This volume is organized into four thematic sections—“Family & Friendship,” “Immigration & Belonging,” “Witness & Activism,” and “Identity & Self-Love”—which pair entries with the prompts that inspired them. Each section opens with a warm and insightful exchange between the co-editors, Shout Mouse founder Crutcher and 21-year-old Shout Mouse author Aakil. Readers will encounter a wide range of genres and formats, including personal reflections, poetry, a board book, and comics, used to talk about different family structures, housing instability, making a perilous journey to the U.S., and other topics relating to often-underrepresented life experiences. In the charming “Joy-Grace and the Dress Dilemma,” written by Tseganesh Chala and Joy Ugwu and illustrated by Joy Ingram, a Jamaican-born, U.S.-based child with a Nigerian mom and Ethiopian dad struggles to best represent her heritage for Culture Day at school. This entry is one of several that appear in both English and Spanish. Established writers like Clint Smith, Tony Keith Jr., and Safia Elhillo reflect on some of the pieces, adding a rich intergenerational layer. Color and black-and-white illustrations enhance the text and keep readers engaged. Ambitious in both structure and purpose, this bold and moving anthology will support educators in guiding teens to reflect, write, and imagine possibilities.
It’s a frigid day in Cherry Hill Forest; powdery drifts blanket the ground, migrating geese honk overhead, and Emma and her mom, a social worker, stroll along a secluded trail. Emma stumbles upon a camping tent much like those she’s seen in other parks. A woman emerges, and the trio exchange niceties before Emma asks her visibly chilled neighbor, “Don’t you get cold?” Margaret’s affirmative answer prompts mother and daughter to act, but when Mom’s outreach efforts to neighborhood shelters yield few solutions, Emma takes matters into her own hands. Emptying her coin bank, she assembles a kit of essentials and, later, prepares a plate of Christmas dinner for Margaret, learning over a shared meal more about the experiences that have discouraged the woman from seeking placement in a shelter. Emma and her mother listen attentively, attuned to their own privilege; by the time winter arrives again, the pair have identified a potential new home for their friend, a gesture borne from informed empathy. Necessarily narrow in scope, this text offers a jumping-off point for further dialogue. Canadian journalist Davy offers a frank, age-appropriate introduction to housing insecurity, broaching complex systemic realities with digestible tenderness. Delaporte’s appealing art, too, softens the challenging content without minimizing its impact. An author’s note provides additional actionable context for the true story on which the book is based. Mom and Margaret are light-skinned; Emma is tan-skinned.
Readers first meet 17-year-old Johannes (Hans) Schmitt on November 9, 1938, as he is walking with his father to the synagogue in Briedheim, Germany. His father is a tailor, and they are bringing clothes to the children in the orphanage attached to the synagogue. Hannah Becker (Hans’ girlfriend) and her father are also at the synagogue. It is a day that will end in Hell: The German Gestapo, riding in their long black Mercedes automobiles, fill the streets. While Hans and his father are at the orphanage, the Nazis attack the kosher butcher shop, breaking the glass windows, stealing all the meat, and beating the butcher to within an inch of his life. Hans and his father escape back to their tailor shop, but soon enough, the Gestapo arrives and kills Hans’ father. It is a scene repeated all around Germany on an occasion now known as “Kristallnacht,” the night of broken glass. Hans and his mother move into the orphanage, and in August 1939, Hans learns that his mother has arranged for him to go to America, under the sponsorship of his father’s old WWI friend—now a professor at the University of Virginia. Professor Cohen is permitted to sponsor only one German, and Hans’ mother insists that he must be the one to escape Germany. Hans boards the MS Batory, the ship that takes him from Gdańsk, Poland, to the port in New Jersey. Moments after the Batory pulls out of the harbor, a German battleship, ostensibly in port to begin peace treaty talks, begins firing rockets at Gdańsk; it is the official beginning of World War II. In November 1943, Hans is inducted into the U.S. Army and posted first to Camp Pickett in Virginia and then to the secret Camp Ritchie in Maryland.
It is at Camp Ritchie that the novel gains steam, moving beyond Hans’ emotional, personal story to encompass the extraordinary tale of “class twenty-two” of the Ritchie Boys, whose unique mission was to elicit real-time battle plans and weaponry details from captured German soldiers. In the narrative’s first, terrifying heavy-action scene, class twenty-two, under fire from the ground, parachutes into France behind enemy lines in preparation for the invasion of Normandy: “The night exploded into day as the Skytrain flying beside us erupted in a fireball of brilliant orange and red. For a single moment, I watched in awestruck silence, too dumbfounded to react as the plane cartwheeled away, not a single parachute emerging from the tumbling wreckage.” Saye’s meticulous prose is graphic, frightening, and packed with military details, including intricate descriptions of German weaponry and organizational structure. From the fields behind Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to the discovery of the concentration camps, the chilling brutality of war pours off the pages. Hans is a passionate narrator who viscerally communicates his raw emotions throughout the story, particularly his love for Hannah and his mother, his raging hatred for the Nazis, and his fierce determination.
Jasmine Ross, holder of multiple degrees, is happily rootless and eager for her next adventure (“I have training in self-defense, martial arts, tactical skills, and kickboxing. I can handle myself”). Over the years, her globe-trotting has taken her from India to sub-Saharan Africa. Her current gig is in London, where she is filling in for a historian who specializes in Black British history. She has no intention of remaining in London—until the night she rescues a teenage orphan named Amara from a violent attack. Amara’s brilliance and resilience reminds Jasmine of herself at Amara’s age; however, her assignment is coming to an end, and she needs to extend her visa for six months in order to stay until Amara leaves for university. A solution emerges in the form of a marriage of convenience to the dashing Aaron Adler, president of Saola Technology and a close friend of Jasmine’s sister, June. Aaron is under media scrutiny after a scandal involving a competitor named Bridgette Bromley; a short-term marriage would resolve both Aaron’s and Jasmine’s dilemmas. As Aaron and Jasmine settle into their roles as spouses and guardians of Amara, a deep and passionate connection sparks between them. Gordon’s novel is an engaging and briskly paced contemporary romance centered around dynamic and finely drawn protagonists. The chapters alternate between Aaron’s and Jasmine’s perspectives, offering insights into their thoughts and feelings as their marriage of convenience evolves into a genuine partnership (the sex scenes crackle with passion and emotional intensity). The supporting characters are similarly well-developed, particularly Amara, an intelligent young woman who finds stability and a promising future after Jasmine becomes her guardian. That said, the narrative moves so fast that some subplots, particularly Jasmine’s interactions with a predatory man named Bane Roth, are introduced and resolved too quickly.
Curtis’ opening discussion draws on many disciplines as she distinguishes hope from faith, pure positivity, and optimism. Ultimately, she notes, hope is “leaning in and working toward something meaningful to you—even if you’re not sure it’s going to happen.” Curtis considers beliefs about hope held by those in Japan, India, and ancient Greece, as well as observations by Friedrich Nietzsche, Emily Dickinson, and Barack Obama. She cites scientific studies that show the physical, psychological, and practical benefits of hope and examines the development of tools to measure it, including MRI brain imaging. The author doesn’t downplay the adverse forces—personal, local, or global, modest or extreme—that make it difficult to keep this often delicate emotion alive, but she advocates for nurturing hope through nature, art, relationships, and education. She strikes a motivating note at the end by speaking to the power of hope to effect change, small or great, followed by brief profiles of activists working to improve the world and more suggestions for cultivating hope. Suárez’s illustrations—rainbows of luminous semi-abstract, watercolorlike images—appropriately brighten each page, while Curtis’ writing is simple and clear, with information presented in brief, well-organized blocks. In a world where hope sometimes seems to be at a premium, this book offers inspiration and direction for developing a much-needed skill.
