Home
Taja closed her eyes and took in the nauseating smell of smokers and mothballs. She knew this smell. All buses smelled like this, and normally, it didn’t bother Taja. But today, it reminded her of...
Issue: <span>March/April 2016</span>
View:
Taja closed her eyes and took in the nauseating smell of smokers and mothballs. She knew this smell. All buses smelled like this, and normally, it didn’t bother Taja. But today, it reminded her of her parents. Her parents who took her on bus rides every Saturday to go to the Indian market she loved.
“Hey look, everybody! It’s the loser! Hey shrimp, how’s your dad doing?”
Joey hooted and pointed a grubby finger at Finn, who stood horrified as the group of kids on the playground laughed.
Finn lowered his head and pretended not to hear them as he walked slowly off the playground and back to the classroom. Don’t listen to them, he thought to himself.
A mound of fur,
tongues, tails, clumsy paws,
and deep brown eyes,
laughing with the
ecstasy of play
The heap seems its own creature,
without distinction between
separate bodies
Teeth nip, paws bat,
tongues kiss, tails flash
from side to side,
a blur of pure happiness
With playful growls and
tackles and pounces,
with not one care or worry,
the play of puppies is
beautiful to behold
My Cousin’s Keeper, by Simon French;
Candlewick Press: Massachusetts, 2014;
$16.99
Do you know what it feels like to be bullied? Have you ever felt left out? These are questions that My Cousin’s Keeper forces the reader to consider. They are questions I never thought a lot about until I read this book.
No book can be good unless it has interesting and inspiring characters.
There are friends, and then there are arranged friends who you are friends with because of your parents, simple as that. The girl next door was next on my mom’s arranged friends list, and I wouldn’t have ever agreed to so-called hang out had I not needed a summer job and she needed a piano teacher.
But, there was a minor detail that my mom had forgotten to mention.
Come on
Come on
Come on
I bolt to the window
Quick as lightning,
with a gasp,
my mouth drops open
the sun is swiftly sliding into the water,
an orange marble sinking into the horizon
infusing the river with orange dye
I think
where does it go?
does it sink into the river with a swoosh and a swish?
does it dissipate into good dreams for the night?
Zed and I stood, facing the forest. “Are you sure, Zed?” I asked, turning to him.
His blue eyes flashed as he glanced back at me. “You don’t have to come with me, Reina,” he growled. “But I’m doing this. I will prove to Hans that I’m not a coward.” At that point, I knew it was best not to argue.
If only I could help the world.
I would like to get bad people and teach them how
to be nice.
If only I could fly and help people with their feelings,
and stop them from killing
people that are trying really hard to help us all to be good
people and nice and kind to others like us who come
from a different country.
If only I could help my family from Haiti and us too.
The Way to Stay in Destiny, by Augusta
Scattergood; Scholastic Press: New York, 2015;
$16.99
It’s funny how we can adapt to the way we live and call it normal, right to the point where it all changes. Theo had spent his whole life in Kentucky with his grandparents and his dog. But then, in the summer of 1974, his uncle took away everything that was important to him, including his own home.
Midnight woke at the crack of dawn. His glossy, dark pelt shone in the light of the rising sun. The tree shadows danced in the wind like fingers on a black table. Midnight looked around, watching his brother, Moonshadow, his sister, Autumn, and his mother, Silverwater. Midnight’s father had left the beautiful earth shortly after the birth of his family.
“One day, I’ll be strong.