Is it something else?

I had not read a novel by Kathy Reichs before and this certainly kept me on the edge of my seat.  While I’m now in high school, I don’t think I’ll purchase it simply because I’m not seeing those sort of thrillers moving in the checkout area.  I will be sure to recommend that students go down the block to the local library if its in their interest areas.

Recommended: Adult