Middle school is a tough time for many students, but especially if they have problems with social anxiety. Mix that in with having a father who just began running from the police for dealing marijuana (this story is set in Halifax, Nova Scotia) and a mentally unstable mother who entered the hospital, both on your thirteenth birthday. Oh, so sorry Brian. Now Brian and his younger brother are being put into foster care, at least for the time being.

Brian and Ezra were on the same basketball team last winter. They think they can call each other a friend, but Brian is so quiet, shy even, that it is difficult to tell. Ezra does say, “Hi,” to Brian and Brian will try to give a response back.

Then, there is Ezra who is figuring out his sexual orientation is different from his other friends from grade school. How will Ezra’s friends react if-and-when Ezra tells them. One of these friends is all about having a girl friend and wants Ezra to notice a specific girl who is interested in him. Oh, Ezra.

Fate has put Brian and Ezra together just as author Chad Lucas has by assigning all odd numbered chapters to Brian and all even numbered chapters to Ezra. Fate has been kind to both Brian and Ezra in doing this.

When foster care is extremely difficult to handle, especially because of Brian’s past birthday and Brian stands up for himself to a school bully, Brian finally takes matters into his own hands. Brian and his younger brother run away. While Brian’s running away is on a ‘need-to-know’ basis at school, the police officer and his social worker, are involved. Brian’s mother, Brian’s father’s good friend, and eventually Ezra round out the team who convince Brian to return ‘home’.

“A little kindness goes a long way” (p. 124) and this story will definitely have readers wanting kindness to win!

Two little ants, Leaf and Lou, learn from their friend Gramma Tinker the second half of a Lappert Moth’s life cycle from caterpillar to adult moth. (So this is not your typical gorgeous butterfly getting all the ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaaahs’.) The WINGMAKER in the title refers to the metamorphosis, inventor and caterpillar, Gramma Tinker is about to undergo on her way to becoming an adult moth. Illustrator David Huyck helps fill us in on the information Gramma Tinker learns along the way from her guests a fly, a hummingbird, and a bat in the notes she is writing down in her notebook. The facial expressions are cute but I was not always quite up to speed on the silk weaving Gramma Tinker was doing do prepare herself for her two week sleep into mothhood.

People of color usually come to mind when I think of Diverse Books, but while this novel has some of that, it is mostly about a person with a disability – wheelchair bound from the age of two by way of a car accident.

Natalie Beacon, age 13 years, has just arrived in New Jersey with her parents from San Francisco, CA. This family move leaves the Beacons not knowing anyone in this new town. While Nat’s father is busy talking with the Redker’s College wheelchair racing team coach to get Nat signed up for the team and thus a new set of friends, Nat discovers a poster calling for open auditions to the summer production of WICKED. Nat loves musicals and wants to be in one in the worst way. Obstacle, Nat. You are in a wheelchair. Do not try something new that is going to let you down and get your feelings hurt. Stay with wheelchair racing. You are good at that.

The Chance to Fly is a coming of age story with the obstacles of over protective parents, making new friends in a new town, trying something new (live theater) you have wanted for a long time, and how to make people see Natalie the person and not just see a girl in a wheelchair. Obstacle after obstacle Nat takes them on, sometimes secretly, sometimes with her heart in her throat, and sometimes with a yell and a scream. Sounds like a thirteen year old right?

Co-written by Stacy Davidowitz, of the Camp Rolling Hills series, and Ali Stroker, a Tony Award winning actor bound to a wheelchair herself, this book is a shear delight for tweens, extra especially if they enjoy live theater.

First there was history, then there was ‘herstory’, and now Tom Adams presents “Kidstory” : 50 children and young people who shook up the world. As the INTRODUCTION states: “…these children are not the only amazing ones. This book could have included fifty more amazing children. And another fifty, And fifty more…contributing to making this world a better place.” (pg 5)

The contents list five chapters: Think & Invent, Crete & Dream, Hope & Believe, Lead & Triumph, and Change & Conquer. Each chapter contains ten young people (under the age of 20) who have made a wonderful contribution to their/our world. Some of these young people are well known from past history, examples – Louis Braille ( Create & Dream) , Pocahontas (Change & Conquer) , and Anne Frank (Hope & Believe), while others are known from more recent times: Greta Thunberg ( Think & Believe), Bethany Hamilton and Laura Dekker (Lead & Triumph), and Malala Yousafzai ( Hope & Believe). Seven of these young people were born before 1899, thirty-four between 1900 and 1999, and the last nine from between 2000-2005.They come from North and South America, Europe and Asia, Africa, and Australia.

My favorite young person, previously unknown to me, is Ann Makosinski ( Think & Invent) (pg. 14-15) who invented “The Hollow Flashlight [which] uses just the heat of your hand to power it.” Ann invented it to help her friend living in the Philippines be able to study after dark because their electricity supply was not very reliable.

Quite a few of these young people have been awarded the International Children’s Peace Prize.

This book is inspiring!

56 million years ago, there were horses on the face of this earth. The modern horse is about 4 million yeas old. “About six thousand years ago, when horses first let humans climb astride their backs, a world of change was set in motion.” (4)

Jennifer Thermes does a wonderful job of including horses from around the world in this history of horses and their works of labor for humankind Horses have helped with farming, going to market, and carrying messages, as well as, people. Only Antarctica does not have a sustainable breed of horse living wild on the continent. On every other continent some domesticated horses have escaped and reverted back to the wild, AKA mustangs in the United States.

Once the ‘hosreless carriage’ came on the scene, horses in everyday human life began to loose ground as work animals. Jennifer Thermes states that “Humans traded manure in the streets for pollution in the air”. (I would like to interject that manure on a large scale also has its pollution problems in this day and age, as well.)

The watercolor, pencil, colored pencil, and ink artwork is soft and warm probably much like to hair on a horse’s muzzle. The book’s front endpaper include a world map including locations of 35 of the world’s 350+ breeds of horses. While the closing endpaper represents prehistoric cave drawings of horses.

Do not skip reading the Author’s Note or the Timeline at the end of the book.

All in all, a very satisfying book for horse lovers.