Latino Books Month

May is National Latino Books Month to read and celebrate books written by and for Latinos.

    

Mexican WhiteBoy by Matt de la Peña. With a Mexican father and white mother, Danny has never felt like he fits in. When he's in his predominately white neighborhood and school, he's just that Mexican kid, but when he goes down to National City to spend the summer with his father's family, he's the white kid.

Dark Dude by Oscar Hijuelos. Set in the last '60s, He's sick of being beat up for his looks. He's sick of the kids at his school venting their frustration at whitey on him. When his friend Jimmy becomes a serious junky, Rico decides it's time to take a cue from Huck Finn, and runs away to a buddy's farm in Wisconsin. He blends in there, but it's still not the escape he thought it would be.

Fifteen Candles by Veronica Chambers. Four South Beach teens have an idea to start a business planning quincenaras, but it turns out to be harder than they expected. They're not sure their first party will actually happen. They're even less sure that they'll still be friends by the time it does. The first in the Amigas series, follow it with Lights, Camera, Quince!.

    

The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales. Safia tells stories of growing up in the barrio of McAllen, TX and her close-knit family and community. These are the things she misses when she wins a scholarship to boarding school.

A Good Long Way by Reñe Saldaña, Jr. One night, Beto comes home late (again) and gets in a fight (again) with his father, waking up his younger brother. Roel is torn between wanting to be cool and tough like Beto, but also wanting to excel in school. After the fight, Beto runs away, staying with his friend Jezzy, a tough girl who's run away before. Told in Beto, Roel, and Jezzy's voices and taking place over the course of a day, this is quick and engrossing read.

Estrella's Quinceañera by Malin Alegria. Estrella's mother is planning the biggest, tackiest, most awful quincenera ever-- a party Estrella doesn't want, especially as it doesn't fit in with her new image at her new school full of rich white kids.

    

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza Cordero is growing up poor in Chicago. Told in short vignettes of her childhood and teen years, this slim novel introduces us to a character we'll never forget. This is one of those books that's taught in school that teens will actually enjoy reading.

Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall. Freshman year, Lupita's mother gets uterine cancer. Despite the fact that she's the oldest of eight, Lupita and her mother have a close relationship and it grieves her to see her vibrant and wonderful mother struggle with the disease. This verse novel follows Lupita through high school and beyond, and we see her and her family deal with her mother's illness.

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano. In 1969, The Young Lords create in uprising in Evelyn's Spanish Harlem neighborhood. The fight spills into her own home, as Evelyn's grandmother supports the Young Lords, but her mother does not, with Evelyn caught in the middle.

This is no where near comprehensive, but what are your favorites that I missed? Leave a comment!

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Homestead Act: Books about Pioneers

On this day in 1862, President Lincoln signed the first of the Homestead Acts into law. These acts opened up the west to settlement by white Americans.

    

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: The Illustrated Edition: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown. We must include this one, for the story of Westward Expansion is also the story of American Indian displacement.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Lawson. When her uncle dies and leaves her his homesteading claim, Hattie leaves Iowa for Montana to prove it up. An orphan, Hattie is tired for being bounced between various relatives, but proving the claim in roder to keep it is hard for anyone, let alone a teenaged girl living by herself. Follow it with Hattie Ever After.

The Shrouding Woman by Loretta Ellsworth. After her mother dies, Evie's Aunt Flo comes to stay. Aunt Flo is a Shrouding Woman, a woman who cleans bodies and prepares them for burial, shepherding them from this world to the next, and wants Evie to apprentice with her. But Evie wants no more to do with death and resents this woman who surrounds herself with it.

    

Light on the Prairie: Solomon D. Butcher, Photographer of Nebraska's Pioneer Days by Nancy Plain. Solomon D. Butcher was a photographer in Nebraska as lands were being snatched up after the Homestead Act passed. This book collects his photographs of the pioneer families and their houses and possessions, offering a wonderful visual record of their lives.

Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and Rabble-Rousers by Brandon Marie Miller. This title profiles sixteen women, telling their stories by using their letters, journals, and other primary sources to make their stories live again.

This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone by Melissa Coleman. The memoir details Coleman's childhood in the 70s on a homestead in Maine, where her parents lived a self-sufficient life off the land. But life was hard and filled with great tragedy.



The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency by Anna Hess. The latest iteration of homesteading doesn't require several acres of land, and doesn't lead to complete self-sufficiency. Hess's book gives many projects for readers to dip their toes into the homesteading lifestyle. Written for adults, many of these projects are ones teens can do.

What books on homesteading would you recommend?

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May is National Foster Care Month

May is National Foster Care Month, highlighting the foster care experience and the need for involved adults to give children safe and happy lives.

    

One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. Carley ends up in foster care after her step-fater puts her and her mother in the hospital. Despite some friction with their oldest son, the Murphy's offer a safe and loving place that seems too good to be true and Carley's wondering what will happen when the other shoe drops. This is a beautiful book that shows a very positive foster care experience.

Three Little Words: A Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter. When she was 4, Ashley was taken from her mother and placed into foster care. She spent the next 9 years being bounced between placements and case workers, with some kind families and some horrible ones.

The Throwaway Piece by Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez. After helping her mother survive a string of horrible boyfriends, Jewel is devastated when her mother puts her in foster care. Through some kind adults, she starts to find her own way in life, but is torn between doing what's right for Jewel and trying to save her mother once again.

    

Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson. In this verse novel, Locomotion tells of life with his foster mother Mrs. Edna and how she manages to visit his little sister, who has been adopted by another family.

The Book of Fred by Abby Bardi. Mary Fred has grown up in a fundamentalist cult. When she is removed from her sect's settlement she is placed in a foster family that is well-intentioned, but has its own issues. While they give Mary Fred the stability and introduction to mainstream life, she, in turn, gives them something and they learn to be a family. Published for adults, the age of Mary Fred and her foster sister (both 15) gives this teen appeal.

Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd. Holly lives with a too-nice foster family and misses her mother. When Holly finds a blond wig, wearing it gives her a new confidence and an alter-ego that runs away to try to get back to Ireland to find her mother.

    

Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook. After aging out of foster care, Will decides to go to Las Vegas, taking along his girlfriend Zoe, an abused girl he met in his group home placement.

Calli by Jessica Lee Anderson. Calli's not entirely sure how she feels about the fact that her parents have decided to be foster parents. But when Cherish arrives, steals Calli's boyfriend and possessions and tries to split up Calli's moms, Calli enacts a plan for revenge that goes horribly wrong.

What I Call Life by Jill Wolfson. Listening to the stories told by the Knitting Lady helps Cai and the other girls in her group home come to terms with what has happened to them and their lives now.

What are your favorite books about the foster experience?

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Armed Forces Day

Today is Armed Forces Day. It was started in 1949. Before then, each branch of the forces had their own holiday. This is a unified day to celebrate all the branches, although YA Reading List did mark Army Day.

    

The Warrior's Heart: Becoming a Man of Compassion and Courage by Eric Greitens. In this memoir, Greitans tells the story of his life, from when he was a normal kid to how his travels around the world and being a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford opened his eyes to his desire and need to protect people, so he became a Navy SEAL. There are several Choose-Your-Own Adventure-type interludes to help readers see the world through Greitens's eyes. Older readers may wish to read the original adult version of this book, The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL.

I Am a SEAL Team Six Warrior: Memoirs of an American Soldier by Howard E. Wasdin with Stephen Templin. Wasdin's memoir details his grueling training to be become a Navy SEAL, and then to become part of the elite SEAL Team Six, a group so elite that many had not heard of it before they took out Osama Bin Laden. With the SEALs, Wasdin saw action during the first Gulf War and in Somalia as a sniper. Older readers may want to go straight to the adult version of this book, SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper.

Left for Dead: A Young Man's Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis by Pete Nelson and Hunter Scott. When the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese, she went down in 14 minutes. 800 men died, but several hundred survived, but no one knew where they were, or that they were in trouble. They had to survive in shark-infested open water for days before rescue. The captain was blamed for the disaster, even though the survivors knew he was innocent. 50 years later, Hunter Scott did a history day project on the disaster and started a campaign to clear the captain's name and get the truth out there.

    

Something Like Normal by Trish Dollar. Most soldiers have a hard time with re-entry, but when Travis returns in Afghanistan, he struggles. He has a hard time dealing with the death of his friends and suffers from PTSD. On top of that, there are problems on home, such as his brother stealing his car and his girlfriend and that fact that his parents have split up.

Battle Dress by Amy Efaw. Basic training at West Point is so brutal, it's called "The Beast." It's hard for anyone to get through it. After her difficult home life and childhood, Andi thinks she can handle anything West Point can throw at her, but as the only girl trying to survive in a man's world that's designed to grind you up and spit you out, can she find the inner strength she needs? Efar was a cadet at West Point and bases this story on her experience there.

Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two by Joseph Bruchac. When he was 6, Ned Begay went to boarding school, where he was schooled in English and "American" ways. At 16, he enlisted in the army. In the army, his native language, Navajo, is suddenly no longer forbidden, no longer useless. For the Navajo codes were the only ones the Japanese never broke, as Begay and his brothers-in-arms island hop across the Pacific.

    

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. Henry Fleming thought that when he went to war, he would be a hero and perform great deeds. When he joins the Civil War and faces fire for the first time, he's torn between his desire to be a hero and his fear of being wounded and dying.

Violins of Autumn by Amy McAuley. Betty is an American living in London when WWII starts. Not content to wait around while the bombs fall, she becomes a spy and is sent to France to join the Resistance.

If I Lie by Corinne Johnson. In a small military town, cheating on someone who is serving is the worst thing that can happen. It's what Quinn's mother did to her father. And, when Quinn is caught kissing her Marine boyfriend's best friend, it's what everyone thinks of Quinn. But Quinn didn't cheat. She can't explain herself though, not without telling something about Carey, a secret she's sworn to keep.

For more lists with military books, check out our Civil War list and our Vietnam War list.

What are your must reads about the American Armed Forces?

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Endangered Species Day

Today is Endangered Species Day. According the National Wildlife Foundation, this day is "a day to learn about the imperiled birds, fish and plants in your area and to share the importance of wildlife conservation with your community."

    

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley. The town of Lily, Arkansas, is taken by storm with the possible sighting of the Lazarus Woodpecker, a bird long thought to be extinct. Cullen likes to mock it. His brother, Gabriel, is a bit more zen about it. Then, Gabriel disappears without a trace.

Endangered by Eliot Schrefer. Sophie and her mother are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo working at her mother's bonobo reserve. When war breaks out, Sophie and Otto (one of the bonobos) are on the run for their lives.

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Philip Hoose. B95 is a red knot rufa, a small bird that migrates from the Canadian Arctic to Tierra del Fuego, and back again, every year. B95 has done this flight so many times, he could have flown to the moon, and then some. Hoose spends a year tracking the red knot rufas, a species that is dying out, trying to see if, once again, B95 will make it.

    

The Scientists in the Field series is consistently excellent. Here are 3 titles on endangered species.

Saving the Ghost of the Mountain: An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia by Sy Montgomery, photographs by Nic Bishop. Tom McCarthy is the conservation director of the Snow Leopard Trust. This book chronicles a research trip he takes to Western China to try to find the elusive cat. This is one of my favorites because they never actually see any Snow Leopards. It's a great tale of what happens when stuff goes wrong, and how the trip is still valuable research and not a waste of time.

The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe by Loree Griffin Burns. Colony Collapse Disorder is threatening honeybees. We know life with out beeswax or honey would be not cool, but Burns details the further ramifications... like a world with no fruit. In this book she details the work of 4 scientists trying to discover what's causing this, and how to stop it.

The Manatee Scientists: Saving Vulnerable Species by Peter Lourie. American readers are probably most familiar with endangered manatees off the coast of Florida. In this book, Lourie follows three different conservation projects. The Florida manatees are here, but also different types of manatees in Senegal and ones that live in the Amazon river. They are different issues and different projects, but the race to save them is the same.

  

World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky, illustrated by Frank Stockton. In this very well-designed book, Kurlansky raises the alarm about the state of our oceans and the wide-spread, dire consequences that are coming because of it. While not about an endangered species per se, this still looks at how an multiple species are struggling and how it will ripple out for wide-ranging catastrophe.

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird by Philip Hoose. The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker's disappearance is the also the story of America's growth as a country. What's better, is after this critically acclaimed book came out, the bird was spotted again (something that inspired the reappearance of Lazarus WoodpeckerWhere Things Come Back). Read the adult title, The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker for the next chapter in this fascinating story.

What are your favorite books about endangered animals?

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Jewish American Heritage Month

It's Jewish American Heritage Month. A lot of books for teens about Jews are about the Holocaust, or immigration. The vast majority is historical fiction. But, not all. Today we celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month with contemporary, realistic fiction.

    

So Punk Rock: And Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother by Micol Ostrow, illustrated by David Ostrow. In order to be cooler, Ari starts a band at his Jewish day school. It's a motley crew of misfits, but they seriously rock. If only they could find away around school, parents, and romantic issues. Parts of it are told in graphic novel format, which works very well.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson. Miah is one of the few black kids at his elite private school, but when he meets Ellie (white and Jewish) their love bridges their differences and helps them deal with complicated family situations.

You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah! by Fiona Rosenbloom. It's B'Nei Mitzvah season in Westchester County, which means plenty of drama as Stacy and her friends try to prove their status and worthiness by the size and style of the party they throw and what they where. But, in the midst of popularity games and parties, has Stacy lost site of what a Bat Mitzvah is all about? Follow it with We Are SO Crashing Your Bar Mitzvah!.

    

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Nick and Norah pretend to be an item for a few minutes, just to fool Nick's ex-girlfriend (who just happens to be someone Norah knows.) What follows is a long night around Manhattan as the two fall in love.

How to Ruin a Summer Vacation by Simone Elkeles. Amy's doesn't consider herself Jewish, but her father is. Her father also lives in Israel and really isn't in the picture, until he calls and says her grandmother's sick, so Amy needs to come visit. Suddenly gone are her summer vacation plans of hanging out at the mall-- she's off to spend 3 months in Israel with family she's never met. The first in a trilogy, follow it with How to Ruin My Teenage Life.

A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life by Dana Reinhardt. Simone's always known she was adopted, and now, suddenly, her birth mother wants to meet. Rivka is only in her early 30s, but she's dying of cancer. As the two get to know each other, Simone's entire world, and everything she thought she knew, changes.

    

OyMG by Amy Fellner Dominy. It Ellie wins the Christian Society Speech and Performing Arts summer camp, she's sure she'll get a scholarship to speech school. But when the scholarships donor might be anti-Semitic, should Ellie hide her religious identity to help her chances?

The Mozart Season by Virginia Euwer Wolff. At the age of 12, Allegra is the youngest competitor in the Ernest Bloch Young Musicians’ Competition. She knows the notes to her Mozart concerto and spends the summer trying to find the music. Along the way she makes friends and helps a troubled man find a piece that's been lost to him for years. One of my most favorite reads ever.

The Life and Opinions of Amy Finawitz by Laure Toffler-Corrie. Amy's best friend has moved away, and she keeps Callie caught up on life in New York through email. Most of her correspondance (we only get Amy's half) is filled with dread at a long-term project and the ease with which Callie seems to be adjusting to Kansas life. But, when Amy is forced to work on this project with Beryl (her elderly neighbor's Hasidic nephew) her worldview starts to expand the readers get a fun look into New York's past and present.

What are your favorite contemporary books with Jewish characters?

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