FORGOTTEN FIRE by Adam Bagdasarian

Armenia History, World War II Atrocities, Historical Fiction

Eleanor Schuster - highly recommended

Horn Book Magazine (November/December, 2000)

"Forgotten Fire is a vividly, even horrifically, evoked novel about the genocide carried out against Armenians in Turkey during World War I. Like narrator Vahan Kenderian, who is twelve when the novel begins, a reader can't really prepare for this relentless tragedy before it unfolds. The son of a prominent Armenian lawyer, Vahan carries himself with "the confidence of a boy who has grown up in luxury and knows that he will always be comfortable, always well fed, always warm in winter and cool in summer." His innocence reaches a swift and brutal end. In chilling succession, his father is taken away and presumably killed; his two older brothers are shot dead in their backyard while the rest of the family watches; his older sister swallows fatal poison to avoid being raped by Turkish soldiers; and, most graphic of all, his grandmother is smashed in the head with a rock, then run through with a bayonet while she kneels to drink from a river choked with Armenian corpses. Bagdasarian pulls readers into these and numerous other wrenching scenes with the same photographic detail he uses to shape a fleeting glimpse of peacetime Bitlis, Vahan's beloved hometown in the mountains, and it is hard to turn away from his intense prose even when you feel you can no longer bear it. That the book is based on Bagdasarian's great-uncle's experiences gives it further gravity."

TELL THE WOLVES I'M HOME by Carol Rifka Brunt

Death, Grief.  AIDS, GLBTQ, Family, Friendship, Romance

Thumbs up
Joanne and Stacey

"Her world upended by the death of a beloved artist uncle who was the only person that understood her, fourteen-year-old June is mailed a teapot by her uncle's grieving friend, which whom she forges a poignant relationship."
-Provided by publisher

THE HAUNTING OF SUNSHINE GIRL by Paige McKenzie

Paranormal, Thriller, Horror

Reviewers:

Marcuson

Oxx

A New York Times bestseller

"Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Sunshine Griffith and her mother Kat move from sunny Austin, Texas, to the rain-drenched town of Ridgemont, Washington. Though Sunshine is adopted, she and her mother have always been close, sharing a special bond filled with laughter and inside jokes. But from the moment they arrive, Sunshine feels her world darken with an eeriness she cannot place. And even if Kat doesn't recognize it, Sunshine knows that something about their new house is just ... creepy.
In the days that follow, things only get stranger. Sunshine is followed around the house by an icy breeze, phantom wind slams her bedroom door shut, and eventually, the laughter Sunshine hears on her first night evolves into sobs. She can hardly believe it, but as the spirits haunting her house become more frightening--and it becomes clear that Kat is in danger--Sunshine must accept what she is, pass the test before her, and save her mother from a fate worse than death." 
--Publisher

BONE GAP by Laura Ruby

Fiction, Bullying, Fantasy, Horror, Good & Evil

Reviewers:

Goldring
Murtha
Oxx
Smith-Yahia

Printz, National Book Award 2015, YALSA

National Book Award Finalist

"Ruby's novel deserves to be read and reread. It is powerful, beautiful, extraordinary."—School Library Journal

"Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps.

So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren't surprised. But Finn knows what really happened to Roza. He knows she was kidnapped by a dangerous man whose face he cannot remember.

As we follow the stories of Finn, Roza, and the people of Bone Gap, acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a tale of the ways in which the face the world sees is never the sum of who we are." - Follett

MOSQUITOLAND by David Arnold

BOOK EXPLORERS STARRED RECOMMENDATION

Fiction, Mental Illness, Runaways, Mother-Daughter, Coming of Age

Reviewers:
Helene Murtha
Donna Murano
Eleanor Schuster

"When she learns that her mother is sick in Ohio, Mim confronts her demons on a thousand-mile odyssey from Mississippi that redefines her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane"--Provided by publisher.

CHAINS by Laurie Anderson

Historical Fiction, African-American, Slavery, U.S. Revolutionary War

Reviewers:
Dorothy Johnson, Eleanor Schuster

"Seeds of America." After being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War. (Follett)

"If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? 

As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom.

From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual. (Publisher)

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ALL AMERICAN BOYS by Jason Reynolds

Realistic fiction, African-American, Racial-Prejudice

Awards for best book on multiple lists

Reviewers:
Oxx, Smith-Yahia

"When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend"--OCLC.

A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature.

In this Coretta Scott King Honor Award–winning novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension. (Follett)

A bag of chips. That's all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?

There were witnesses: Quinn Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad's classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team—half of whom are Rashad's best friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before.

Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred reviews tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken from the headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth. (from the publisher)