While not a sports fan, I loved this book including the fast paced basketball action. The main character Adam was adopted in Poland when he was 11 and immigrated to American with his new mom, a U.S. citizen.  Adam is not very communicative with any one but his mom and good buddy Barry as he is embarrassed about his English proficiency. His voice is so well written, I can hear his accent and foreign phrasing. This attracts the attention of Kase whose bullying and ridicule trigger Adam’s anger management issues.
When his basketballs skills attract the attention of star player Carli and her coach father, things begin to look up for Adam.
All the side characters are well crafted and interesting. When Adam makes some insensitive racial comments, these are fully worked out in a realistic manner that he accepts and learns from.
This quote sums it up for me:
"I know I will fight injustice, and sometimes that means a protest and a battle....but I think many times that means just being a good, kind person in the world."
You will be a better person for seeing into the lives of these engaging characters. And entertained…sports, romance, interpersonal relationships, humor, identity woven into a brilliant book.
​Tessa's Picks, 7-8th grade, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Issues fiction, Romance, Sports, Social justice

Moving stinks for everyone, but it's especially awful for Maya. Maya is deaf and she's used to going to a school with other deaf kids where everyone can sign and understands what Deaf culture is about. But in Colorado she has to go to a regular, hearing high school, which means she has to have an interpreter in all her classes. Outside of class, she has to rely on lip reading, which is never 100% effective, and deal with the ignorance of her hearing classmates. But one boy is different. Beau starts learning sign language and seems interested in getting to know Maya a lot better. Will they be able to bridge their differences and get together? Or is their relationship doomed before it even starts?

I love reading books that explore Deaf culture, and Maya is a wonderful character. She's fiercely loyal to her younger brother, who has cystic fibrosis and is not acclimating to the higher elevation well. With her friends at school she can be flawed and moody, which is perfectly understandable considering all she has to put up with and makes her well-rounded and relatable. I'd whole-heartedly recommend this to students looking for a realistic school story or a romance. 

The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais
Erica's Picks
Grades 6-8
Tags:character driven, contemporary fiction, disability, family life, romance, school stories

Danny is the O'Carolan's last hope. His family was destroyed by the potato famine. His parents and brothers are all either dead or sent to the ends of the world as punishment for stealing food to feed their starving family. His last remaining relative is his older sister Kathleen, and she is determined to keep a close eye on him. When they arrive in New York with nothing but a mysterious family heirloom, they have to act quick if they don't want to end up in an orphanage. Kathleen takes the only job she can find where they can stay together: working as a maid. But Danny has to disguise himself as a girl so they can stay together. He hates the deceit and the hard work for little pay, but he knows that above all else he has to survive to keep the O'Carolan name alive.

I loved this nuanced look at a difficult period in American history. The Civil War is raging and many of the Irish who have just arrived are drafted while the rich pay a fee to avoid going to war. Meanwhile the Irish immigrants are taking jobs that free blacks had previously filled. Tensions rise on all sides as Danny tries to do the right thing, be true to himself, and keep his traditional songs and dances alive. ​

Last of the Name by Rosanne Parry
Grades 4 - 7
​Tags: character driven, family life, historical fiction

This may be my favorite book of the year. As a foodie and a cook, I love reading about food and its creators. Here we have a trip to so many ethnic and cultural cuisines that symbolize so much more than nourishing the body. Take a trip to Hungry Heart Row, a few square blocks of multicultural restaurants, food trucks and small businesses. You will meet a shy teen who bakes feelings into her pastry and gives them to people who need them.  Visit a Chinese establishment with gang connections. Grab a taste at a Muslim food truck with the best halal meat (look that up if you don’t know what it is). Meet a boy who puts his soul into his food to win a contest that will save his mother’s life. And so much more
Here are 13 stories by some of my favorite YA authors, all interconnected by setting and characters. When they magically appear in the next story, you ask,” How did they do that?” With magic, food and love!  Love, family, culture, belonging and the meaning of life.  It all awaits you on Hungry Heart Row.
Come for a stroll and stay for the food.

Tessa's Pick, 5th-8th grade, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Global perspectives, People of Color, Short stories

​The Marvels and Creations of Existence…the name of an ancient manuscript that two young people discover separately; both decide to record the marvels and oddities in their lives. We will be privy to their writing in these journals rewritten in narrative form. 
Begin. We meet Zayneb a Muslim in hijab, sitting on a plane next to a verbally Islamophobic woman. It is established that Zayneb is angry at the affront and she has a passion for justice.  Unfortunately, her high school history teacher insults her cultural heritage every day. One time he goes too far and she confronts him. This earns her a suspension and she heads to her aunt’s in Doha (located in Qatar on the Persian Gulf).
Quiet and sensitive Adam, a university student in London, is also headed to Doha when the two accidentally meet for a moment at the airport. They part never expecting to meet again. 
But they do, as Adam is a family friend of Z's aunt.  Told in alternate chapters, Z and A voice their feelings about each other and the issues they are dealing with. Adam is hiding his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis from his family and is trying to keep his mother’s memory alive for his little sister. Zayneb is exploring her identity as a woman in a Muslim country and confronting stereotypes.
This is their love story as they support and care for each other. Their marvels and oddities make them grow separately and together.
  This is my favorite wisdom from the book: The size of the world is relative to our mind’s perception of it.
 “For some of us, this means the world is small, including only those we see as belonging to it…. People who look like us, dress like us, think like us.
For others, it’s a medium-size and includes those we connect to through some similarity…which then allows us to overlook the differences between us and them.
And then there are those who see the world as huge…. Huge enough to include vast differences, people with nothing in common with one another except a beating heart and a feeling soul, these two—heart, soul—being the strongest connection between us all.”
To which world do you belong?

​Tessa's Pick, 7th-8th grade, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Global perspectives, Issues fiction, Romance

Allie Is a straight A student with a loving family, good friends and is dating the sweet Wells Henderson.  The book opens with a scene on an airplane where Allie’s father is targeted by the man next to him when he hears him speaking Arabic.  Islamophobic comments bring the steward over and Allie stands up for her father showing on her phone that he is a professor at Northwestern.  Allie smooths over the incident but is tired of bearing the burden of other peoples’ ignorance.
Her parents do not practice Islam (although her father’s extended family do) and advise Allie, who does not appear Muslim, to not acknowledge her heritage.  Feeling spiritually lost, Allie finds herself drawn to Islam and joins a young woman’s study group where they discuss religion. Supported by these strong feminist women, Allie feels proud to be an out Muslim and begins to learn Arabic so that she can speak with her grandmother.
When she finds out that Well’s father in none other than Jack Henderson infamous Islamophobic talk show shock jock, Allie is faced with some hard choices. Will there budding romance survive this news?
I loved the diverse characters in Allie’s family and how she finds her path and has the courage to follow it. I came away with so much empathy for what it means to be Muslim in America.

​Tessa's picks,6th-8th grade, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Family life, Global perspectives, Issues fiction.

When Sweet Pea’s parents get a divorce, they try to keep things normal for her in the strangest way possible. Her father moves into a house just two doors down from her mother and tries to make the house identical, down to painting the walls to match the old wall paper. In between her parents lives the town eccentric and advice columnist, Miss Flora Mae. When Miss Flora has to take an emergency trip, Sweet Pea house sits. When she gives into temptation and reads the letters asking for advice, she finds out more than she bargained for. 

Sweet Pea is aptly named and a funny, sweet protagonist. I enjoyed watching her navigate friendships, her parents’ divorce, and her small town’s response to her father coming out as gay. 


Erica's Picks
Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy

Grades 3 - 6
​Tags: Character Driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family Life, Friendship, Humor, LGBTQ

None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for the filthy minds of high school students. Aphra’s programming project is supposed to give advice and learn natural language from its users, but when it starts spouting filth, she knows she can’t turn the project in. So she takes over, pretending to be her program while she gives advice. The good news is that her crush figures it out and falls in love with app’s persona. The bad news is he thinks the person behind the persona is Aphra’s best friend. 

This modern-day Cyrano had me in stitches with laughter. A fantastic romance filled with humor and heart. 

Erica's Picks
We Are the Perfect Girl by Ariel Kaplan

Grades 6-8
​Tags: Character Driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family Life, Friendship, Humor, Mental Illness, Retellings, Romance, SEL

Lou is used to small spaces. She shares a room with her mother in her grandmother's house in San Francisco. It's even more cramped when her extended family comes to visit. She loves them all, but longs for a space of her own. She's obsessed with tiny houses and has spent many hours researching their clever designs. When her mother gets a job offer in Washington state, Lou is convinced that if she can build her tiny house, it will convince her mother to stay. Will she be able to rally her friends to the cause? Or will she have to leave everyone she loves behind?

This is a charming story full of heart and endearing characters. Lou has a great community of friends and family. 

Erica's Picks
The House that Lou Built by Mae Respicio

Grades 3 - 6
Tags:

1890s Atlanta is not an easy place for Chinese Americans. Jo, abandoned at birth, lives with her adopted father in an abandoned hideout left over from the underground railroad. She grew up listening to the conversations in the newspaper offices above. When she hears that they are struggling, she anonymously submits articles for a new advice column. “Miss Sweetie” becomes wildly popular and controversial. As Jo tries to keep her identity a secret, she tries to uncover who her parents were. But some secrets are best left alone and these ones put her in the crosshairs of a notorious criminal. 

I loved this historical fiction. It transported me back in time and kept me turning pages with the hint of mystery and romance. 

Erica's Picks
The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

6th - 8th
​Tags: Character Driven, Historical Fiction, Issues Fiction, Mystery, People of Color, Romance, Social Justice