Orwell's Luck

Written by: Richard Jennings

First line: All my life, I have been a person who wakes up with the birds.

Why you should read this book: When a middle school girl finds an injured rabbit in her driveway one morning, her entire life becomes consumed with healing the bunny, and possibly decoding what she believes to be secret messages sent by the rabbit through various means, primarily the newspaper horoscope. It's a strangely magical story, more or less plausible despite the mystic content, and primarily about the narrator's journey from an internal life to one that has room for outsiders. Funny, smart, engaging, and uplifting, this is a lovely book that should appeal to a wide range of readers.

Why you shouldn't read the book: You don't want your kids bringing injuring wildlife into your unfinished home improvement projects.

Samir and Yonatan

Written by: Daniella Carmi

First line: Since morning I've been waiting for a curfew.

Why you should read this book: A Palestinian boy whose mother works at an Israeli hospital finds himself thrust into an alien world when his mother uses her influence to get Samir treated there. Samir knows Jews only in the context of the conflict that took his brother's life, and he is terrified to find himself living among them, without his family for comfort. Living in the children's ward, Samir slowly opens up to the humanity of the people around him, and through the imagination of a boy named Yonatan, becomes confident and happy.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You'll never get over your brother's death.

Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song

Written by: Frank M. Young and David Lasky

First line: Alvin Pleasant Carter! You git away from that fiddle! That's th' devil's instr'ment!

Why you should read this book: With straightforward illustrations and simple dialect, this graphic novel tells the life of Pleasant Carter, patriarch of the musical Carter family. As a young man, music meant more to him than anything else, and collecting the old songs was more important to him than any job he ever had. Eventually, with the help of his family, he is able to make a living with his music (the book comes with a CD of the family's music, but someone seems to have stolen it from the library copy I checked out).

Why you shouldn't read this book: Johnny Cash only appears on the last page.

It's Not the Stork: A Book about Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends

Written by: Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley

First line: Look! A hippo family!

Why you should read this book: It a fairly extensive book about bodies, sexuality, growing up, and human interaction for very young readers: the cover says "4 and up" but it's written at a level most appropriate for reading out loud to those who can't read to themselves. Although the author does not touch on trans issues in the discussion of gender, the idea of gay parents is briefly normalized in the text, as is masturbation, and the overall subject matter covers the type of questions that little kids just starting to wonder about being human might ask. The illustrations are adorable, although I found the comic addition of a bird and a bee commenting on the text a little fluffy and distracting; overall, this is a pretty good introduction, best read a little at a time to kids who are just starting to make sense of the world.

Why you shouldn't read this book: For some unknowable reason, you believe it's not healthy for children to understand anything about their bodies.

Green Pants

Written by: Kenneth Kraegel.

First line: Jameson only ever wore green pants.

Why you should read this book: Like many young children Jameson's peculiar insistence on a particular lifestyle choice—in this case, only wearing green pants—is amusing and tolerable to adults, until the day the world can no longer accommodate his eccentricity. When Jameson's cousin decides to marry the most beautiful girl Jameson can imagine, he's thrilled at her request to participate in the wedding, with on hitch: he'll have to wear a black tuxedo. After a crisis of monumental proportions, Jameson finds a way to stay true to himself while conforming to society's standards.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're in the process of shaming a young child out of any personality quirks that might differentiate them from other humans.

Last Look

Written by: Charles Burns

First line: This is the only part I'll remember.

Why you should read this book: The X'ed Out trilogy is collected here in one volume, which is good news for readers, because I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been to read this story in pieces without its conclusion. It's the kind of book where you're trying to piece the story together right up until the last couple pages, when all the threads comes together, and then you have to start again at the beginning so you can read it and understand it at the same time. Our protagonist, Doug, seems trapped in his relationships in the real world even as he bounces over and over again back to a hallucinatory nightmare landscape that mirrors his deepest fears with cunning distortion.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You can pinpoint the exact moment in your life when everything went wrong and you can't stop reliving it. 

Kill My Mother

Written by: Jules Feiffer

First line: And now for your listening pleasure—Miss Ginger Rogers singe her new hit from her new musical, "The Gold Diggers!"

Why you should read this book: Cartooning legend Jules Feiffer showcases his slapdash drawing style and his in-depth knowledge of human nature in this hard-boiled graphic novel, a murder mystery that twists and turns and romps through history until it reaches its beautiful, satisfying, unexpected conclusion. The lives of five determined women intersect in surprising ways, driven by lies, secrets, betrayals, family, and love. A joyous, funny, deep, and intelligent drama that reminds the reader what human beings are really like, on the surface and behind their veils.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You can't stomach too much murder.

The Westing Game: A Puzzle Mystery

Written by: Ellen Raskin

First line: The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east.

Why you should read this book: This is the kind of story that's best enjoyed if you don't really have any idea what's going on and only figure out the details as the characters reveal them: a murder mystery with more twists than a pretzel factory. A reportedly unpleasant industrialist, Sam Westing, dies under unusual circumstances, having previously gathered sixteen potential heirs of all ages and from all walks of life, who are then pitted against each other to find his killer and inherit his two hundred million dollar fortune. Nothing is as it seems, and, according to Westing's will, the information they don't have is more important than the information they do have.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're easily confused and don't enjoy it.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Written by: Anne Frank

First line: On Friday, June 12th, I woke up at six o'clock and no wonder; it was my birthday.

Why you should read this book: The first time I read this book, I was much younger than Anne, probably about seven or eight, as Jewish parents begin their children's education about the Holocaust pretty young, and I was a voracious reader, and I have read it dozens of times over the years. This time, I shared it with my twelve-year-old stepdaughter, and got to see Anne's world fresh through another pair of eyes. This story of a thoughtful adolescent who died believing that people were basically good, despite all the terror and hardship she encountered during World War II, should be required reading for every young person, and quite a few adults.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're a Nazi, in which case you should also get off my page and go think about what you've done and how your xenophobic, self-centered beliefs make the world a more terrible place, and then, when you get your head on straight enough to realize that fascism and white supremacy are objectively not OK, you should come back and read this book.

A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return

Written by: Zeina Abirached

First line: A song I used to love in 1969 asks what war is good for.

Why you should read this book: The war in Lebanon has shrunk little Zeina's childhood home in Beirut until the entire building decides that her apartment's foyer is the only safe place during the nightly bombardments. One night, her parent go out to visit her grandmother and, as the evening wears on, the parents do not return. Meanwhile, all her neighbors arrive to care for the children, socialize, and help create an atmosphere of safety in the face of fear.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't feel safe and you're leaving.