by Margarita Engle

The story is written in short verse- easy to read and detailed with nature and historical references in the last few years in Cuba. It is  a short romantic story of two young Cubans struggling to fit in at school and finding themselves with nature, wildlife, and the naturalization process of real events in CA.  A romantic story of two adolescents trying to find safety and cultural identity. The poems contain realistic nature facts and past Hispanic historical events stretching back to the 1400s. This book is best for older teens who might have more connections to understanding the historical events.There is a lot of history to take in with this short novel.  It is easy to read because of the verse style. I did not like the open ending because there was no closure.

The book was read & reviewed in Spanish by Mabel T., Komachin Middle School staff

by Sam Hepburn

James lives with his recently widowed mother and their new Homebot who is designed to do many tasks in the home. James’ mom is thrilled with the new addition to their home since both humans are sad about the recent loss of James’ dad. James does NOT like the homebot who tries to micromanage James. In addition, James’ school is about to become part of a trial bringing in Schoolbots to train with the human teachers. They quickly start to take over the school and begin to replace them. Like with the Homebot, some people like the Schoolbots and others do not. Unsurprisingly, teachers begin to be transferred away from the school and the robots take over their jobs. While the graphic novel is told in humorous, light images, the subject matter is much heavier under the comic disguise – much like the “friendly” looking robots. There are serious topics under the surface – Artificial intelligence and its place with human beings. How much do we turn over to machines without losing the human interaction we all need? Book two appears to have James homeschooled by Schoolbot and monitored at home with his family Homebot – because we know how well it went to have students taught at home with computers…I went into this book thinking it would be a light, funny story about a homework machine, and closed it feeling a bit disquiet. While the story shows both the positive and negative sides of technology helping in our homes and schools, the human cost rings loud and clear. I’m interested to see where the second book goes.  I think this is a positive addition to a middle school graphic novel collection as we forge forward with A.I. more and more in our lives. How we interact with and integrate technology is going to be a huge issue in the future.

by Jamie Sumner

What happens AFTER a school shooting to those who survived? This is the bittersweet story of a girl dealing with survivor’s guilt and traumatic memories from a day that no one ever thinks will happen in their school. 6th grader Bea is now wheelchair bound and too afraid to go back to school. The people around her want to change things so that events like this won’t happen again, but Bea just wants to forget & pretend it didn’t happen. But it did and learning to face her memories are a big part of the story. The past unravels with flashbacks to help the reader understand the horrific event in a middle school appropriate way. Told in verse, the lines are both haunting and accessible. The story is sad and hopeful-ish. This book might have triggers for some students. It’s an important book, sadly, in this day and age.

by Devillers, Julia

This fun, lighthearted story of a summer romance at a local amusement park will have readers chuckling along at the character wearing the giant, sweaty moose costume and her fellow amusement part co-workers. Coco and her family are trying to save their family owned theme park. Cute boy, Henry, is just trying to survive a summer without soccer and make a little money to pay back his business-obsessed dad. The two find that summer won’t be so bad with new friends. I enjoyed this sweet story of boy meets girl/moose. It had plenty of humor, moose puns galore, & lots of heart. The story is told in alternating points of view. Perfect for both male & female readers. I enjoyed this light read this summer!

 by Lisa Grush with Rebecca Stefoff

For the first several decades of the space race, women and minorities were not allowed to train to become astronauts, partially because of the severe restrictions on education that were part of the prerequisites, and partially just because of bias and prejudice. By the 1980’s, women were finally brought into NASA to train to become astronauts. Sally Ride, Judy Resnick, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Renna Seddon were the first women selected to prove that women had as much intelligence, grit, and rights as men to travel off planet. This book shares their story as they dreamed as children, braved the eventual application process, and finally trained for their turn to fly. Readers get to see this renaissance period of NASA’s growth and change, ending with the tragedy to the Challenger in 1986 and its aftermath. Color photographs are included in the center of the book, putting faces to the names. Also included are a timeline from 1943 to 1987 highlighting the lives of the 6 women and their connections to the space program, mini bios of them, and source information for the book. I appreciated the look at NASA from beyond the first group of primarily white men that has been so frequently written about with this female-centered chunk of history. A nice addition to a library’s collective biography collection and to a more diverse space collection.

by James Robinson

Documentary filmmaker, James Robinson tells his story of growing up with misaligned eyes and his quest to have people understand him and his condition. He starts the book trying to help readers understand what he sees and the struggles that caused growing up in sports and school. He guides the reader through his life of attempted fixes, solutions, and many frustrations. Documentary filmmaking became a way to visually share with audiences (& potential future employers) how to get past the awkward moments of staring at someone whose eyes don’t track the way we’re used to them doing. He coined the term “whale eyes” because we generally have a positive response to the giants of the deep who see like he does out of one side separately from the other. His 12 minute film can be found at whaleeyes.org/watch. I loved the way Robinson gently guides the reader to see like he sees. To reframe the way we look at people who view the world in a different way from the majority. The book is full of simple illustrations. Pairs of pages occasionally turn to be read in a flip book manner. Chapters are short. It was an informative and very readable book. 
Because of the success of Robinson’s film, many other folks connected with his ideas – those with strabismus (misaligned eyes),  prosopagnosia (face blindness), stuttering, and more. People who shared his struggles to communicate all wanted his help with films about their conditions so they could be better understood. Because of that, I think many readers will be able to connect with his book. And the format is perfect for middle grade readers who can sometimes still need concrete examples to understand concepts. A lovely, readable memoir.

curated by Dr. Tamara Pizzoli & illustrated by Desire Cesar “El’Cesart” Ngabo

Each beautiful, bold set of pages in this book share an inspirational quote and a brief explanation of the quote in context for these 50 trailblazers. Highlighted men in the book come from many fields: politics, music industry, film, sports, the arts, and civil rights activists. I am not a black man (or woman), but most of the quotes spoke to me as a human and I could relate to most of the inspirational thoughts. They address resiliency, self-awareness, inspiration, and many more very human needs. I found the artwork throughout gorgeous, bright swashes of color emphasizing a portrait of each man. Illustrations by Desire Cesar “El’Cesart” Ngabo make this book a treat to read cover to cover or just browse a few page. This book begs to be on display, perhaps opening to a different set of pages each day, until some intrigued patron scoops it up to read cover to cover! While it does not give much biographical information on each person, I think it will motivate readers to investigate more and exposes them to a nice breadth of modern & historic personalities.