For Everyone by Jason Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My friend, Cait, handed this book to me and said, do you have five minutes? It took a few more minutes, sitting in a waiting room for a consultation on a possible heart condition- a heart attack at 39 with zero risk factors. An event that left me wondering if the time for my dreams had ended or just begun or transformed in some way.

She didn't tell me this book would speak to me. She didn't warn me I might not want to read it in public because the beauty of it might make me cry no matter how quickly I might be able to read it. Or that I would want to read it again and share it with specific people and with every student passing by to encourage them in their dreams, in their goals, in their lives.

It makes me think of Mrs. Beale, my acting teacher, colleague, friend. She read us "The Places You'll Go" our senior year with a hint of a tear in her eye. A little choked up at her hopes for our futures. It reminds me of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" in some sense, but completely different and new in another. I can see connecting these texts in the classroom and engaging students by inspiring them all while preparing them with a toolbox of practicalities with which to build up their dreams and toss the practicalities aside.

Jason Reynolds writes of creating and alludes to himself as well as anyone writing "...maybe even letters to people / you don't know but / do know you love." This is how I feel about all of my students past, present, and future. How I feel about all of the students who walk through our library stopping to get a book or to talk or maybe not even stopping at all. It is how I feel about all of the students in the halls of our Florida high school, in the halls of schools everywhere. This is the beauty that will bring a tear to your eyes, I hope. This is the beauty of embracing and chasing your dreams and spreading that passion to others to do the same because your heart holds nothing but love for them.

So, Dear Jason, I don't know much more than that either, but I am writing back never-the-less because I, too, am a Dreamer who needed some "firelight for this long and often dark road." Don't worry. I plan to share it.
Thank you.

Love,
A Dreamer

View all my reviews

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really want to give this book a higher rating, but the first half simply dragged. I get that you need to do world building in a fantasy novel, but I feel like it could have been done amidst some additional action. The first half of the book just felt too tame. My rating was a 2-3 for the first half. By the second half of the book (actually, considerably past the halfway point), the book began to get more interesting. The reader discovers some dark secrets about the Belles and the current princess along with Camellia, and the story begins to pick up. I would rate the second half of the book a 3-4. It may just be that beauty and fashion are not my thing. I found the descriptions of dress types, fabric and makeup to be sleep inducing. However, my daughter is my opposite in this regard, and she (a 13-year-old fashionista who will watch makeup tutorials and practice until she gets it just right) may very much enjoy this book. I think I will hand it to her and see what happens. I haven't decided yet whether or not I will read the sequel, but if Paige likes this one, I will update my review.

View all my reviews

Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love when a book juxtaposes two stories side by side, even if one is infinitely more bleak than the other. Ahmed artfully places the story of a tragic act of terror taking place in the larger world outside the small suburb of Batavia, Illinois where Maya Aziz has grown up beside the intricacies of Maya's life as she sheds the layers of a life expected by her parents and seeks out her own truths. At the novel's outset, Maya relies on her video camera to reveal and record the world around her. She continuously pushes against the shelter her parents want to envelop her in, but uses her camera to shelter herself from the awkwardness of life.
Maya stands as a speck of brown in a sea of white in her school where she is the only Indian-American Muslim student. Maya's ethnicity and religion do not wholly define her, but are key elements in a story of familial obligations, discrimination, and obligations to self. Maya must make choices about the importance of family, self and to what extent one should act out of fear. Love and hatred soak into the themes of the story, and Maya alternates between extremely mature decisions and those that show she is still a teenager learning how to navigate the world.
Overall, Maya is a strong, female character with morals, empathy and drive. I would love for my daughter to have Maya as a role model--despite the continuous tension between Maya and her parents. Maya benefits from a supportive and calm aunt who I would love to go to yoga with if she were a real person.
Recommendation? This is one to read. The very serious topic of xenophobia is addressed, but not in a way that comes across as didactic. Instead, it offers a slice of life to see how one family in a small town can be impacted by prejudice. Maya's story is large, while the contrasting tale of the terrorist is small. It feels like a news story leaving an imprint in the lives of the characters, but still removed from the actual circumstances the characters face. The effect creates a blanket of realism around Maya's life and the people in it.

View all my reviews