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

I loved this book!  Not only is it about FASHION, it has heart and soul and tough hardships to overcome. And it is laugh-out-loud hilarious!  Charlie Dean has had to overcome a deceased mother, a recovering (sometimes) addict father, and dirt-common beginnings and boy, has she. Like her inspirations Diana Vreeland and Wallis Simpson, she has achieved near perfection. (If you don’t know who they are, look them up.) Her room is a fashion design studio complete with sewing machines, dress forms and refurbished elegance and she has the talent to match it.
 In answer to her dreams the exclusive Green Pastures Academy of Art and Applied Designs Emerging Talent is offering a scholarship to be awarded to a student who shows talent in fashion design in a competitive runway event.
In alternate chapters we meet John Thomas-Smith, bitter, sarcastic and a talented artist in medal who will do anything to get into Green Pastures including recasting himself as a fashion designer. All the characters are quirky, memorable and have their own back story which allows you to feel empathy for their flaws.
And the drama…models assaulted, dresses destroyed, friendships in danger, kidnapping (sort of), addiction, passion!
There is lots of diversity in representation of race, ability, and sexual orientation; this book has it all
Even if you HATE fashion, read this book!  It is so much fun.

​Tessa's Picks, 8th summer 2019, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Humor, LGBTQ, People of color

 Seventh grader Jilly is an avid fantasy reader and belongs to a chat group about her favorite book series. Here she meets a diverse group of fellow fans including a boy from Oakland who is Deaf and Black.  When Jilly’s sister Emma is born Deaf, Jilly can’t wait to share solidarity with Derek.  She goes about it in a way that inadvertently offends him. Jilly persists in asking questions and learning to be open and their bond deepens.
Determined to help with Emma, Jilly begins to teach herself sign language and is dismayed that her family is not on board.  In fact the doctor they choose seems cold and inflexible in her approach to Emma’s treatment. A turning point is when Jilly and her family attend a workshop for families who are members of the Deaf community and meet Derek and his family. All share their stories and come away comforted and informed.
Jilly comes from a mixed race family. She is White and her beloved aunts are lesbians, one Black and one White.  Jilly looks to her aunt to help her confront two family members who make racist comments during a holiday dinner.  She learns a lot about both subtle and blatant forms of bigotry and when she stands up to her uncle and grandmother you want to cheer.
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While learning how to support her family and friends, Deaf culture and the reality of Black families’ fear for their children’s safety become an important part of her heart. 

​Tessa's Picks, 5th-6th grade, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Family life, LGBTQ+, Issues fiction, People of color.

Inspired by transformation in the tales of Snow-White and Rose-Red and Swan Lake, McLemore has created a beautiful story of magical realism in lyrical prose.  The title characters are two sisters who come from a long line of women in a Latinx family that has been cursed for generations. The curse is that there are always two daughters and one is chosen by the swans to become one of them. Roja has always know it would be her, for she is seen as the one with darker skin and fiery red-black hair and wicked, passionate ways.  Blanca of the fair skin and hair is the sweet, obedient, graceful one.
They are the yin and yang and closer than a circle.  Together they vow to break the curse.  While they hope to stop the transformation to swan, two missing boys have become a bear and a cygnet. A rich boy from an abusive family has become Yearling the bear. The cygnet is Page, a trans boy from a family who grow apples as if it is an art. Love happens to all but not as expected and with dire consequences.  Can destiny be avoided, can expectations and assumptions be shattered?
“The story of the ugly duckling was never about the cygnet discovering he is lovely. It is not a story about realizing you have become beautiful. It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were, and that what you are is more beautiful that what you once though you had to be.”
One of the most beautiful books I have read, magic, fierce, bright and unforgettable. 
 
 Tessa's Picks
7th-8th grade, Character driven, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, LGBTQ, Romance, People of Color 

“A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.”

Dominican teen Xiomara is a powerful poet.  Growing up in a strict Hispanic household, she feels trapped by her mother’s oppressive religious beliefs.  Her voice will grab you and not let go as she processes her relationships and her passion to break out of the confines surrounding her. There is so much raw emotion here. 
“Late into the night I write and the pages of my notebook swell from all the words I’ve pressed onto them. 
It almost feels like the more I bruise the page the quicker something inside me heals.” 
Content warning:  for mature students

Tessa's Picks

​8th grade, Character driven, Family life, Issues fiction, People of color, LGBTQ, Novels in verse

This is a powerful , touching story about discovering who you are, finding your place in the world and learning to love who you turn out to be.  It deals with a lot of heavy issues: rape, sexual abuse, sexuality, gender identity and victim-blaming in such a sensitive and meaningful way.
 The main character Mara is trying to recover from a trauma she has never shared with anyone not even her twin brother Owen with whom she is so close.  When Owen is accused of raping his girlfriend, her best friend Hannah, what is she to believe? 
All the characters in this book are so deeply crafted you feel you know them.  Hannah is not a girl who would make this up so why is she being blamed by her classmates?  How could Mara’s beloved brother have done such a horrible thing?
But Mara knows the truth and her support of Hannah is strong and real. Hannah is not ruled by what has happened and she faces the world with strength and resilience.  These girls are powerful.
Mara’s ex-girlfriend Charlie is genderqueer and struggling to find the courage to express who she really is. They were also best friends and grieve over being apart. Together they struggle to evolve their relationship while dealing with their emerging identities.
I loved this book and the power that each character finds in themselves and in their friendships.  This is a beautiful and stunning book that will touch you and make you wiser.
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“Sweetie, this will blow over. It’s a misunderstanding. You know your brother”.
“You keep saying that”.
“Saying what?”.
“That it’s a misunderstanding. That I know Owen. But...Mom, I know Hannah, too”.

“What do we do?” What’s going to happen to Owen? And Hannah... we can’t just not listen to her. You’ve always said that we have to listen to girls no matter—“
“He’s ours, Mara, Mom says, a kind of quiet fury edging her words. He’s my son. And we love him. That’s what we do”. 

 Tessa's Picks
​8th grade, Contemporary fiction,Character driven, Issues fiction, Friendship, LGBTQ

  There have always been secrets in Danny Cheng’s family.  When he finds a taped-up box in his father’s closet, it is more than old photos and letters; there is a file on a powerful Silicon Valley family.  A high school senior who has early acceptance to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Danny becomes obsessed with figuring out the past.  His parents immigrated to the states from China to Texas and then moved in the middle of the night without warning to California. And changed their last name. He experiences a new emptiness for the sister he never knew about who died young.  How do all these clues connect?
Danny’s friends who attends a mostly Asian-America high school in Cupertino, are all very real and memorable. Harry Wong is the perfect combination of nice, handsome, and smart and the two have a deep and meaningful friendship. Harry’s girlfriend Regina Chan has known Danny forever.  The book made me long for a sequel just to find out what the future will be for these young people.
As the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook this friend group approaches, Regina publishes the school newspaper as a memorial and lands them all in trouble.  Danny’s family begins to unravel as an accident brings them into the public eye. 
This story grabs you and just won’t let go as the pieces fall into place yet the unexpected still happens.  The ending literally made me gasp out loud. Themes of love, loyalty, family, immigration and friendship are beautifully woven in this moving book.

“Because if you're tangled up in someone else, if your futures are tied that way, if that's real and if you know when it happens - then it means you know who you belong to, and you know whose fates are tied to yours, whether you like it or planned it or not, whether they still exist in the same world with you or they don't, and I think that's where everything begins and ends. I think that's everything.” 
 
Tessa's Picks, 8th grade, Character driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family life, Issues Fiction, Friendship, People of color, Romance, LGBTQ
 

 iNelle has lived in Monroeville, Alabama her whole life, so she knows how people there expect her to behave. But she's never felt comfortable in the frills and dresses other girls wear and would much rather climb trees or play with her slingshot than stay clean indoors. Tru is staying with relatives when he comes to town. With his fancy, big city fashions and high voice he is instantly marked as an outsider. The impeccably dressed boy and tom-boy find something in common in their love of Sherlock Holmes. Before long their pretend game of Sherlock and Watson turns into a real investigation when someone is falsely accused of a crime.


This book, based on the real-life friendship of Truman Capote and Harper Lee, contains so many gems that it's hard for a brief description to do it justice. Tru and Nelle (as they were called as children) instantly bond over their outsider status. They investigate cases while pretending to be Sherlock and Watson, hang out at the court house, write stories, and put on a memorable Halloween party. The book doesn't gloss over anything and racial prejudices, the Klan, depression, and abuse are all mentioned. These details help create an authentic sense of place. The book takes its structure from Capote and consists of a novel with a set of related short stories afterwards. Even those unfamiliar with Capote and Lee will be drawn into this story and find them easy to relate to as outsiders.

Tue & Nelle by G. Neri

Erica's Picks
4th & up
​Tags: biography, character driven, family life, friendship, historical fiction, issues fiction, LGBTQ, mystery, social justice, summer vacation