This month was kind of a hodgepodge of reading. I spotlight Native authors I'd discovered in earlier years (Tim Tingle, Darcie Little Badger), non-fiction about the Sioux role in WWII as code talkers, a chapter book series for budding readers, and some contemporary and historical fiction books I'd read earlier during the year.
Tim Tingle's PathFinders / No Name series is about a Choctaw freshman in high school whose father is an abusive alcoholic, but basketball, a tight knit community and determination stops the cycle of family dysfunction. A Snake Falls to Earth is the second book by Darcie Little Badger that I've read and features a Lipan animal spirit and tween girl, and Race to the Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse is about a Navajo tween girl who sees monsters. Sioux Code Talkers is an excellent history of the code talkers in the Pacific theater. And the Jo Jo Makoons series is for budding chapter book readers.
For Veteran's Day, I highly recommend Michael Tougias' Attacked at Sea, a riveting read about a family on a ship in the Gulf of Mexico that's sunk by a German submarine during WWII. A historical fiction chapter book (for young, early readers) is The Dust Bowl, which is about a girl and her pony during The Great Depression. I also read Louder than Words, which is set in Ukraine during WWII. I was looking for texts that touched on Ukraine after the Russian offensive against Ukraine launched earlier this year. And Voyage of the Sparrowhawk deals with an English boy and girl reeling from their losses in the Great War (WWI)
I also review a few contemporary stories, including Hurricane Season, which touches on depression, and Solving for M.
I explore my library's backlist of a YA author I discovered earlier this year, Diana Peterfreund, in her MG series starter, Omega City.
And I read and created teaching materials for Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Avengers: The Complete Works graphic novel. This is not your typical GN. It's four, five-act plays written in iambic pentameter (squee!).
And as a part of my small-press published author series, I interview author Lee Y. Miao about her book, Wei to Go!
These are my reads from last year...
