Al Rowell

Brilliant new origin story for Wonder Woman from Laurie Halse Anderson as she discovers and confronts injustices in her new world.

“Not so with Coriolanus: here we are dealing instead with an overgrown child's narcissism, insecurity, cruelty, and folly, all unchecked by any adult's supervision and restraint.” There seems to a subtext throughout Greenblatt's Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Implementing authentic, project-based learning is a strategy that generally sounds great, but rarely gains momentum because, well, we don't have a clear idea HOW to do it. Trevor McKenzie recounts his growth in developing learning projects and describes a structure for gradually weaving in more student autonomy, culminating in a free inquiry project. In Dive into Inquiry Trevor anticipates the “okay..but” reactions educators might have and provides a solid basis for creating an inquiry-based class. The QR linked examples are a valuable addition to the text, and as another reviewer has noted, kudos to Trevor for highlighting the importance of the librarian/media specialist when implementing this approach.

As with at least one other reviewer, I really wanted to like this book. Nikhil has genuine concerns about education, and his writing is at its best when reflecting on innovative schools he has personally visited. But I found several parts of the book to be tedious–cobbled together research and loosely-connected quotes talking around and about a topic but leaving me with the distinct impression that he was up against a deadline and ready to be done with it. “Schools on Trial” lacks a consistent voice and is more of a collection of “things I have read” and less a coherent, compelling argument for sustainable, scaleable change in education policy and practice.

This graphic novel is among the greatest hits of the book banners who in the past few years have been berating librarians and threatening the freedom of others to simply read. As an autobiography, I can see how Gender Queer—with its absolute unveiled description of Maia Kobabe's journey to eir realization of self—might be discomforting to some, but this work could be absolutely life-saving for young people in crisis or just struggling with putting into words who they are.