Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: September 5, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):
"You coming?"
"Is it possible for a hug to peel back skin of time, the toughened and raw bits, the irritated and irritating dry spots, the parts that bleed?'

Review:
I'm sitting here with that uncomfortable feeling that you get when you want to cry, but you don't or maybe can't? Like something is sitting on your chest that you are not sure how to get rid of without a good ugly cry to relieve the tension but it won't come. I think I need more time with this book. I think I need to sit with it for a moment and try to process. What I really need is someone to talk to about it, but I'm going to attempt a review anyway. The book is about the cycle of gun violence in the narrator's life. The story unfolds as an elevator sinks down to each floor. The vast majority of the book, about 250 of the 306 pages, takes place over 1 minute 7 seconds.

The cover of my copy is riddled with medals: Newbury Honor, Coretta Scott King, Michael Printz, and the Walter Dean Myers Awards... all incredibly well-deserved. It's a novel-in-verse and can be read in one sitting, though it took me three. This is the first of Jason Reynolds' books that I've read and I knew very little about it when I picked it up. After I finished I read an interview with Reynolds who was asked why he chose to write in verse and he responded, "I need my young brothers who are living in these environments, I need the kids who are not living in these environments to have no excuses not to read the book... to know you can finish this in 45 minutes means the world to me, so that we can get more young people reading it and thinking and having discussion about what this book is actually about."

I don't want to give you any more information than that. Just read it.

Rebound by Kwame Alexander

Rebound by Kwame Alexander
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: September 3, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"It was the summer when Now and Laters cost a nickel and The Fantastic Four, a buck. When I met Harriet Tubman and the Harlem Globetrotters. It was the hottest summer after the coldest winter ever, when a storm shattered my home into a million pieces and soaring above the sorrow and grief seemed impossible. It was the summer of 1988, when basketball gave me wings and I had to learn how to rebound on the court. And off."

Review:
This book is the prequel to The Crossover and if you're considering reading it first, don't. I really enjoyed The Crossover, but the depth Rebound gave to both books make me fall in love with the Bell family. Rebound is about the summer of 1988, when Chuck Bell, dad of Filthy & JB from Crossover, was 12 years old. I'm not sure I've ever experienced a book that made other books good. In its own right it was a great story, but for me the impact of this book came from it giving me a greater understanding of The Crossover... but it had to be in this order. I'm not certain they would have had the impact they had on me if I had read them in reverse. These two books might be my favorite that I've read all year. Such beautiful beautiful family development. Such incredible lessons learned by characters and myself while reading. These are books I will come back to again and again.

Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo

Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: September 2, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s): 
"They were Iqbal, too."
"I just beg of you, don't forget. Tell somebody our story. Tell everybody our story. So that the memory will not be lost."

Review:
This is a fictionalized story of a real hero, Iqbal Masih, a young boy who escaped the carpet factory in Pakistan that he was enslaved in. He joined the Labor Liberation Front and helped free hundreds of children from bonded labor. He was recognized globally when he received the Reebok Human Rights Award in Boston in 1994. This story was a beautiful telling of who Iqbal must have been: a brave, selfless boy who never lost hope despite his circumstance. He then used his newfound freedom to free others and then told the world about what was happening to children. It is a quick read and is definitely worth the few hours (or less) you dedicate to it. I sobbed through the end, which I was aware was coming, from knowing of Iqbal before reading the book. However, the way the author addresses it in the story is beautiful. Well done. More people should know his name.

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 19, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"This is just to say I'm sorry I kept beating and beating inside your shattered chest. Forgive me for keeping you alive so long. I knew it would kill me to let you go."

Review:
This was a devastating read. Many of Newman's poems used the personification of inanimate objects - the truck, a tree, stars, the wind, the fence, and most devastatingly, his heart - to make you feel that Matthew Shepard wasn't so alone for those 18 hours. Despite the verses, you remember again and again that he was alone. That when they found him the only part of Matthew not covered in blood were the tracks of tears down his cheeks that he cried and cried before he succumbed to his injuries. It will be 20 years this October since Matthew was brutally murdered. The progress made, so much in his memory, is great but we have so far to go. I highly suggest this quick read, though difficult, it will remind you how precious life is, how hate and fear do nothing but cause death and destruction, and that there was a 21-year-old kid from Wyoming who deserves to be remembered.

Dear World: A Syrian Girl's Story of War and Plea for Peace by Bana Alabed

Dear World: A Syrian Girl's Story of War and Plea for Peace by Bana Alabed
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 17, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"There are no children in Syria. You all were forced to become adults - to understand killing, to experience fear and starvation and pain in a way that all children should be shielded from. But that was a luxury we did not have. Something changed for me too when Yasmin died and when the siege overtook us in those brutal months after. Along with being terrified and heartbroken, I became angry - angry that we had to endure this while the world did nothing. Angry that I was helpless to protect my children. Angry that there is a world where bombing and killing children is tolerated. Angry that I taught you to be generous and fair and kind and then offered you a world that was anything but. As things became more desperate so too did your questions: Do people know this is happening to us? Does anyone care? Why do they keep bombing us? Why won't they stop? Why can't we have peace? I was angry most of all that I didn't have answers to those questions. And that you, a seven-year-old girl, had to ask them."

Review:
This is an incredibly important read about the true life experience of a girl who survived the war in Syria. I had not heard about Bana while she was tweeting about the siege and I didn't learn of her until she was safe. At the Oscars in 2018, Andra Day and Common sang Stand Up for Something. In the background spotlights came on to show 10 people. I could recognize 5 of them as my heroes, but there was a little girl that I did not know. I looked her up and it was Bana al-Abed, who tweeted through the Syrian war and had just published a book about her experiences. I bought the book that night. It's taken me several months to pick it up. It's so easy to ignore injustice, like the book I ignored on my shelf for 5 months. That's why you need to read this book. It will shake you awake to the experience that you should know about and care about. I don't pretend to understand the Syrian war. I do understand that children should be safe; that turning refugees away is evil; that I do not fight hard enough for what I know to be right. So, in order to help make Bana's wishes come true, I will act. I will write to my legislators, I will inform my peers of what is going on, I will donate to causes that do the work that I cannot, and I will not ignore the injustices that I know are happening. Thank you Bana.

Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson

Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 16, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"We sent whalesong into interstellar space because the creatures that sing these songs are superlative beings that fill us with awe, terror, and affection. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched them into our mythologies and iconography. Their bones frame the archways of medieval castles. They’re so compelling that we imagine aliens might find them interesting — or perhaps understand their otherworldly, ethereal song."

Review:
First, I listened to the audio book and didn't realize that the physical book is full of drawings and diagrams. I think this book would have been easier to follow if those diagrams had been provided to audio book listeners. Second, I had a hard time with the author describing hitching a ride with a whaling fleet out of Reykjavik. He gives many justifications that end with something along the lines of "if they're killing them anyway, at least let science benefit." This is bothersome to me especially because in what I think is the very next part he discusses the horrible impact of whaling. Pyenson says he is not a "whale hugger," however, I am a "whale hugger," and I think many of the people who will pick up this book are too. I feel like describing benefitting from the culling of whales was an oversight and miscalculation by Pyenson of who (outside of the science community) was going to be reading his book.

All of that said, I learned a lot about the animals that I go out to see in Stellwagen Bank 4 or 5 times per year. Though this book does tend towards the science-minded (make no mistake, this book is about the paleontology of whales, written by a paleontologist), it was packed full of information about the past, present, and future of whales that was very interesting to me (not a paleontologist... I'm a special ed math teacher). My favorite thing that I learned had to do with how we live in the age of giants now, a time that I thought we were long past. The part about the right whale with the stone harpoon was pretty incredible as well. Overall, it is an well written book if you know what you are getting into.

Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy by Sonya Sones

Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy by Sonya Sones
My Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 13, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"There's this golden moment when the sun licks through the gauze fluttering at my window warming my eyes to open this golden moment when I'm not yet awake enough to remember that there are things I would rather forget."

Review:
While I thought I would relate to this story more due to my younger sister being hospitalized while we were younger, I wasn't disappointed despite my high expectations. It was a well done novel-in-verse that was a quick read about an important topic. I especially liked the references to places that I have been (tracing the steps of the ducklings in the public gardens and eating on Revere Beach after getting dinner at Kelly's). I was not expecting the author to be a local.