The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest

A refreshingly unique story: A physically deformed fox named Clare has been working for 6 years as the Usher into the afterlife, helping animal souls head to the correct realm after they die - Progress, Pain, Pleasure or Peace. (If you're curious, I would most definitely head straight to Progress.) But then a snappy, blunt badger shows up and Clare can't figure out where she is supposed to go. 

Genuinely loveable characters: Not for one moment did I believe the lie that Clare was destined for Pain. He was so resourceful, so passionate, so organized, so good at his job and so delightfully unsure of himself. And Gingersnipes! So candid and friendly and helpful and unintentionally funny. 

The narrator: I laughed out loud at some of her break-the-fourth-wall comments to the reader, especially near the beginning of the book (she kind of stops after the first few chapters, but that was probably for the best to immerse oneself in the story). 

I have a new litmus test for how I really feel about a Newbery: Would I recommend it to my fourth grader? For The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest, I already did!

One Big Open Sky

One Big Open Sky had all the promise of a great book.

Great premise - a black Mississippi family heads west in 1879 with the hope of land and a new life in Nebraska.

Admirable protagonist - 12-year-old Lettie is smart, loves to read newspapers and journal their journey, and knows how many miles they've traveled without even needing to count; she can just tell.

Promise of intense conflict - racism, bandits, unfriendly wildlife, river crossings, weather!

But despite all this, I had a hard time getting into it. It sat on my nightstand with a non-fiction self-help book my brother recommended collecting dust and tax papers for a couple months. 

I usually enjoy books written in verse, but I think I have a harder time immersing myself in the story. And the three different narrators - Lettie, her mom, and a young woman who joins them halfway through - really had me confused the first several pages. I even continued to get confused near the end because there was no pattern to who was talking when and I just had to go back to the beginning of the section to check who was narrating almost every time. And then there was Thomas - Lettie's dad. He was a deeply flawed character and it was clear everybody had problems with him (especially his wife) except for maybe Lettie. I felt uncomfortable every time I read about him. So when he died . . . honestly, I was so relieved. And maybe that's what the author sort of wanted us to feel but I still didn't like it. 

In the end, I think I liked the book. It just took me a while to get there.

The First State of Being

A time traveler! So fun! This is a cool idea for a book. I especially liked that the author cites future philosophers and future theories because it made the creation of her future more credible and thoughtful.

My one beef (*spoilers*): There is this big reveal at the very end when the time traveler - Ridge Sabio - gets back to his time in the future after visiting the thrilling year of 1999 and he reveals that he met Elizabeth Gibson and his whole family (of time travel scientist geniuses) freaks out and asks him all these questions about her and I was like, wait, who the poop is Elizabeth Gibson? So I RE-READ the entire book to figure out where she was mentioned because she was clearly someone important and I had obviously missed it and discover that she HADN'T been mentioned anywhere in the book. ?? And then I proceed to read the epilogue or post-book-notes or whatever you want to call them and THAT is where you discover who she is. Personally, I think it would have been cooler if the author had made a bigger deal about The Founder (always un-named) during the book because I apparently completely skipped over the two fairly insignificant references to her and therefore had no idea what the Sabios were talking about at the end. BUT the reveal was still very cool and perhaps the author really did want us to be super confused and re-read the book to try to figure out the connection. *shrug*

Across So Many Seas

Across So Many Seas tells four stories of 12-year-old Jewish girls in the same family line, all living in different locations and times but all experiencing oppression and religious persecution in various forms. I thought for sure one of the stories would be set in Europe in the 1930s since that's the Jewish oppression I'm most familiar with, but none of them were! The first story was set in Spain in 1492 and truth be told: I did not know that the Spanish monarchs expelled all the Jews! They all had to convert to Catholicism, leave the country, or die. 

In fourteen hundred ninety two, 

Spain expelled all of the Jews.

Oh, and Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

The next three stories were of grandma (1923, Turkey), mom (1961, Cuba) and granddaughter (2003, Florida) and were more compelling than the first only because we already knew the family and the backstory when the new story began.

My favorite story was about Alegra - a patriotic 12-year-old Cuban Jewish girl who goes to work as a brigadista during Fidel Castro's rise to power. I didn't know about brigadistas before (so much ignorance) but learned some cool stuff. For instance, as a result of Castro's "literacy campaign," the UN recognized Cuba as a fully literate nation just a year later? And Cuba currently has one of the highest literacy rates in the world - 99.8% approximately? And most of the Cuban volunteers who went to live with farming families and teach them to read in the evenings during the campaign were between the ages of 12 and 18?

Enjoyed the book, learned some stuff. Four stars.

Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All

Cute, quick read about the daughter of two very hardworking NYC laundromat owners who goes on adventures with her new friend to find the owners of lost socks left at the laundromat. It explored themes of friendship, racism, cultural differences, familial love and forgiveness but my BIG takeaway was, "I can barely find the owners of lost socks IN MY OWN HOUSE! There is no way Magnolia and Iris found the owners of those socks in ALL of NEW YORK CITY!" For that reason, I feel confident classifying this book as a fantasy. Because finding the sock owner every time after two maybe three conversations felt purely fantastical.

The Wrong Way Home

I am shook.

Another Newbery shocker: A girl escapes a cult with her mom but she's so totally brainwashed that all she wants to do is go back to the cult. Who knew you could appropriately tell the story of a cult to a child audience? 

BUT as a result of reading this very realistic fiction, of course I went down an internet cult rabbit hole. And now I just feel creeped out and disgusted by the absolutely depraved things people are capable of doing. 

While reading, I kept commenting to my husband, "She is totally drinking the Kool-Aid. Still!" and he finally said, "You know that's a reference to mass suicide, right?" and I was like, "Of course!" but then realized I didn't know the full story behind the idiom and it is GROSS and despicable and left me feeling very icky. 

Now I see cults everywhere. I saw a billboard with a reference to Adam and Eve with a UFO on it and I was like, "Wha?" so I googled the website on the billboard and found a cult and then started reading about Scientology and I was like, "Yep, another cult." But THEN I was looking up lists of cults and I found MY very large, established Christian church on a list of cults in Russia (different countries have different lists) and I realized there are people out there who think *I* am drinking the Kool-Aid which made me sad but also gave me a little more empathy for Fern. 

The Wrong Way Home was a great read. It was suspenseful and terrifying but also hopeful and heartwarming. It was interesting to have Fern, the narrator, be the one who was misguided for most of the book and it made me wonder if any young readers would be confused by that. I feel sure, however, that by the time it is necessary to do so, every reader can confidently yell, "DON'T GET IN THE VAN!"

Eagle Drums

Eagle Drums is a retelling of the origin of the Messenger Feast - a traditional Inupiat gathering.  The Inupiat people are indigenous to northern Alaska and the author is a tribally enrolled member. 

All of that is really cool. And the story was good. It was well written and descriptive and interesting. 

But did the brothers really have to die? Their deaths seemed so pointless. And my pervading question throughout (and the whole purpose of the story is for us to wonder this) was, "What is in it for the Eagles? Why are they teaching him all this? What do they get out of making him a master of dance and song and drums and building?" This, by the way, is actually supposed to be the reader's pervading question, because the big reveal at the end is . . . it makes the Eagles immortal. It's so selfish! Why do we care about the Eagles? They killed his brothers! They're jerks! They steal people from their families! Let them get old and die! Maybe that is Inupiat blasphemy, but it is how I feel.