Book of the Week: Dig

by A. S.  King

Published by Dutton, 2019

392 pages

ISBN: 978-1-101-99491-7

Age 14 and older

In this taut, mesmerizing work, the Shoveler’s mom is adept at survival but has never told him anything about his dad, and their recent move to Pennsylvania has him wondering yet again. In the meantime, he gets a painting job. CanIHelpYou? rebels against her wealthy family with a drive-thru job at Arby’s; she also runs a thriving business selling weed. CanIHelpYou?, whose best friend, Ian, is Black, is sure she’s nothing like her unapologetically racist mother. Loretta lives in a trailer with her mom and abusive father. She copes by seeing herself as Ringmaster of the circus that is her life. While staying with his emotionally distant grandparents, Malcolm worries about his terminally ill, single-parent dad, and thinks about Eleanor, a local girl he met in Jamaica. Marla and Gottfried are having their house painted and hosting their grandson, unaware of the ways their choices and ideas have shaped generations. Teenage Jake seems to idolize his older brother, Bill. Jake is terrified of Bill. The Freak flickers in and out of all their lives as connections among these characters gradually unfold into a shape of disturbing certainty. The story fearlessly navigates intellectually and emotionally challenging terrain—racism and whiteness, abuse and assault, misogyny, and other violence—as the  teens consider and confront painful truths. Their willingness to do so, and their resilience, makes it more than bearable; it offers hope. ©2019 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Book of the Week: The Little Red Stroller

by Joshua Furst

Illustrated by Katy Wu 

Published by Dial, 2019
40 pages
ISBN: 978-0-735-22880-1

Ages 3-6

When Luna is a baby, her mommy gives her a red stroller. When Luna is bigger, she and her mommy encounter baby Ernie and his mommy and daddy. “We wish we had a little red stroller like yours,” they tell her. Luna, declaring herself too big for her stroller, gives it to them. Ernie eventually gives it to Gigi and her family, Gigi to Callie, Callie to Taj, Taj to Kavi, Kavi to Sula, and Sula to Selah. Selah and his family are sad when the now worn stroller falls apart outside a museum, but Ben and his mommy are passing by with a yellow stroller that Ben declares he has outgrown. This satisfying story is full of details wonderfully conveyed and embellished in illustrations showing diverse families and family structures, and marvelous scenes of each family’s outing, whether to a neighborhood park, a grandpa’s house, or a trip to the shore. And when Selah’s family meets Luna, now with her own baby, Isaiah, the story comes full circle as the yellow stroller gets a new home. ©2019 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Book of the Week: The Promise of Change

This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality

by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy

Published by Bloomsbury, 2019
310 pages
ISBN: 978-1-68119-852-1

Age 11 and older

A compelling, present-tense narrative combines poems in teenage Jo Ann Allen’s voice with clippings from news stories and other contemporaneous documents from the 1956-57 school year, when she was one of the Clinton 12 who integrated the high school in Clinton, Tennessee. Clinton’s white leaders didn’t necessarily agree with integration but believed in upholding the law. The early days for Jo Ann and her classmates were tense but quiet, until outsiders arrived, fomenting protests and violence that racist whites in the community latched onto. The 12 Black students soon faced daily harassment; threats spilled over to the Black community in general. Soldiers arrived to keep the peace, but Jo Ann’s family and others faced difficult decisions as they weighed safety against the fight for equal education. Jo Ann’s voice in the poems is magnetic in its honesty. An afterword briefly documents what happened to each of the 12 students, and theorizes why the story of Clinton, the first school in the south to integrate, is not as famous as what happened in Little Rock the following year. A scrapbook of photographs, source information, notes on poetic forms, and authors’ notes round out this accessible, affecting work. ©2019 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Book of the Week: Heroine

by Mindy McGinnis

Published by Katherine Tegen Books / HarperCollins, 2019

432 pages

ISBN: 978-0-06-284719-5

Age 14 and older

Mickey, a talented catcher, finds her softball dreams derailed after a car accident puts her and her best friend, pitcher Carolina, in the hospital months before their senior season. When the OxyContin Mickey is prescribed runs out sooner than it should, she stumbles upon another source: Edith, who snags Oxy from the senior citizens she drives to doctors’ appointments. At Edith’s house, Mickey befriends Jodie, a brilliant high school student who uses Oxy recreationally. When Mickey and Jodie “graduate” to heroin, Mickey struggles to keep it a secret from her family, even as she steals from her mom and stepmom to buy the drugs, and even as her performance behind the plate slides. There is never a moment in this harrowing but compassionate account that feels either unbelievable or melodramatic as it illuminates the terrifying ease with which people from all walks of life can fall victim to opioid addiction. (MCT) ©2019 Cooperative Children’s Book Center