The Story of My Anger by Jasminne Mendez

 Yulieta Lopez should have gotten the lead in the school play. But the role goes to a white girl whose looks fit the character in the traditional play that the theatre teacher chose. Yuli longs to leave her Texas town and have a career in theatre, and she knows that brown skinned Latina girls like her don't get a lot of chances, so she hesitates to speak up about the racism she is experiencing. But she finds that she has to speak up when all of the books are removed from her favorite teacher's classroom, and this is the one classroom in the whole school where books by Black, brown, and LGBTQ authors are represented. Yuli takes her love of acting and her anger over book banning and realizes that she has the power to create her own kind of theatre to raise awareness about the racism she sees in her school. This novel in verse shows a teen's awakening to her own power, and her stumbling toward finding ways to make her point without hurting other people in the process. The protagonist is a junior in high school, and the story feels right for 8th-10th graders, but younger students could also get inspiration from this empowering story. It does not have the complexity and poetic brilliance of Elizabeth Acevedo's novels, but could definitely be recommended for readers who love her work.  

Away by Megan Freeman

 

I am a big fan of Alone by Megan Freeman, the story of a 12-year-old girl who lives on her own for 3 years after being left behind in a mass evacuation of the state of Colorado. Alone has been a big hit with middle schoolers, especially 6th graders who like the novel in verse format and the survival aspect of the story. Away is the companion book--it tells the story of what happens to four other young teenagers who are caught up in the evacuation. Alone leaves readers with a lot of big questions about the evacuation, including how and why it happened. I had high hopes that Away would both answer the questions and be a compelling story in its own right. Unfortunately, the explanation for the evacuation did not ring true, from the logistics of transporting and housing people to the fact that no one comes to the aid of the presumably thousands of people held for years in government custody. Attempts were made to explain how people are banned from using technology and why the federal government isn't involved, but it's all so unbelievable. Putting the logistics of a mass evacuation based on a nefarious disinformation campaign aside, the story of the four young teens in the camp didn't engage me nearly as much as Maddie's original survival story in Alone. Our four protagonists are unnecessarily precocious (a screenwriter, a poet, a journalist, and a lover of mythology), and the story takes a long time to get going. Kids are absolutely reading this book and wanting the answers it provides, but it is not going to be as well-received as the original book in the series.