FINISHED:
Tagame, Gengoroh. (2018). My Brother's Husband: Volume 2. New York: Pantheon/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Medina, Meg. (2018). Merci Suárez Changes Gears. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[2019 Newbery Award Winner!]

*

FINISHED: 
Ness, Patrick. (2017). Release. New York: HarperCollins.

[.] 

STARTED:
Williams-Garcia, Rita. (2017). Clayton Byrd Goes Underground. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins.

[Getting some Newbery buzz...]

*

FINISHED:
Tagame, Gengoroh. (2017). My Brother's Husband. New York: Pantheon/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Pullman, Philip. (1995). The Golden Compass [His Dark Materials: Book 1]. New York: Ballantine/Random House.

[Re-reading - gearing up for THE BOOK OF DUST trilogy!!!]

*

FINISHED: 
Lee, Mackenzi. (2017). The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Applegate, Katherine. (2017). Wishtree. New York: Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Saenz, Benjamin Alire. (2017). The Inexplicable Logic of My Life. New York: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

[.]

STARTED:
Delaney, Rachelle. (2017). The Bonaventure Adventures. New York: Penguin Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Donoghue, Emma. (2017). The Lotterys Plus One. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[The Lotterys are far from your typical family, formed when a gay male couple and a lesbian couple won the lottery, bought a giant house in Toronto, and adopted seven multiracial kids together.  Domestic (often chaotic) bliss is disrupted, however, when one of the dad’s estranged fathers comes to live with the Lotterys after recovering from a fire that he accidentally set as a symptom of developing dementia.  Best known for Room (Little Brown, 2010), Donoghue’s first novel for children is written largely from the point of view of 9-year-old Sumac, who has to vacate the room that she’s had since birth to accommodate her grandfather’s stay, directly reflecting the experiences and emotions of the primary reading audience who may relate to feeling put out and ignored themselves.  Her voice and role in the large family, as well as her transition from finding a way to get rid of their grandfather to being the one to convince him to stick around, are center stage here.  Spot art throughout, including a much appreciated – and necessary – labeled family portrait at the front of the book, helps to keep everyone and all of their varied experiences clear.  Filled with rapid-fire dialogue and tons of wordplay (the children are all named after types of trees, the taller mother is nicknamed MaxiMum, and many other family in-jokes) those who have worked their way through the Penderwicks series (Knopf, 2005) will find kinship here and look forward to more adventures with the Lotterys to come.]

STARTED:
Anderson, John David. (2017). Posted. New York: Walden Pond/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Konigsberg, Bill. (2017). Honestly Ben. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Hatke, Ben. (2016). Mighty Jack [Book 1]. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Mittlefehldt, Rafi. (2016). It Looks Like This. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[I read for ACL, to weigh in on whether or not it should be included on our annual "Best Books of the Year" list.  And, my vote will be "No".  I was REALLY getting in to it - despite the very choppy sentence structure throughout - and then the last half of  the book turned out to be a major disappointment for me.

(SPOILER-ISH)
For one thing, I was expecting/REALLY hoping that the death-by-car-crash was going to turn out to be the rotten classmate who kept leering at Mike.  Sure, let Mike believe for a day or two that it was Sean - give us some despair - but then have him discover that it was, instead, the bully who had been fighting his own internalized homophobia, and let Mike end up with Sean, even if it won't be easy because of their conservative families.  This, because...

I believe that we just don't need gay tragedies right now.  This felt to me like the kind of book that would've been written in the 70s or 80s when the gay pride movement had an enormous uphill battle ahead of it.  Then, a tragic end to a gay love story would've at least been a reflection of the times - a bit of a cynical parable on the state of the country and the treatment/popular thought about homosexuality at that time.  BUT, we've come a LONG way since then, and, even now, have to push even harder to get over the last hurdle (stupid, white, conservative men...).  What we need are gay romances with happy endings - a la Tim Federle's THE GREAT AMERICAN WHATEVER or Becky Albertalli's fantastic SIMON vs. the HOME SAPIENS AGENDA.  Gay conversion therapy and suicide??  That kind of cynicism right now is just damaging.  Gay kids need to finally be able to revel in the fact that they, too, deserve true love.]

STARTED:
Gottesfeld, Jeff. (2016). The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank's Window. New York: Knopf.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Albertalli, Becky. (2015). Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[Finally got around to reading this one after getting a free copy at the Morris Awards while at ALA Midwinter.  FANTASTIC read.  This is another case of "why wasn't this book around when I was a teenager?" envy.  Great voice.  Cleverly has every other chapter be emails between Simon's secret identity and Blue (another student at school who is keeping his identity under wraps).  A fun coming out story with a sweet romance that builds slowly, and virtually!]

STARTED:
Wolk, Lauren. (2016). Wolf Hollow. New York: Dutton/Penguin/Random House.

[4 starred reviews (from all of the majors) - and having fun trying to pick what might be up for the 2017 Newbery.]

*

FINISHED: 
Highsmith, Patricia. (1952). The Price of Salt. Mineola, NY: Dover.

[.]

STARTED:

Federle, Tim. (2016).  The Great American Whatever. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Setterington, Ken. (2013). Branded by the pink triangle. Toronto, ON: Second Story.


[.]


STARTED:
Mull, Brandon. (2014). Sky Raiders (Five kingdoms #1). New York: Aladdin/Simon & Schuster.


[.]

*

FINISHED:
Levithan, David. (2013). Two boys kissing. New York: Knopf.

[Narrated by the ghosts of gay men who died of AIDS, this one cuts between a couple of different storylines:  two young men attempt to break the world record for kissing, two teens (one of whom is transgendered) meet at a Gay Prom and begin to date, a gay teen couple help to normalize gay relationships, and a nihlistic teen who is constantly on gay-hookup sites runs away from home.  Pretty powerful stuff, and an interesting look at a range of current gay youth relationships.  This one also points out how much "better" things are for those who are coming out today (seeing as homosexuality is much more "normalized" these days), versus those gay men who had to live in the shadows, completely denying themselves, in the '70s and '80s. ]


STARTED:
McMann, Lisa. (2012). Island of silence (Unwanteds: Book 2). New York: Aladdin.

[The first in this series is one that I like to booktalk and put in kids' hands... and I realized that I haven't read EITHER of the sequels!]

*

FINISHED:
Konigsberg, Bill. (2013). Openly straight. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.


[.]


STARTED:
Nix, Garth, and Sean Williams. (2012). The monster (Troubletwisters #2). New York: Scholastic.


[Reviewing Book 3 in the series and realized that I had not read the second one yet...]


*