Bookcase Bizarro: MG/YA Book Reviews, September 2024

MG/YA Book Reviews by a MG/YA Writer

Welcome to the September edition of Bookcase Bizarro!

In author news this month, it looks like the website re-vamp is mostly complete. I’m sure to go on tweaking as I learn more, but I’m a big fan of Jane Friedman’s mantra: ‘A little at a time.’ The important thing is, I have a functional home again on the web. (I won’t totally relax until this newsletter goes out, though.)

Why did I subject myself to this torture, you may ask?

Because I plan to launch a WooCommerce store to sell my books direct in the not-so-distant future. My old theme (though I loved it) was not optimized for WooCommerce, so I had to choose a new one if I wanted to start selling direct. About that: I don’t think it’s worthwhile to invest time and money into a WooCommerce store until I’ve written a few more books. The sales tax monitoring software alone takes a bite out of each sale, and that’s before factoring in jurisdictional registration fees. THEN you have to pay someone to remit your taxes for you. Since so many writers are getting into direct sales, I expect that more products will come into the market to simplify sales tax collection. Right now, it’s a hot, complicated, expensive mess. (How do you like them adjectives?)

Although Shopify is very popular with writers, I will not be using it. I’d have to pay a monthly subscription fee no matter how many sales I clock in, and additional plugin fees if I want my store to be functional. I also don’t see the wisdom in pairing with a corporation to ‘independently’ sell books. (Just ask any musician how well their ‘partnership’ with Shopify is going.) To my mind, Shopify is just another third-party retailer, since they own the virtual real estate and framework for sellers’ stores, which means they can change the rules—and the rents—at any time. I’d rather stay as independently independent as I possibly can.

In June, I promised I’d talk more about book review services. I tried using BookSirens to gather reviews for my book, Shadow Apprentice, but found it wasn’t the right fit for a MG book since the vast majority of BookSirens readers are into romance. Still, I got one stellar review from a reader who read the book and wrote a thoughtful analysis. (I would have said as much if the review had been less complimentary and just as well written. A constructive critique is always appreciated!) If I ever write a YA romance, I may very well use them again. Their prices are very reasonable and you can vet readers BEFORE you ship out ARCS to make sure you’re targeting people who read in your genre. For MG books, my feeling is that I’d need to build an ARC team myself, and I’m not sure that’s the best use of my time with only one book to my name. Again, I need to write more books first. (YAY! I get to write, I get to write!)

Last month, I went all Madeleine L’Engle on you. This month, I’m going all YA and—gasp!—Adult. (I’m not sorry, and hopefully you won’t be, either.)

So toss those textbooks aside and join me as we plunge into a cool fic pic.

A quick note to new readers: books that are available from the Toronto Public Library will be marked #TPL, because books don’t have to be new or owned in order to be loved.

YA Novel

Naomi Henry’s life is changing. She and her best friend, Kylie Brooks, go out for varsity cheer each year, but Naomi has always secretly been drawn to the majorette dance squad. This year, her lack of enthusiasm threatens her position, and she may get cut from the team. Then she decides to let her hair go natural. Her friends’ and classmates’ reactions are mixed, including Kylie’s, which hurts. Although Kylie is white, she’s practically like a sister to Naomi, whose mother took care of both Kylie and her twin brother, whom Naomi has a crush on.

When a video of Kylie calling the cops on two young Black men who nearly hit her car goes viral, Naomi is torn. She wants to support her best friend, but knows that Kylie’s reaction was racist. The two young men had never posed a threat, but had only stopped to make sure Kylie was okay. Black students question how Naomi could stay friends with Kylie (re-named Parking Lot Becky) while her friends wonder why she’s making such a big deal out of the video. Either they can’t understand why she’s upset, or they are trying to keep a low profile to go along with the group. The whitewashed image that Naomi has of Kylie, and her own blindness to the racism within Kylie’s family, is about to undergo a radical transformation.

Tensions around the video escalate and spread through the town, making it clear that the Black/white divide is still very much alive. When Naomi begins to engage in political protests, she is pressured by her new activist friends to participate in acts that are borderline illegal. Then a bomb explodes and a kid Naomi knows from school winds up dead. Suddenly, her actions have implications that could seriously threaten her future. With so much on the line, how far is Naomi willing to go to discover who she truly is?

I was so caught up with this story that I was forced to take a HARDBACK with me on vacation just so I could finish it. I have a soft spot for well-written and complex contemporary YA and this one hit the mark.

First of all, Harris eschews simplistic characterizations of Black and white interactions while exploring the legacy of racism and how it plays out in the intermingled lives of her characters. Nowhere is this more heartbreakingly examined than in Naomi, the main protagonist, whose own internalized racism has led to an erasure of her own identity as a Black woman with a right to a self-determined life. Instead, Naomi’s entire life revolves around Kylie: being her best friend, supporting her, doing all the things Kylie wants when Naomi would rather do something else (like the dance squad instead of cheerleading). When she decides to let her hair go natural, she is completely unprepared for Kylie’s lack of support, which marks the first real break between them (though readers will recognize Kylie’s bullying, queen bee behaviour a lot earlier).

Deep inside, Naomi feels unseen. Her high school’s dance team, the Windsor Woods Wolverines, completely mesmerizes her. She has watched hundreds—maybe thousands—of hours of majorette and dance team videos. Alone in her bedroom, she practiced their routines herself. The sight of so many Black and Brown bodies expressing power and joy instead of victimization and pain sears itself into her psyche. The self-assurance of their leader, Faith Hayslett, makes Naomi yearn for a sisterhood of a different kind, one where she could get advice about hair products and share laughs about her favourite TV shows, A Different World. (She only watches Sex and the City with Kylie.) A sisterhood that would make her feel as powerful as the Wolverines. Again, Kylie is dismissive. Why does the school need a dance team when it already has a (mostly white) cheerleading squad?

When Kylie’s car is almost hit, and the men in the other vehicle stop to make sure she is alright, Kylie accuses them of trying to kill her, then trying to rob her. When she calls her father, Mr. Brooks tells her to call the cops. Someone records the entire interaction, and it goes viral. Lines are drawn, and Naomi’s suddenly not sure which side she’s on. Or if she can even choose sides. Kylie’s her best friend. Naomi feels compelled to support her. Yet, she is forced to face the fact that her friend panicked when she saw two Black men coming toward her and assumed the worst of them, even though they’d done absolutely nothing wrong. Mr. Brooks, the man who’d always seemed like a second father to Naomi, told Kylie to call the cops—a potential death sentence for the men. (This book is set in a post-George Floyd world, so white people like Mr. Brooks can’t feign ignorance.)

The Black students’ hostility towards Naomi after she supports Kylie, especially those on the dance squad she so desperately wants to join, forces her to question her relationship with the Brookses, especially as more evidence of their racism comes to light. Yet, Harris also interrogates the demands of Naomi’s new Black friends, who assume that all the white students are just as bad as Kylie and see Naomi’s continued relationship with them as a betrayal. When she becomes politically active, Naomi puts on blinders of a different kind, ones that don’t allow her to see how some organizers she’s become involved with are untrustworthy and may be using her for their own ends. And when Mr. Brooks does something unspeakable to her mother, and a planted bomb explodes, Naomi is forced to revisit the very meaning of friendship and family. It’s to Harris’ credit that she pushes the book to an unexpected yet totally satisfying conclusion.

Harris excels at deeply layered portrayals of human interaction and never settles for pointing the finger at any one person or party. Readers looking for examples of how internalized and systemic racism play out in people’s lives need to look no further. This Town is on Fire would also be a fantastic choice for teachers who are looking for a way to show students how systemic racism directly affects them, and how it’s a legacy that Black, Brown and white people all must reckon with.

Highly recommended. (#TPL)

Adult Book Recommendation

I’ve got two more treats for you this month.

Treat #1:

My friend, author Gillian Turnbull, recommended this astounding adult book to me, and I’m glad she did. I borrowed the audiobook version from my library and I’m at a total loss at how to describe it, except to say that it is a deeply resonant, astoundingly adventurous examination of a female fugitive at the turn of the twentieth century. Adamson is a wordsmith extraordinaire, and her evocations of landscape read like a physical experience. Yet the book has a real plot—something that’s often challenging for wordsmiths of Adamson’s calibre. Sabryn Rock’s narration is spot-on, infusing dead serious moments with equal measures of pathos and absurdity. Adamson is a fellow Canuck and won a slew of awards for this book.

This is absolutely NOT a book for kids, but is suitable for readers 16+. Sublime. (#TPL)

Treat #2:

For writers who are tired of all the hyped writing career advice, check out Turnbull’s ‘First You Have to Make the Thing’ on her Substack, Martie Talks, for what it really means to be an author these days. The scenario she describes is not only rarely talked about, it’s very much the experience of the vast majority of creators. A brave and necessary article.

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Thanks for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader! I’ll be back next month with more author news, and more MG and YA book reviews. See you then!

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13-year-old Ermin is a gifted mechanic and the worst student at St. Anselm’s Training School for Orphans. She’s just failed her exams for the third time—something nobody’s ever done. Worse, Ermin’s been running her own repair business for money, something that’s expressly forbidden. If the headmistress finds out, Ermin will go to prison. Her future will be over before it’s even begun.

But that’s not her only secret.

Her best friends, Colin and Georgie, are wizards in a world where magic is strictly controlled. Ermin worries that her friends will be captured, drained of their power, then banished. When Georgie’s caught aiding the Wizard’s Resistance, Ermin repairs a broken flying carpet so all three of them can escape.

Hesitant to join the Resistance because of her lack of magical power, Ermin steals an experimental device from a wizard hunter that could destroy every wizard in the Creek. She’s faced with a choice: either smash the device or convert it into a different kind of weapon—one that not only helps wizards but just might get her an apprenticeship at the prestigious Guild Academy.

Ermin’s got one chance to get it right. If she fails, she risks losing her two best friends… and her dreams.

Find Shadow Apprentice at your local library through Hoopla or buy from online retailers:

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