(2) YA Smith (The Blossom and the Firefly, rev. 3/20) and Wein (Stateless, rev. 3/23) introduce readers to the Black men and women who fought to desegregate aviation. The book opens in 1919 with fifteen-year-old Cornelius Coffey attempting to take his first plane ride at an air show in Nebraska. The pilot reluctantly takes the young Black man up and tries to discourage him with daredevil antics -- but Coffey loves it and knows he wants to fly. Fast forward: Coffey meets Johnny Robinson, a Black mechanic who also longs to be a pilot. The two move to Chicago and apply to the Curtiss-Wright School of Aviation. They are accepted -- but then not allowed to enroll after the school finds out they are Black. Following much struggle, Coffey and Robinson are admitted in 1929 and complete their course. With two other young Black aspiring pilots, Janet Harmon Bragg and Willa Brown, they open an aviation school for Black students. Along with the experiences of each individual pilot, there is also a thorough discussion of the historical context surrounding them, including the Great Depression and WWII. Photographs of Coffey, Robinson, Harmon Bragg, and Brown appear throughout the text. An authors' note explains the research process, and source notes are provided for this thorough and absorbingly written history of the early days of aviation.

Reviewer: Nicholl Denice Montgomery | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(1) YA Almost buried alive in a bombing by Allied forces in 1945 Chiran, Japan, fifteen-year-old Hana feels as though she is already dead, just going through the motions. Since the bombing, girls her age have been assigned to the Nadeshiko unit; their job is to care for and send the tokkō (special attack pilots, or kamikaze) off to their deaths. In an alternating narrative, seventeen-year-old Taro is prepared to die for Japan, his death bringing more honor and glory for his family than his skill in playing the violin, or his life, ever could. When their paths cross, Taro's violin-playing revives Hana's appreciation for life as well as joyful memories, especially of her koto-playing father, now fighting in the war. When their connection deepens into love, Taro wonders if his feelings will jeopardize his resolve in completing his mission, while Hana's heart breaks knowing Taro's seemingly inevitable fate. Through meticulous research, Smith immerses her readers in a war narrative not often told to American readers, as well as a tension-filled love story. Smith does not shy away from the horrific consequences of war and its victims; the novel encompasses comfort women; Asian countries affected by Japanese imperialism; and ritual suicide. The imagery of the title evokes the Japanese code of bushido and the fleeting beauty of existence. A map, glossary, author's note, and bibliography of both Japanese history in World War II and contemporary Japanese culture are appended.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2020

(3) YA Jude is vacationing three-thousand miles away when she hears that her best friend was found dead in her Pasadena swimming pool; still, she knows it was murder. Jude's investigation into Maggie's death reveals dangerous secrets all around. The setting is a character in itself as Smith vividly describes the relentless heat and constant threat of wildfires in a landscape littered with beautiful people.

Reviewer: Lisa Catherine Findlay

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Sarah Watts. Stefan Drosselmeyer, a clockmaker's apprentice, builds clockwork jaws to crack the special nut needed to restore the princess of Boldavia after an enchanted rat bite. When the rat bites him, Stefan must take part in the ensuing rat/human war as an enchanted nutcracker. Smith's energetic tale takes off in unexpected directions within the framework of its inspiration, The Nutcracker.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam

(2) YA When a category 6 hurricane hits and destroys New Orleans in 2019, what remains is a walled-off necropolis, with its population suffering from a fatal fever. Sixteen-year-old Fen becomes the caregiver for an infant, and her one hope is to transport the child, disease free, from Orleans. The bleak setting becomes a tableau for life's basics: survival and sacrifice, compassion and greed.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2013

(2) YA Ida Mae wants to fly airplanes, an improbable proposition for a black girl in 1940s Louisiana. When war breaks out, Ida Mae counterfeits a pilot's license and passes as white to join the Women's Airforce Service Pilots program. While forthright about the era's racism, the story is at heart good, rousing period fiction with a determined heroine and plucky supporting cast.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2009

(4) YA Ana's junior-high graduation dinner is a fine mess of cultures and prejudices: her grandmothers--one African American, one Taiwanese--compete for best grandma, and the Japanese American father of Ana's crush doesn't want him dating a black girl. The book's short time period is crammed with events and points of view, but Smith's food-centered narrative has plenty of humor and heart.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander

(3) YA At age four, Kendall survived a car wreck that killed her parents and baby brother. After her grandmother dies, Kendall (now seventeen) travels from Chicago to New Orleans in search of her wayward aunt, the only family she has left. Homespun philosophy and humor, along with the support of new friends, balance the immense hardships Kendall faces in this moving narrative.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann

(1) YA Alaskan teenager Lucy's only purpose in life, it seems to her, is to drag her drunken father home from the bar every night. When the stray dog who has befriended her dies, Lucy is numb with grief and runs away; soon she's hauling pots on a crabbing boat twenty hours a day. Mixed with riveting descriptions of life at sea are warming human interactions that help Lucy take responsibility for the way her life goes.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2002