DWD's Reviews

Originally Published in 1983. Read by the author, Sandra Cisneros. Duration: 2 hours, 18 minutes. Unabridged The House on Mango Street is the story of a Hispanic girl named Esperanza who grows up in a little house in a poor neighborhood in Chicago. Her story is told in a series of unrelated vignettes (44 in all) that tell some sort of story about her family life or the neighborhood itself. In some, the main character clearly has no idea of the more adult themes that occur around her, while in others she is very astute and understands the larger implications.  At first, Esperanza's family intends that the house is going to be a temporary stop on their climb towards economic success in America. But, they never quite are able to move out of this troubled neighborhood and the reader is able to see how the neighborhood affects the lives of everyone around Esperanza as she grows up. To be fair, the neighborhood is not all bad, but it is a tough place for children to grow up and keep the

  Published in 2020 by Scholastic Audio. Read by Alaska Jackson. Duration: 7 hours, 18 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: High School senior Liz Lighty is depending on a $10,000 music scholarship to be able to afford to attend the college she has always wanted to go to.  When she discovers that she doesn't get the scholarship, she's afraid her grandparents will sell their house to pay for her college. Her high school offers a $10,000 scholarship for the winner of the Prom Queen competition. Enthusiastic band member Liz, supported by her outsider group of friends, joins the competition against all cheerleaders, legacies, and the beautiful people... My Review: In a lot of ways, this is a typical high school ugly duckling story - the underdog great kid goes up against the popular clique. But, there are some additional nuances that make this more interesting.  The book is set in the Indianapolis area (Indianapolis is my adopted hometown) and the high school in the book (Campbell) is a

  Originally published in serial form in Raw magazine from 1980-1991. Originally published in book form in 1991 by Pantheon Books. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Years ago, the high school where I used to teach had a daily silent reading time. We were encouraged to build a classroom library and I had a great one. Two stand alone shelves (one tall, one short) and a little rug in the corner with a chair. I had a lot of books from a lot of different genres but the star books were Of Mice and Men and the two volume paperback version of  Maus . Kids kept on stealing Of Mice and Men (If a kid likes it so much that he doesn't want to return it - fine by me) but so many students read Maus that the paperback binding broke and the pages fell out. It was held together with binder clips and big rubber bands.  What I remember about that book is that every student reverently took off that ridiculous clip and the big rubber band, spread the pages out and just read. Students who "ha

  Originally published as a book in 1947. Graphic novel e-book edition published in 2018 by Pantheon. Adapted into a graphic novel by Ari Folman. The Diary of Anne Frank is certainly one of the most famous pieces of literature published in the last 100 years. The book the true diary of a young teen Jewish girl that was written as her family lived in a hidden apartment with two other families in an attempt to hide from the Nazi genocide. Before the war ended someone betrayed the families and Anne and almost everyone else in the apartment died in concentration camps shortly before the Nazi surrender. A page where Anne compares herself unfavorably to her sister. Ari Folman adapted the diary into a graphic novel. In the afterword he notes that this was harder than one might expect. This graphic novel is 160 pages, but if he had simply illustrated the entire text of the diary it would have ended up being more than 3,000 pages! The challenge was to maintain the spirit of the print book whil

  Originally published in 2006. Published by Listening Library in 2019. Read by Jeff Woodman. Duration: 6 hours, 47 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Colin Singleton is a child prodigy who has recently stopped being a child. He has graduated from high school, is preparing to go to a great college but he is unsettled by a couple of things. Number one: being a child prodigy means that you are potentially an important adult. Colin is aware that it is now time for potential to turn into something - anything - meaningful. Number two: Colin just got dumped - again. He has dated 19 different girls and all are named Katherine. Technically it is 18 different girls because Katherine 1 is also Katherine 19, but the point is pretty much the same. So, Colin is wallowing in self-pity when his best friend, a slacker named Hassan, comes to him and suggests that they need to go on a road trip. They head south through Indiana and eventually end up in Gutshot, Tennessee where Colin meets a girl named Lindse

  Illustrated by the author. Published in 2021 by Graphix. Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel (2022) Synopsis: Morgan Kwon's parents have recently divorced. 15 year old Morgan, her annoying little brother and her mom have moved away from the city to an island just off of mainland Canada. Morgan seems to be doing pretty well. After all, she has a great group of friends. But, there are struggles. Her little brother has become extra annoying, she misses her dad and she can't wait to get off of this island and go to college and be her true self.  You see, Morgan has a secret that she is afraid to share with anyone - she's gay and she's afraid her friends and family will reject her if they find out. It all comes to a head when she meets a very cute girl while swimming one day. There is a more than a spark of romance, but it turns out that this new girl has a secret that dwarfs Morgan's secret! My review: This is an absolutely enjoyable comin

  Book edition originally published in 2006. Audiobook published in 2019 by Listening Library. Read by Asmeret Ghebremichael. Duration: 3 hours, 0 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: This short piece of historical fiction focuses on a slave family in Georgia in the 1790s. The main character is Sally. She has a brother, a mother and a father. The one thing that this family has going for them is that their owners have a policy of not breaking apart families. That is the policy until relatives of the owners find themselves struggling financially. In a couple of days, Sally and her brother and 3 other slaves are going to be sent to the other plantation to help it get back on its feet again.  The family decides to run away together rather than be split apart. After some discussion with a friendly house slave who has done some traveling with the family, they decide not to head north. They haven't seen a map but they know that the trip across northern Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, a

  Published by Listening Library in 2017. Read by Dion Graham, Duration: 4 hours, 32 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Justyce is a African-American scholarship boarding school student originally from a rough neighborhood.  He attends an elite, almost entirely white prep school in Atlanta. He is a senior and a fantastic student who is clearly headed to a top university once he graduates. Everything isn't perfect, but it is going very, very well. One evening Justyce gets a phone call from an on-again-off-again girlfriend. She is clearly drunk and is talking about driving home. She's not too far away so he walks to her car, gets into an argument with her and struggles with her a bit for the keys while maneuvering her into the backseat where she pukes and passes out. While he is buckling her in to take her home a police officer pulls up and completely misinterprets the scene for a carjacking and a kidnapping.  From the officer's point of view, it looks suspicious if you go with a

  Published in 2015 by Listening Library. Read by multiple actors from the 2022 movie adaption of this book. Duration: 6 hours, 9 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Greg is a senior in high school. His plan has been to get along with everyone, be welcomed by every group but avoid being a part of any of them. So far, that has worked out.  His only friend is a kid named Earl. Earl is a rough sort of guy. Greg and Earl don't have a lot in common - they don't even hang out together in school. But, they do share a love of moviemaking. They watch movies, dissect them and even make their own movies.  One day, Greg's mom comes and tells him about a girl he knew in middle school. She had developed leukemia. It's a particularly tough form of leukemia and she is unlikely to live more than a few months. She wants him to befriend Rachel (without really realizing how big of an "ask" this is) and Earl comes along... My review: The author, Jesse Andrews I picked this book based o

Originally published in 2008. Synopsis: D anny is spending the  summer in San Diego living with his father's family - his grandmother, his uncles, his aunts, and his cousins. He dreams of visiting his father in Mexico and is disdainful of his mother who is spending the summer in San Francisco with her very serious boyfriend. What complicates the matter is that Danny's mom is white and Danny basically speaks no Spanish. He feels out of place when he is with his mom in her neighborhood because of his Mexican heritage. He feels out of place with his father's family because of his white heritage. He also knows there are family secrets that they are hiding from him. What Danny has going for him is baseball. He can do it all, but he is a brilliant young pitcher. He finds another ball player named Uno. Uno is half black and half Mexican and understands how Danny feels out of place everywhere he goes. Together, Danny and Uno come up with a plan to leverage their baseball skills...

  Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2003. Read by the author, Khaled Hosseni. Duration: 12 hours, 1 minute. Unabridged. This book was published about 20 years ago and I just got around to reading it. This is not an uncommon thing for me - I did the same with the   Harry Potte r  books and The Handmaid's Tale , also.  I was motivated to read this for the same reason I was motivated to read The Handmaid's Tale - it was permanently placed on a banned book list in Idaho  in May of 2022. There are three parts to the story. The first part is a long description of the life of Amir, a boy who is growing up in Afghanistan in the 1970s. Amir had his problems, but he had a pretty decent life. He and his father fled to the United States when the chaos think of as "Afghanistan" began - the Communist Revolution of 1978. The author, Khaled Hosseni The second part of the book is the story of how Amir and his father adapt to life in the United States, including the re-building

  Originally published in 1982. Originally published in completed form in 1988 by DC Vertigo. This iconic graphic novel has been on my to-be-read list for a long while. I tried watching the movie, but it had been a long week and I soon fell asleep. I assumed that the movie missed some of the pizazz of the graphic novel. I decided to go ahead and read the book when I noticed it was on t he list of some 850 books that a Republican Texas state legislator wanted to ban from all Texas schools.  V for VENDETTA is the story of a masked vigilante who decides to stand up against the fascist government of an alternative history version of the United Kingdom. The masked character has become the single most recognizable feature of the book and the face of the "anonymous" movement that swept over social media a few years ago. Many people assume that it was put on the censorship list because it features a character that fights back against a repressive government. They assume that Texas

  Published in 2009 by Candlewick. Illustrated by John Lawrence Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea is an early reader picture book aimed at children aged 4-8. It tells the story of a male sea horse named Sea Horse. It describes his daily routine and introduces his mate. Along the way, they have babies. The entire book is read on this 8 minute long YouTube video . Link to this Tweet on Twitter Yes, they misspelled Santa Claus. Perhaps they should read more...😉 I normally don't review books aimed at small children but this summer I have been reading a lot of books that have been included on various book ban lists. This one was on a list in Tennessee because of a group called Moms for Liberty . They thought that the sea horses in the book were too sexy. Also, they argued that this book was a sneaky argument in favor of transgenderism (see attached picture - yes, it's a real Tweet - see the link underneath it to go to the actual Tweet).  Here are more links to stories about th

The author won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Originally published in 1970. This audiobook version was published in 2011 by Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. Read by the author, Toni Morrison. Duration: 7 hours, 6 minutes Unabridged. Synopsis: This is a story of a girl named Pecola who lives in Ohio in the 1940's. She is sexually abused by her father and only knows her mother by the name Mrs. Breedlove. Sometimes she lives with other families as her family struggles. Pecola is universally considered an ugly child. Pecola wants nothing more than to have blue eyes like Shirley Temple because she is convinced that blue eyes would make her pretty. The narrative goes round and round and moves back and forth in time, often re-telling certain aspects of the story from different perspectives that fill in the gaps as the reader proceeds.  In the end, it is not a complicated story, but it is told in a complicated manner. My review: Undoubtedly, my take on this book is over

  Published in 1988 by Recorded Books. Paper book originally published in 1985. Read by Betty Harris. Duration: 11 hours, 20 minutes. Unabridged. Note: A newer audiobook version read by Clair Danes was published in 2012. I am very late to The Handmaid's Tale - more than 35 years after the original publication date.  The plot is fairly well known so I am not going to go into extreme details. The story is set in a dystopian future America after a violent coup took out the Congress and the Executive Branch. Pollution and constant warfare have lowered the birth rate to an alarmingly low rate and the upper classes have instituted a religion-based system of surrogate motherhood. The upper classes were inspired by the Biblical story of Jacob and Rachel  from the book of Genesis and how Rachel resolved the fact that she was unable to have children by having her handmaid sleep with Jacob and Rachel would keep any children as her own. The red robes and the white headpiece are the outfit that

  Published by Listening Library in 2019. Read by Imani Parks. Duration: 6 hours, 35 minutes. Unabridged. Winner of more than 15 awards, including "A 2020 ALA Notable Middle-Grade Novel" and "A Bank Street Best Book of the Year" Makeda and her family are moving from Maryland to New Mexico. Her father got a position in a symphony in New Mexico. Her mother doesn't have a job right now, but she used to tour the world playing the violin before she had a family. The author, Mariama J. Lockington Makeda is loved by her mother, her father and her older sister, but she is different. They are white and she is black. Her family never makes her doubt their love, but strangers make her keenly aware of the differences when they ask where her parents are in stores or when they stare at her getting out of the car with the rest of the family until they finally figure out their relationship with one another. The older she gets, the more she wonders about her own roots. While the