We are finally in my birth month! It’s been pretty nice here weather-wise unlike the rest of the country, which has been buried in snow storms, and I did see some snow going up to Northern Utah/Colorado this past weekend. I recently took a training for work which was called What’s New in YA Lit and introduced to a slew of new books, some of which I had been looking at but all were highly recommended by the lady teaching the webinar. Yay for new book recommendations! One of these book reviews get a little personal for me, so I hope you’ll bear with me. One of my reading goals for this year has been to read more diverse queer books and it has turned into a rather eye-opening experience for me.

Yours in Books written by Julie Falatko, illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo

I found this one on one of my book review newsletters, and it sounded adorable. The entire book is told in letters sent between the introverted Owl T. Fencepost and Bessie the Squirrel, owner of the local bookshop. Owl wants to get rid of his noisy neighbors (mostly children) and build a fence around his property to keep them out, but they keep finding ways to come in and “annoy” him, by making him do things like read to them. Bessie the Squirrel will not fill his book requests, and keeps suggesting books that will help him interact with the kids instead. In the end, the kids plan a surprise tea party and invite both of the shy adults to finally meet each other. I thought this book would make a great family storytime book about Tea Time (might have to skip a couple letters just so it isn’t so long) and would pair great with Tea Rex by Molly Idle. I liked that the farther into the book we got the less formal the letters became as Owl and Bessie became friends. Highly recommended for ages 4-8, 5 stars.

A Hero for Wondla (Wondla #2) written and illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi

Originally read the book June 2012: I loved the last book, The Search for Wondla and honestly thought he couldn’t do any better. The author proved me wrong by creating an even more spectacular book in which I saw the main character, Eva Nine, grow in ways I didn’t think possible. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series!

This book starts off where the last left off. Eva Nine and Rovender (Rovee for short) are going with Hailey to New Attica, the current home of humans on Orbona/Earth. She is excited at the prospect of meeting others like her. Once Eva Nine enters the city, she is greeting enthusiastically by Cadmus Pryde, who founded New Attica and is the reason for her creation (babies raised by robots in separate facilities called Sanctuaries). At first things seem great, she meets some girls her age and they show her around the town. But as the day wears on, she starts to feel uneasy. The humans seem in the dark about everything outside of the city, thinking they are the only inhabitants. Eva Nine meets another “reboot” named Eva Eight and finds out they are from the same Sanctuary. Eight tries to escape with Eva Nine, but they get caught by Cadmus’s henchmen. It is during her captivity that she finds out the truth behind what Cadmus has been doing and also manages to rescue some friends, new and old. Hailey, Rovee, Eva Eight and Nine and some others manage to escape back into the Wandering Forest. Will they find the Vitae Virus generator before Cadmus? Will Rovee ever be united with his clan? To find this and what really lurks at the Heart of the Wandering Forest, read this fantastic book. I know this review may not do this book justice, but it is a great read and has fabulous illustrations. Recommended for ages 10 and up, 5 stars.

Re-read to my son (Dec 21, 2021- Jan 29, 2022): He was excited to start the next book. However he liked this a little bit less because of the scary parts in it. So he gives it 4 stars instead of 5.

The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) written by Rick Riordan

I originally listened to the audiobook for this back in December 2016 but never wrote a review for it, and then re-listened to it with my son Dec 27, 2021 – Jan 29, 2022: Because of the events that happened at the end of the Heroes of Olympus series, Apollo is being blamed for the fallout of Octavian’s actions and is made mortal, or more accurately he is now a chubby acne-ridden teenager called Lester Papadopoulos (the name always cracks me up!) with no medical or archery skills whatsoever. The last two things are pretty embarrassing to him as he is the god of medicine and archery! He meets a sassy young girl named Meg McCaffrey who saves him from some hooligans in NYC, and then with the help of Percy Jackson they make it to Camp Half Blood, only to find out Chiron has plenty of things to deal with there already. There are missing campers and the communications between the gods and demigods are non-existent. Lester/Apollo and Meg go into the forest to investigate after the “3-legged Death Race”, as Apollo’s kids are missing too and discover giant murderous ants (to whom Apollo bewitches the queen ant with a stirring rendition of “Hey Mama” by the rapper Nas) and the ancient Grove of Dodona, which gives him a prophecy. We also figure out that the baddies in this series are the Triumvirate, 3 “dead” Roman emperors, which include Nero who turns out to be Meg’s stepdad. It is interesting to note that Riordan has openly made Apollo’s character bisexual and talks in detail about the boys and girls he has fallen in love with. My favorite part is definitely the Arrow of Dodona! Recommended for ages 12+, 4 stars.

Dear Justyce (Dear Martin #2) written by Nic Stone

I read Dear Martin in August of 2021 and I really enjoyed it, though I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but had heard that it was a really well done book. I reviewed the book later in the month on this blog, and really loved the character of Justyce. This book focuses in on Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr, aka Quan, who in the previous book, was a minor character and cousin of Manny, Justyce’s friend. He is currently incarcerated for the murder of Tommy Castillo, a young cop. I have only ever read one other book about a kid in prison, Monster by Walter Dean Myers, back when I was in graduate school. I had heard that this book was good enough to act as a stand-alone book, so I suggested it for our Teen Council and they picked it for February’s Teen Book Club.

The letter writing element is also in this book, only here Quan is writing to a very much alive person, Justyce the main character from Dear Martin. These letters are very therapeutic for Quan and help to explain his story, plus gives him a connection with a young black man who has beaten the school-to-prison-pipeline and managed to get into a good school and excel. This is something I think Quan yearns for but has never really been given the opportunity because no one has believed in him. In between the letters from the juvenile detention center, we get Quan’s background story. He has had a tough journey so far. We learn about his drug dealer dad and the super traumatic arrest and jailing of him when Quan was ten years old, which was the first chapters and very intense. His mom subsequently takes up with Dwight, an abusive drunk, with whom she has two kids. Dwight kept Quan’s letters from his dad in prison a secret from him for years, to the point where he believed that his dad had abandoned him as well. Quan is always looking out for his young step brother and sister, even to the detriment of his own health and safety. Justyce and Quan meet one night when he is trying to get away from Dwight and Justyce is hiding from his dad who is a veteran with PTSD.  Eventually Quan meets Martel, the leader of the Black Jihad, a local gang that specializes in guns. He joins the gang, which starts his going in and out of the Juvenile Justice system. Eventually the book comes to the night of “the Incident” and we find out that Quan didn’t do it, but is unwilling to rat on who actually did. With the help of Justyce and a lot of other people, they manage to get him freed from prison, and hopefully now he can have a chance at life.

I think it is fascinating for an author who didn’t really want to write this second book in the Dear Martin series, that she not only did, but also wrote a really well-done book on an issue that is unfortunately all too common for many African-American males. This book made me think a lot about the benefits of restorative justice vs straight up penalizing people for what they may or may not have done. My heart broke a little at reading about how one of the ways Dwight abused Quan, his mom, and his two kids was by starving them, how frustrated Quan was when he tried his best and only seem to have bad things happen like being accused of cheating at math and getting in-school suspension, and the way his mom just completely gave up on him (and taking care of him properly) after his dad ended up in jail and she was with Dwight. I loved that Nic Stone included Jason Reynolds and his poetry in her book. Highly recommended for ages 14+, 5 stars.

The Mighty Valkyries: All Hel Let Loose (The Mighty Valkyries #1-5) written by Jason Aaron and Torunn Gronbekk, illustrated by Mattia de Iulis, Erica D’Urso, and Marcio Menyz

I picked this one up because it had LGBTQ characters, plus involved Loki. It is kind of complicated to explain, but I will try my best. First off, Queen Hela is gay and is married to Karnilla, who is kind of the reason why things get so f-ed up in this series. Queen Karnilla decides she wants children, and so literally steals triplets from an African-American mother’s stomach in utero and is secretly raising them to be a new pantheon of gods. Meanwhile Jane Foster is a hospital doctor who works for the morgue, and oh by the way, is the only surviving Valkyrie. There is no back story as to why this is really.

Loki appears one day and is being chased by his grandchildren, offspring of Fenris Wolf, two souls inside one massive wolf and they are called Managarmr, the Moon Hounds (aka Hati and Skoll). He thinks they want to kill him, but they “just want to maim him a bit”. He has a chain that will bind them and gives it to Jane for her to handle them. Loki then disappears, because of course. Managarmr shapeshift into a woman and want to be called More, so Jane begrudgingly obliges. After talking to them for awhile, she is sympathetic to their cause because she can see herself reflected in them, but still doesn’t really trust them.

“Meanwhile, in a distant corner of a the galaxy,” a woman has come upon a planet with a famous seer. She is hoping she can find out who she really is, as her memory was wiped centuries ago. Turns out she is Runa, one of the first Valkyrie ever created, one of the original nine. The seer turns out to be Kvasir, an ancient Norse god. She frees him and returns him to his home, and he warns her of the things to come. Hela hires a bounty hunter to capture Managarmr/More but it takes two attempts to do so.

Karnila used to be the queen of the Norn (the Fates), so she weaves Jane’s hair (procured by Loki during their last encounter) into that of the triplets so Jane is forced to protect them, but Loki also sneaks in his own as well. You know he likes having his fingers in all of the pies. All of this is a wise precaution because when Hela finds out about the garden of life growing in what is supposed to be a desert wasteland and then finds out about the children, she flips her damn lid. She is incandescently angry and basically supersizes herself to go on a rampage, only to be stopped by Fafnir, former dwarf and now undead dragon who is powerful and ready to take Hela out and bleed everyone dry.

Sensing that the kids are in danger, Jane rushes to Hel with her talking winged horse and there meets Runa and they work together to help defeat the dragon. Then More arrives chained by Loki, who rescued her from the bounty hunter, only More escapes and eats everyone but the Valkyries and the children, then promptly spits them back up after they are asked to by Jane. There seems to be a bit of a romance brewing between the two of them, but they end the story before it can get interesting. The triplet girls (now toddlers) are returned to their birth mother. I guess she must be taking this new development in stride. The artwork overall was gorgeous, but I loved the contrast between the real-time story and the part of the story from Asgard, with Thor and the other gods meeting up with Runa. Despite the confusing storyline, I really enjoyed this set of comics. Recommended for ages 15+, 4 stars.

The Times I Knew I was Gay written and illustrated by Eleanor Crewes

Have you ever read a book and were just like “I can totally with identify with that!”. While I didn’t discover that I was bisexual till I was in my late 30s, though I have probably been most of my teenage and adult life, there were definitely parts of the comic that I saw myself in. Everyone can identify with trying to figure out who they are and how they fit in the world. Eleanor, or Ellie as a teenager, was a goth girl who was obsessed with Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and dated boys but did not understand them. She confessed to her friends that she might be gay in her early 20s and then proceeded to continue to date boys, eventually having sex with one and becoming even more confused. Eventually she decided to start dating women and everything started to make sense for her. Eleanor was talking about being “so conditioned to be in hetero relationships that she never even considered being in a not male-female relationships.” Then that made me wonder if it was the same case for me? Reading this was like having an epiphany, and I was like “Crap, what if this is what I’ve been through? Do I know what this means? Is it possible I am gay too? Or just really like girls right now and will probably like boys more later?” I honestly don’t know. As the summary on Amazon said “the comic reminds us that people sometimes come out not just once but again and again; that identity is not necessarily about falling in love with others, but about coming to terms with oneself.” I will definitely take some time to consider all of this and figure things out on my own. Highly recommended for ages 15+, 5 stars.

All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto by George M. Johnson

I love this cover so much! I had been waiting to get a copy of this book for forever, so when we picked Social Justice for January with my personal book club, I knew it was a good time to grab this book. Now my library filed this in the adult section, as they tend to do with any book that may cause controversy in the Teen area (though they interfile Teen and Adult nonfiction, so really not that big of a deal. This book has been called controversial for some of the contents (which caused it to be banned from school libraries in at least eight states). The author had this to say about people who had banned or were protesting the book’s topics: “Books with heavy topics are not going to harm children. Children still have to exist in a world full of these heavy topics, and are going to be affected by them whether they read the book or not. Having [this] book though, gives them the tools, the language, the resources and the education so that when they are having to deal with a heavy topic, they have a roadmap for how to handle it.” I haven’t read a lot of BIPOC descriptions of being gay, aside from I’m a Wild Seed, so I was curious to learn about his personal experience. While some of the topics were hard to read about, I think it is an important book for teens and adults to read, both queer and straight alike.

The book’s jacket summary is the best description of this text: “In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy.”

The things the author said in the book really made you think about his experiences and how difficult he had things as a Black queer boy growing up. The first chapter the author had a very crazy experience where he and his cousins were jumped by another group of boys on the way to school and he literally had his front teeth knocked out, when he was just five years old. And he questions his experience on pg 28, “I wish I knew what motivated the attack. Could it have been because I was effeminate? Could it have been a race thing, since the main assaulter was a white boy from a different part of the neighborhood? Could it simply have been the toxic behaviors we teach boys about fighting and earning manhood?”. A little later on in the book he is chastised for using the term “Honeychild” by his teacher. He talks about being different and it was a bit heartbreaking to read, because it makes me think of myself as a kid. I was always a quiet shy smart kid with glasses, and later got chubby, so there was always something for bullies to pick on. Johnson says on pg 60-61, “When you are a child that is different, there always seems to be a ‘something’. You can’t switch, you can’t say that, you can’t act this way. There is always a something that must be erased–and with it, a piece of you. The fear of being that vulnerable again outweighs the happiness that comes with being who you are, and so you agree to erase that something.” This is continued later when he talks about jumping rope Double Dutch style and being allowed to be “sassy”.

The one thing that really struck home for me was when he was talking about learning about Black History and learning about slavery, and having his teachers “talk about it being a ‘thing of its time'”, and then he comments on pg 100-101 that “when discussing racism, homophobia, and anything else in our history they are trying to absolve themselves of, they like to use the excuse ‘it was the norm at the time’. Saying this is a way of not having to deal with its ripple effects in the present…Folks used this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves–or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.” I have never thought of it that way and it really opened my eyes, and I don’t want to make excuses for people who had slaves or were racist/homophobic/sexist etc in the past. I sometimes wish I was given a less whitewashed version of history and got a better idea of what people went through in the past. I’m learning as much as I can now so I can educate myself, and fill the gaps in my education. This honestly made me think about my grandfather. I love him but he was and still is racist/homophobic, and he has had plenty of time to get get educated and change his mind about people and chooses not to. It makes me sad. Anyways, I would highly recommend this book for ages 16+, 5 stars.