New Kid by Jerry Craft (2019) Quill Tree Books

Jordan Banks is the new kid in a private school who helps new friends overcome insecurities, prejudice, and negligent racism.  His teacher keeps confusing the name of another black student just because he’s black.  He finds a girl has a crush on him.  And he helps another girl overcome her fear of how people will see her because she has a burn scar from saving her brother’s life.  A well done, non-preachy book that deserved the Newbery it won.

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera (2021) Levine Querido

Something has altered the flight of Halley’s Comet and this time it is going to impact Earth.  On this premise, several countries, including the U.S., have developed extra large rockets that can take humanity to other solar systems.  Most of the passengers will sleep during the entire trip.  Some will stay awake for generations to watch over their quiet charges.  The story is told from the point of view of a teenage girl whose parents are professors and her little brother.  But the real conflict is a group of people who think our history is what went wrong with humanity.  And they become in charge of the society running the ship.

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Abilene Tucker has been sent to the town of Manifest, Kansas during the Great Depression.  She is loosely taken care of by a 'pastor' who also runs a speak-easy.  She loses the compass her father had given her and looks in the one place everyone warned her away from - a house named the Road to Perdition, where a diviner lives.  She agrees to work for the woman in exchange for getting the compass back.  But there is far more to the town and its history than meets the eye.  A man who owns most of the town and its mine gets tricked into selling land that allows the town to buy back its rights.  The book is well written and worth the read.

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos 

Jack lives in a town named for Eleanor Roosevelt. It's summer, he's twelve and he's grounded for firing his father's Japanese sniper rifle, which was supposed to be unloaded.  Now, he's only allowed to help the elderly neighbor across the street, Miss Volker, who is the town medical examiner.  She also writes the obituaries of the original Norvelters as they die off.  She has severe arthritis in her hands, so she has Jack write and type-up the obituaries.  She also has him drive her to the houses of the deceased to examine the bodies.  She has put off another, annoying, Norvelter who has wanted her to marry him for decades, Mr. Spizz, an adult tricycle riding constable.  He sticks his nose into everyone's business and writes tickets because the grass is too high, or their house needs painting.  Jack's father comes home and orders Jack to do things that makes his mother mad.  In the meantime, Jack tries to figure out why so many of the old original Norvelters are suddenly dying.

Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina

Merci’s family live in Miami.  They have three houses next to each other.  She goes to an exclusive school in trade for her family’s labor in painting and sewing.  Her older brother is considered the smartest kid in school and spends all his time in science labs.  She has younger twin brothers whom she loves, but hates to have to babysit.  She likes to play soccer and often plays on her father’s team.  Merci’s grandfather, Lolo, is changing due to Alzheimer’s.  At school, she tries to fit-in with a group of girls who tend to look down on her.

The book centers around Merce’s feelings and her not wanting change to happen and dealing with being a twelve-year-old.

Hello Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly (2017) Greenwillow Books

About a group of young people.  There is Virgil, referred to by his family as Turtle, which he hates, the Tanaka sisters; Kaori and Gen, Kaori working as a psychic with only two customers; Virgil and Valencia, who is deaf, but wears hearing aids.  Her family doesn’t get her either.  And then there is Bull, who is a bully and thinks he knows everything, and none of it is necessarily good.

Virgil is in a special education class with Valencia, whom he has a crush on, and Bull calls him retard and calls Valencia deafo.

School is out for the summer, but Virgil feels he has failed – at least at what he wanted to do before he wouldn’t see Valencia for the next three months.  So he sets an appointment with Kaori who tells him to bring five special stones and he sets out across the woods.

Valencia has seen Karoi’s card on the bulletin board at the store and calls and sets her own appointment.

While Virgil is crossing the woods, Bull comes upon him and steals his backpack and throws it down a well – the backpack contains Virgil’s pet guinea pig, Gulliver.  Virgil sees a ladder and tries to climb down to rescue Gulliver but falls from the last rung and cannot reach it to climb out.

Virgil’s lateness worries Kaori and when Valencia gets there, she and her sister figure out that Valencia is who Virgil was wanting to say hello to.  They all go in search of the missing Virgil.

Well written and deserving of the Newbery Medal.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (2016) Algonquin 

Each year, in the Protectorate, a child must be sacrificed to the Witch.  But one year, the witch, who feeds each child starlight and takes them to a better place and finds good parents, accidentally feeds one child from the moon and keeps her because her magic will be too wild for most people to control.