Flowers for Mariko

Written by: Rick Noguchi and Deneen Jenks

First line: Mariko had been waiting almost three years for this day, when she and her family were finally allowed to leave Camp.

Why you should read this book: The war is over and Japanese-American families are free to leave the internment camps where they have been imprisoned during the war, but most of them have nothing to go back to. Mariko's father, a gardener, finds that his truck has been stolen, and while he planted flowers and dreamed of the future in the Camp, now he does not even notice the work that Mariko has been doing, using the knowledge of plants the he imparted to her. Finally, her father is able to collect and repair enough broken tools to restart his gardening business, and recognizes how his daughter has inherited his legacy.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're out of work and don't have any skills to fall back on.

Inside Out and Back Again

Written by: Thanhha Lai

First line: Today is Tết, the first day of the lunar calendar.

Why you should read this book: With words selected for maximum impact, this novel in verse describes the journey of ten-year-old Hà: her life in Vietnam as war escalates, her last-minute escape from Saigon, and the new life she builds with her family in America. Chronicling a year, from early 1975 to 1976, this book shows desire, loss, fear, hope, and triumph through the eyes of a child struggling to understand the world around her. Based on the author's on experience and woven throughout with themes of loss, the story demonstrates how a new life can be built from what remains when it seems that there is nothing left.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You like really long paragraphs.

One Crazy Summer

Written by: Rita Williams-Garcia

First line: Good thing the plane had seat belts and we'd been strapped in tight before takeoff.

Why you should read this book: It deserves all the awards and accolades that have been heaped upon it.  It's 1968 and eleven-year-old narrator, Delphine, along with her sisters, nine-year-old Vonetta and seven-year-old Fern, are being shipped from the protective arms of their father and grandmother in New York, to meet their crazy mother, Cecile who abandoned them to be a poet in Oakland, California. Cecile is far from their ideal of motherly love, and packs them off to a free day camp run by the Black Panthers, where they are about to learn all manner of things they never expected, and teach those around them a thing or two in the process.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Not a fan of intelligent, thought-provoking prose.

What to Do about Alice?

Written by: Barbara Kerley

Why you should read this book: A rollicking biography of Teddy Roosevelt's spitfire oldest daughter, the child of his first marriage, who is determined to eat up the world, sampling all its delights, and scandalizing proper society in the process. A tomboy, proto-feminist, free spirit, Alice serves as a successful ambassador, drives a car (fast) and travels the world. Eventually she marries and congressman and proves that she's not such a problem child after all.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't want your kids jumping on your head and riding you like a pig.

Ruth and the Green Book

Written by: Calvin Alexander with Gwen Strauss

First line: It was a big day at our house when Daddy drove up in our very own automobile—a 1952 Buick.

Why you should read this book: A picture book for young children that illustrates the reality of Jim Crow laws and discrimination in the American south, with a little twist. Ruth's family has lived in Chicago for so long they've forgotten how racism might affect their mobility when they drive to Grandma's house in Alabama. For a while it seems like they'll have to make the whole trip without bathrooms or hotels, until a friendly Esso employee introduces them to the Green Book, a directory of services that don't discriminate against black people. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Not a fan of civil rights. 

Summer Jackson: Grown Up

Written by: Teresa E. Harris

First line: My name is Summer Jackson and I'm tired of being seven.

Why you should read this book: A sassy second grader is tired of waiting for adult privileges and determines that she will become a grownup right now. In her mind it's easily accomplished by wearing high heels and sunglasses, carrying a briefcase and cell phone, and charging classmates for her consulting services. In order to save Summer from a life of boredom and ice cream-induces stomachaches (adults can eat as much ice cream as they want, right?) her parents had to remind her what's fun about being a kid.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Can't wait for the kids to grow up.

Swine Lake

Written by: James Marshall

First line: One wintry afternoon a lean and mangy wolf found himself in an unfamiliar part of town.

Why you should read this book: A tongue-in-cheek children's story that takes the archetype of the big, bad wolf, huff and puff, and blows the whole thing down, this will entertain younger children and delight those with an ear for the absurd. As illustrated by the unmistakeable talent of Maurice Sendak, the down-on-his-luck wolf chances upon free box seats to an all-pig ballet and intends to devour the entire cast, but instead becomes caught up in the story and so enraptured that he sees it through to the end and floats home in a trance. The next day, he returns to the theater and leaps onto stage, as was his original intention, but rather than eating pigs, joins the ballet, dances the part of the monster, and then, the next day, finds a review of his stage debut in the paper and  keeps it in his pocket.

Why you shouldn't read this book: A traditionalist, you despise revisionist histories.

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Orbiter

Written by: Warren Ellis

First line: My first memory is of being held up in front of a tiny black-and-white TV set by my mother and being told, "Remember this."

Why you should read this book: In a seemingly catastrophic but eventually beautiful vision, Colleen Doran illustrates Ellis's tale of a future in which the manned space program has been scrapped in the wake of the incredible disappearance of an entire space shuttle, which reappears under equally mysterious circumstances a decade later, covered in a biological matrix and piloted by an insane astronaut. To determine where the Venture been, how it got there, how it got back, and what happened to the ship and its crew in the interim, the government assembles a team of passionate individuals, all of whom have had their dreams ripped away from them with the dismantling of the space program. If they can crack the ship's secrets and break through the mental blocks of the apparently catatonic pilot, they may be poised to usher the human race into the new age of space exploration.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You prefer not to look up at the night sky.

The Pig-Out Blues

Written by: Jan Greenberg

First line: "Jodie Firestone, your arms are thick as tree trunks," my mother said on her way to the icebox.

Why you should read this book: It's a sort of problematic YA novel in which a five-foot, one hundred twenty pound teenager labeled as fat, verbally abused and emotionally neglected by her mother, and seeks solace in her love of theater and her best friend's family. In a bid to please her mother, satisfy her peers, and win the role of Juliet in the school play, Jodie goes on a starvation diet, losing twenty pounds in one month, only to pass out from exhaustion at her audition. When she honestly examines her mother's psychology and her relationship with her mother, her desire to binge disappears and she becomes incredibly insightful.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The writing is strained, the story is dated, and there's something sort of artificial about the narrative's arc.

Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear

Written by: Lensey Namioka

First line: Yang the Eldest drew his bow across his violin strings, and a shower of sparkling notes fell over the room.

Why you should read this book: Yang the Eldest, like his parents before him, is a talented musician, a violin virtuoso; Yang the Second Eldest plays the viola; Yang the Third Eldest, the cello; and so it falls to Yang the Youngest to complete their string quartet by playing second violin, which he would do happily, were he not completely tone deaf and literally unable to differentiate one note from the next. Recently immigrated from China, Yang the Youngest's family loves him, but cannot accept his utter musical ineptitude, until the boy makes his first American friend, Matthew, whose own parents disdain his love of violin and don't understand why he doesn't spend more time improving his baseball skills. As it turns out, Yang the Youngest has a great talent for the Great American past time, and maybe, just maybe, he and Matthew can teach their parents a thing or two about direction a child's talents.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're supposed to be practicing.