Watercress by Andrea Wang, Illustrated by Jason Chin (2021) Neil Porter Books (Caldecott 2022)

A beautiful book that will tug at the heartstrings about tradition and loss.  Ms. Wang writes a tightly woven text that says so much in few words.  Mr. Chin’s art perfectly compliments the story.  No wonder it won the Caldecott and garnered a Newbery Honor.

Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes (2003) Greenwillow Books

Olive died, but she left a note for Martha, whom she saw as the only person who was nice to her, she wished she’d seen an actual ocean.  Twelve-year-old Martha is about to visit her grandmother, Godbe, at the ocean.  Martha has some growing up to do and wants to be a writer, but her father is already trying to be a writer and not doing very well.  A local boy takes advantage of Marth’s naivete while filming things and films himself kissing her, then reveals it was a bet.  Marth feels terrible and wants nothing to do with the older boy after that.  She collects a bottle of water to take to Olive’s mother as Olive’s Ocean.  The boy’s brother, who is Martha’s age steals the film and gives it to her at the end of the vacation.  When Martha gets home, she goes to Olive’s house to give her mother the bottle of ocean, but she has already moved too far away.  So, Martha paints Olive’s name with the ocean water and watches it evaporate in the heat.

 One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

This is the story of three sisters, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern, who visit their estranged mother, Cecille in Oakland, California.  But when they arrive with dreams of Disneyland and movie stars, they discover their mother is nothing like they expected.  The end-up spending their summer in a school run by the Black Panthers and learn unexpected lessons.  The book won numerous awards, including the Scott O’Dell award, the Coretta Scott King award, a Newbury Honor and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Written in verse, this tour-de-force follows a boy whose brother was just shot and killed.  As he takes the elevator down from his apartment, after having retrieved his brother’s gun, he is met at each floor by ghosts of others in his family who have also died by gunshot; his uncle, a girl he knew at a playground, his father, even the young man who killed his father, and his brother.  They all ask him why he thinks he needs a gun.  And it ends with that question still open.

This book won honors from Newbery, Correta Scott King, Prinz, and won the Walter Dean Myers Award and The Edgar for Best Young Adult Fiction.

The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz (2016) Dutton

Told in tales like Chaucer, a greyhound saves the life of a little baby, but her owners think she slew the baby and kill her.  When they find the snake and the live baby, they bury the dog in the forest and mark the grave.  Soon the dog is treated like a local saint.  But the church is suspicious of such behavior and send out an inquisitor to stamp out such belief.  When the girl is about ten, she visits the grave and the dog is sitting on top waiting for her.  In the meantime, in a Jewish village, some teenage boys set the village on fire and one mother kicks a hole in the back of her mud hut and tells her boy to run and meet up with her in Saint Denis.  At the same time a very large boy, one whose father was a lord and mother was an African Muslim, is told the monastery can no longer afford to feed him and sends him to Saint Denis.  A group of knights come to the little girls village to take her and the dog away for trial in Saint Denis.  And the adventure begins - all stories told in an inn.