Kate Mester

Jason Reynolds just gets real kids/teens. Glad to see his first MG is as authentic and withit as his YA.

Illustrations could put it in Caldecott contention, and the story is sweet but insubstantial.

Would be interesting if this won Caldecott, as it plays with convention in both material and perspective.

Of what I've read, my pick for Caldecott. Beautiful and touching tribute to EJK and his work. Award would be full circle, as The Snowy Day itself won Caldecott. Pinkney's poems are outstanding, and the research was clearly and lovingly done.

Audio read by Leah. Quick, surface listen, but all I knew of scientology was founded by LRH and some wackadoo celebrities are fans, so some of the details were interesting and gossipy.

Maybe I'm not familiar enough (or at all) with Black Panther to understand the story, but I finished the volume unsure of who was fighting whom about what. A first volume should lay that out pretty clearly

Deserving of many of it's positive reviews, a cute twist on the start of school story.

Wow. Crushingly beautiful in every aspect - the portraits, the use of colors for their dream stories, the free verse, the intentional naming. Deserves a spot in every elementary library collection.

I think his art is graphically interesting but I don't personally like it. I'm firmly in the minority here, which is good because this is most likely Caldecott short-list. The triple-nested story about the powers of storytelling was beautiful, and I liked that the end notes gave a few details about keeping culture through storytelling but didn't get too didactic, letting the power of the story speak.

Definitely a love song to books for adults done in a children's format

Loved the poems linking to individual musicians in the photograph and also from the watching childrens's POVs. Graphically beautiful, and the choice to have the reveal of the actual photo as a double-paged pullout was inspired. The bios at the end along with all the supplementary material make it a great learning opportunity for older elementary or even middle school.

Listen over reading, as Lindy herself reads the audio. She's hilarious and whipsmart and fighting all the right fights.

His own story is worth a read, but he really takes it somewhere when he goes into arguments for feminism, LGBT rights, and treating mental illness in the black community. Truthful, thoughtful, and easy to read without being easy reading.

Pg 132: “Unless we recognize that liberation for black men based in patriarchy and male dominance is liberation for no one, least of all black women, but not for black men either. It turns us into the very oppressors we claim to be fighting against. It makes us deny parts of ourselves in service of an idea of masculinity that does more to destroy than build.”

And pg 145: “One of the privileges of not being a part of a marginalized group is believing you can set your own benchmarks for bigotry.”

And pg 209: “We make a grave mistake every time we invoke the history of oppression to diminish the reality of racisms' present. Progress is real, but the narrative of progress seduces us into inaction. If we believe, simply, that it gets better, there is no incentive to do the work to ensure that it does.”

These ideas (and so many more here) should really be chewed upon and digested by so many, particularly in the current political climate and as we try to move forward collectively past Jan 20th. Let's listen, hear, and act on them.

Appreciated the look at the process & inner-workings of on the ground journalism and what it takes to get a story. Also liked learning more about some of the early roots of BLM, as Lowery saw it. Don't know if the experience would be different reading rather than listening, but though the book is arranged in thematic chapters around the major horrific killings he covered, he veers all around in his thoughts and stories within each chapter, making for a very inchohesive and scattershot listening experience. Perhaps that's the the reporting work style, but it seemed disjointed and lost the arc of the storypower and then seemed to end randomly.

Particularly loved the music in the first 30/last 30 mins of the audio. The narrator did a fantastic job with the voices, especially notable for her deepening and fleshing out Brightbill's voice as he got older. Like that Brown didn't go for the nearly-tied-up ending. Pure, sweet, feel good loveliness. Would like to see the pictures in the actual book, especially as that's what Brown's known for.

I continue to read these because the audiobooks are so well done, it I wish they would keep the same reader. The voices &a performance on this one weren't up to par with the others. The plot itself was a bit slow, but it really ratcheted up in the second half. Wonder how many books in the series he's going for, because it could easily have been half the length, cutting secondary stories.

Enjoyable and sweet ruminations on tween loss and friendship. Loved that the focus on relationships was being each other's “person” and not in a romantic sense, would love to see that normalized more in MG/YA.

More intersectional genderqueer characters in YA, please! I have not read this character before, so 4 stars for a voice that needs to be more represented. The supporting characters were well written, but there wasn't much of a plot.

Fine not great. Comparisons to Simon vs Homosapien agenda and that's much better. Federle's a screenwriter, so incorporating in aspects of moviemaking was interesting, but for someone praising his own ear for dialogue, a lot of the narration felt clunky and not super authentic.

I've liked her essays before, so was interested in longer form, but many are surface tv/movie reviews. Did appreciate the essays when she dug deeper into real problems like rape culture and intersectional inequalities. Those gave me something to chew on, but those were only about 30% of the essays.

Recommend audiobook so you can really hear the beauty in Woodson's writing. Such elegance and beauty on such emotional and occasionally traumatic topics. Teen girlhood so authentically rendered.

Probably the best written Draper book I've read. Really liked the genuine family and community relationships. Stella is a strong character that upper elementary and early middle grade can relate to while learning a little about history. A few too many”main character heroically saves something” situations, but that's true for any Draper book.

Liked Hermione's clear eyed pragmatism mixed with hopefulness. Very much liked that Johnston didn't have her waddling about her choice for abortion after her rape. Forced chooses aren't reflected enough in teen books. Loved normalized gay secondary characters. Canadian setting will be slightly unfamiliar to teens, but not jarringly so.

Not sure the teen audience for this is huge, but it will certainly resonate with the right kids. Interesting realistic fiction from the 70s. Lewis feels so real. The drama is born from the day to day of being a teen, compounded by military families and poverty, but it's all very authentic drama. Really enjoyed the portrayal of secondary characters, especially how Albert was voices on audio (read by author).

More anecdotal than 55, still lacking some cultural awareness.