(2) K-3 Illustrated by Sam Boughton. Not a formally trained artist, Nek Chand built the famed Rock Garden in Chandigarh, India, "rock by rock," using discarded and found materials. Bradbury's text illuminates the artist's intuitive creative process as a means of easing his feelings of dislocation and homesickness after the Partition of India causes him and other Hindus to depart their ancestral villages, now considered part of the new Muslim nation of Pakistan. "That missing moved from his heart into his hands, and his hands knew what to do," writes Bradbury in the scene where Chand first finds the secluded piece of land on which he builds the garden, with its myriad sculptures, structures, and a "maze of tunnels and paths and arches and stairs." The garden serves as both a monument to the home Chand lost and a secret means of bringing joy and beauty to his new home. When others discover the garden (now grown to cover over forty acres), they are astounded, and the community rallies to save it from officials who threaten to tear it down in the name of development. Throughout, Boughton's illustrations burst with color. The art emulates Chand's use of found materials in its incorporation of newsprint and fabrics into digital collage. The illustrations make several overt references to some of Chand's actual figures, structures, and mosaics, with back-matter pages treating readers to photographs of the Rock Garden and of Chand himself. Pair with Rosenstock and Nivola's The Secret Kingdom (rev. 3/18).

Reviewer: Megan Dowd Lambert | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2021

(3) 4-6 In the northern Indian city of Chandigarh, fictional street boy Ram's life intersects with that of a real self-taught artist, Nek Chand, creator of an amazing garden of sculptures fabricated from recycled materials. Ram helps save the garden from destruction in this compelling contemporary story that also successfully weaves in parts of the Ramayana, the great Indian epic. Author's note. Glos.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(3) 4-6 In 1842, twelve-year-old Virginia native Elias is sent to Kentucky to the experimental tuberculosis hospital of Dr. John Croghan. As he regains his health, Elias builds relationships, not with the other (white) patients, but with the black slaves working there. Based on historical events, Elias's story is exciting, and the message of shared humanity is strong without being didactic.

Reviewer: Sian Gaetano

(3) YA On the eve of India's partition (1947), the lives and aspirations of three teens--English girl Margaret, Sikh girl Anupreet, and Muslim boy Tariq--intersect even as the world around them erupts in confusion and conflict. The novel's carefully researched plot displays a balance between historical fact and vividly dramatic fiction, and the subject fills an important niche in historical literature for teens.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(3) YA Clever Agnes Wilkins longs for adventure and romance. But it's 1815 London, and a social debut followed quickly by marriage seems to be her lot in life--until an unexpected discovery gives Agnes more adventure than she'd bargained for. Broadly reminiscent of Lloyd Alexander's Vesper Holly mysteries, the novel throws in some gender-role questioning along with its action and intrigue.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(3) YA Chris's friend Win disappears after their postgraduation cross-country bike trip. Win's powerful father pressures Chris and his family for the truth as Chris pursues his own investigation. The narrative alternates between past and present, drawing readers into this friendship-powered travel mystery that introduces two young men claiming very different roads to independence.

Reviewer: Aimee Chevrette Bear