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

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.

"There is an Arabic proverb that says:
She makes you feel
like a loaf of freshly
baked bread
It is said about
the nicest
kindest people
The type of people
who help you rise."
This story in verse is about Jude, a young Syrian who has fled her country with her pregnant mother. Suddenly she finds herself labeled “Middle-Eastern” and struggles to fit in yet keep her identity.  Can a girl who wears hijab star in the school play? You will love Jude’s voice as she tells her story with grace and heart.


Tessa's Picks, 5-7th grade, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Global perspectives, Issues fiction, Novels in verse

Teaching for Black Lives grows directly out of the movement for Black lives. We recognize that anti-Black racism constructs Black people, and Blackness generally, as not counting as human life. Throughout this book, we provide resources and demonstrate how teachers connect curriculum to young people's lives and root their concerns and daily experiences in what is taught and how classrooms are set up. We also highlight the hope and beauty of student activism and collective action. ​

The indispensable resource for social justice elementary educators in six parts:
Part 1: Building Classroom Community
Part 2: Reading and Writing Toward a More Just World
Part 3: Minding Media
Part 4: Math is More than Numbers
 Part 5: Laboratory for Justice: Science Across the Curriculum
 Part 6: The Classroom, The School, The World

Tessa"s Picks. Social Justice, People of Color, Global Perspectives, History

​(This is a book for mature readers as it addresses issues of homophobia, child abuse, hate crimes, Islamophobia and sexual abuse).
Rukhsana loves the laws of physics and plans to become an engineer.  In a few months she will be attending Caltech on a scholarship. With her girlfriend Ariana. Only her parents who are conservative Muslims living in the Bengali community of Seattle would probably disown her if they found out about her relationship.  When she and Ariana are caught kissing by her mother, events spiral into a terrifying path.
Falsely told that her grandmother in Bangladesh is gravely ill, Rukhsana and parents catch the next plane.  The truth is soon apparent that they are there to force her into an arranged marriage. Her parents are convinced that their lives would be over if the truth about her sexuality came out. 
Rukhsana learns some secrets of her own mother’s past when her grandmother gifts her the diary of her early life, marriage and motherhood. Gathering strength from her grandmother who encourages her to fight for her freedom of choice, she also gains sympathy for her mother's dark childhood. Cousins and other family members are allies and memorable characters adding to the cultural experience of a large Bengali family
One of the proposed marriage partners turns out to be gay and the two form a friendship and eventually a plan to help them both escape back to the states. Rukhsana must find the courage to fight for her love and her freedom and hopefully keep the culture and family she loves.

Tessa's picks, 8th summer 2019, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Family life, Global perspectives, Issues fiction, People of color.

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