I am Alfonso Jones

I am Alfonso Jones
By Tony Medina
Illustrated by Stacey Robinson & John Jennings

I read this graphic novel for a book club--it is a powerful, intense story. This description is from Library Journal: 

Alfonso's playing Hamlet's ghost-father in his school's hip-hop version of the play while hoping for a second role as Danetta's boyfriend. But buying his first suit, he becomes a real ghost when a police officer mistakes a coat hanger for a weapon and shoots him. In the afterlife, he awakens in a subway train among other ghosts, who share their own experiences with police brutality. A gut-punching trip into a Black Lives Matter story, with black-and-white art.

(January 1, 2018)

Cloud and Wallfish

Cloud and Wallfish
By Anne Nesbet

1989, East Berlin, Germany.
The setting of this story may or may not be familiar to readers, but this was the year the Berlin Wall came down--the Wall that divided a city, separated families, distinguished very different governments, all within the same country! This Wall served as a literal Iron Curtain, dividing capitalist systems from communist systems.
Noah Keller, an American kid, travels to East Berlin with his parents who suddenly get official permission to cross the border and do "research". But there are some weird things going on; Noah's parents insist that his age, birthday, home town and even his name must be changed while they are living in East Berlin. There are serious Rules to follow, and Noah learns quickly that the secret police may be listening to anyone's conversations, anywhere.
What is Noah's family really doing there?
What is going on?

Outrun the Moon

Outrun the Moon
By Stacey Lee

Fifteen-year-old Mercy Wong will win you over with her spunky attitude, strength, sense of humor, and determination. And she will need all of that and more to survive San Francisco's 1906 earthquake; not only does Mercy face the destruction of her city and beloved Chinatown neighborhood, but she faces discrimination at being a girl AND as a Chinese American.
Against all odds, Mercy talks her way into a private, elite girls school because she's convinced it is her only ticket to becoming the businesswoman she wants to be...but the Great Quake shakes up her plans and brings many unexpected connections, along with devastation and tragedy.
I could not put this book down!

All American Boys

All American Boys
By Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

All American Boys is a timely, important, and super impressive book about how an isolated instance of police brutality towards a black teenager affects an entire community, and ultimately the whole country.
When Rashad, age 16, reaches into his bag for his cell phone at a corner store, a minor accident leads to a false accusation that he's trying to shoplift a bag of chips; he is brutally beaten up by a police officer who claims he is "just doing his job."
This event is captured on video and broadcast around the country on the news while Rashad recovers in the hospital...Meanwhile, Quinn, a classmate who witnessed the beating, tries to figure out what he should do in the face of this incredible injustice--especially because he is a friend and neighbor of the police officer.
Told in alternating voices, by two different teenagers--one black, one white--the novel is also written by two authors--one black, one white.

I Lived on Butterfly Hill

I Lived on Butterfly Hill
By Marjorie Agosín

This is a fictionalized account of a real dictatorship that happened in Chile, a beautiful country in South America. In the novel an 11-year-old girl named Celeste, from Valparaíso (the "San Francisco of Chile") experiences the disappearances of friends and neighbors as the General takes power over her country. Eventually her own parents, who are doctors helping the poor, are forced to go into hiding--and Celeste moves north to Maine to live with her aunt until Chile is safer for her family.
I Lived on Butterfly Hill is slow-paced, written by a Chilean poet and writer, and it has lovely illustrations throughout the story.
Celeste's experience of living far away from her parents--not knowing where they are hiding, for two years--and learning to adapt in a new country is very moving. 

Harlem Hellfighters

Harlem Hellfighters 
by J. Patrick Lewis and Gary Kelley

This gorgeous and intense picture book tells the true story--in free-verse poetry--of the 369th Infantry Regiment during World War I.
In 1917 a brave group of 2,000 black Americans enlisted and  became known as the Harlem Hellfighters; some of these young men played instruments in a famous band that brought the music of Harlem, New York, straight into the war raging in France.
Faced with racism in the United States, the Harlem Hellfighters returned victorious when the war was over, helping to make progress towards equal rights for all African Americans--that were still a long time coming.



Below, Lt. James Reese Europe, famous jazz
band leader, back with the 369th Regiment.
More photos and information about the Harlem Hellfighers at: www.archives.gov/education/lessons/369th-infantry

I am Malala

I am Malala: how one girl stood up for education and changed the world
By Malala Yousafzai
With Patricia McCormick

(Young Readers Edition)

Malala always had a passion for education--ever since she was a very little girl, she loved school and excelled at learning. When the Islamist militant group known as the Taliban began to take control of her hometown in Pakistan, all girls were suddenly forbidden to attend school. Along with her father, Malala spoke out about this injustice (she was 11 years old at the time) and through interviews and blog postings she gave the world an understanding of the horrors of Taliban occupation.
One day, inside the school bus on the way home from school, Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban...miraculously, she survived, though she underwent many serious operations.
To this day Malala speaks passionately all over the world about the rights of children and women to receive an education.
In 2014, at age 17, Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize--the youngest person ever to win this prestigious honor.
An amazing, inspiring true story of courage and perseverance.

Revolution

Revolution
By Deborah Wiles

This is a hefty book, almost 500 pages. But along with the gripping Civil Rights-era story are pages of photos, leaflets, song lyrics and quotes from the Mississippi Freedom Summer project in 1964.
"The overthrowing of Jim Crow [state laws] by the federal government was a revolution. And it came with its battles. One of those battles was Freedom Summer," writes the author in the book's afterword.
Revolution is an incredible documentary novel about what it took to ensure African Americans in the south could vote and access their rights as citizens of this country. It truly took a  revolution.

Ninth Ward

Ninth Ward
By Jewell Parker Rhodes

Lanesha sees ghosts--all around her neighborhood in New Orleans, including her own mama who died giving birth to her. Growing up with her adopted grandmother, Mama Ya-Ya, Lanesha has become comfortable with the ghosts and even appreciates their company.
When Hurricane Katrina hits the city, Lanesha needs to be stronger than she's ever been, drawing on all the skills and knowledge Mama Ya-Ya has taught her over the past 12 years. Even the ghosts are called upon to help out as Lanesah, Mama Ya-Ya, a neighbor boy and their dog end up in a serious survival situation: the Mississippi River flooding into their home and the waters are rising and rising...
This is an intense book based on the real events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Brown Girl Dreaming

Brown Girl Dreaming
By Jacqueline Woodson

This is a beautiful collection of story-poems about author Jacqueline Woodson's own childhood in both the South and in New York. Her perspective of the Civil Rights Movement is particularly interesting and engaging, since she was a little girl at the time and just beginning to understand what it was all about.
Brown Girl Dreaming won the National Book Award in 2014 for YA literature; click here to see the author speaking about her book when she received this prestigious award!

Little Brother

Little Brother

By Cory Doctorow

Selected for San Francisco's One City One Book project this fall, I found many copies of Little Brother at my neighborhood SFPL and decided to check it out.
Glad I did!

I love that the setting is San Francisco; I love that Marcus, the 17-year-old genius hacker protagonist, lives in Portrero Hill and goes to high school in the Mission. Even eats pizza from Goat Hill pizzeria!

But mostly I love that in this dystopian story, a bunch of smart kids are able to go up against a Department-of-Homeland-Security-gone-bad and stand up for their constitutional rights to privacy and free speech.

If you love real-life stories of hacking security systems and exposing hard-to-hear truths, you will appreciate the techno-battle Marcus fights against his own government, which claims to be protecting the citizens of San Francisco from terrorism.

Recommended for ages 13 and up.

One Crazy Summer

One Crazy Summer
by Rita Williams-Garcia

This novel is one of the Middle School book nominees for the 2014 California Young Reader Medal (along with Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Naylor Reynolds and Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick).
Three sisters travel across the country to Oakland, CA to meet their estranged mother who abandoned them as babies. While there, the girls learn about the Black Panthers, other aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, and their mother's mysterious past.
A beautifully told, powerful story of that very important year, 1968...I especially enjoyed reading about Oakland, with a side visit to San Francisco!

The Giver Quartet

The Giver
Gathering Blue
Messenger
Son
By Lois Lowry

This summer I decided to check out the whole Quartet from the library--well, actually just the three books following The Giver, because I had already read that one and written about it here.
What a treat! I enjoyed so much how characters appear and reappear throughout the different stories, and how themes weave together and overlap.
In Gathering Blue, we learn about the difficult life of young Kira, and also of her special gift--which the leaders in her community are trying to manipulate in order to control the future.
Messenger is the story of Matty, who was just a rascal of a boy in Gathering Blue. He too has a special gift he is learning to understand and use for good. The depictions of the Forest are creepy and unnerving in this one!
And finally, in Lois Lowry's latest wonderful book Son, Jonas and Kira from previous stories are again important characters...but this is the story of Claire, a "Birthmother" from the same community in The Giver, searching for her stolen son, Gabe.

Watsons go to Birmingham--1963

The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963
By Christopher Paul Curtis

I had long heard about this book--how funny it is, how important, how well-written...I was not disappointed!

The Watson family is so lovable, especially 10-year-old Kenny, who is constantly trying to understand the crazy behavior of his teenage "juvenile delinquent" brother, Byron.

At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the Watson family takes a road trip to Birmingham, Alabama (from Flint, Michigan) to leave Byron with his strict grandma for the summer.

Their visit coincides with the horrific (and real) bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four African American girls are killed during Sunday school.

This unforgivable event alters the Watson family dynamic...and the course of American history.

Bridge of Time

Bridge of Time
By Lewis Buzbee

This is a fun time travel story, mostly because it's set right here in San Francisco!
Middle schoolers Lee Jones and Joan Lee are best friends, and both have just heard that their parents are planning to divorce...the next morning, while on a boring school field trip to Fort Point, they are suddenly transported back in time to 1864. And who do they run into? Mark Twain (who introduces himself as Sam Clemens).
They have many crazy adventures while learning some unpleasant history lessons, especially with regard to how Chinese immigrants were first treated in San Francisco. And they travel to some other time periods in the City, too, including the future.

Fred Korematsu

Fred Korematsu: All American Hero
By Anupam Chander and Madhavi Sunder
Illustrated by Angelia Loi


This informative graphic novel tells the story of Fred Korematsu, who spoke up and fought for justice for his Japanese American community despite great challenges. During WWII, Fred and his family and 120,000 other Japanese Americans living on the West coast were forced to live in internment camps for no reason but that they were of Japanese ancestry. Fred Korematsu took his case to the Supreme Court--twice--before the U.S. officially apologized to him, and to the entire Japanese American community. He continued to fight for justice for all people in the United States until his death at age 86, in 2005.
The story also mentions similar unfair treatment of Muslims after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

  

California now commemorates this impressive civil rights activist each January 30th (this began in 2011) with Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberaties and the Constitution.

Satchel Paige

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow
By James Sturm and Rich Tommaso

Leroy "Satchel" Paige was the most popular, highest paid and most photographed baseball player in the Negro League from the 1920s to the 1940s.  Satchel Paige was a master pitcher who got the crowds laughing with his warm-up tricks and jokes.  This was all during a time in U.S. history when African American athletes were not allowed to play on the same teams as white athletes--so they formed their own professional leagues.  This graphic novel tells the story of one great ball player and the obstacles he overcame because he loved the game so much.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X:  By Any Means Necessary
By Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers has written a fascinating account of the life--and death--of one of the greatest and most influential but also most controversial leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
Malcolm X was the "militant leader of hundreds of thousands in the Nation of Islam, a Muslim minister, a target of the F.B.I., a guest of Arab princes, at one time a streetwise, blade-sharp teenager" on the streets of Harlem.  He spent 6 1/2 years in prison as a young man, and used that time to read and learn, emerging as a powerful force for change in the years afterward.

The Harvey Milk Story

The Harvey Milk Story
By Kari Krakow
Illustrated by David Gardner

The inspiring story of our country's first openly gay elected city official, right here in San Francisco.  Everyone should know this story.  Every kid and adult should read this book.
(ISBN: 0-9674468-3-x-51795)

Esperanza Rising

Esperanza Rising
By Pam Muñoz Ryan

This Great Depression-era novel is based on the life of the author's own grandmother, who had to trade a privileged life in Mexico for a farm-worker's life in California.  Esperanza, the main character, arrives in California with her mother after tragedy strikes their hacienda in Aguascalientes.  They confront classism and racism as they begin a new life in a strange land. They also begin to learn about worker's rights and union organization.
(ISBN: 0-439-12041-1)