(2) K-3 Photographs by Shelley Rotner. There are many reasons why people seek sanctuary. Some families are uprooted because of war or economic hardship. This book addresses these situations and also alerts readers to the growing number of families who need sanctuary because of environmental or climate changes. The text sets up the premise that many people have "to escape -- fleeing fires, floods, drought, or war -- because it's not safe for them to stay anymore." Stunning photographs of individual children, intergenerational relatives, and friends immediately catch the eye with bright colors, varied moods, and engaged expressions, presenting a truly global and inclusive representation of childhood and family. The photos are punctuated by quotes from the children (set in speech bubbles) about why they left their homes and about their experiences acclimating to their new lives. The book touches on the experience of leaving home amidst an emergency, arduous travel with many temporary stops before finding a safer home, and cultural and language barriers, as well as new friendships, an appreciation for the traditions of home, and the discovery of new interests such as art, athletics, or music. Appended with resources for parents, caregivers, educators, and children, this accessible volume is an affirmation of survival and a resource for helping others

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(2) YA The year is 2005, and high school students Mina, Penney, and Sheryl are looking forward to prom night as an opportunity to dress up, dance, and have fun with their friends. Of course, there are also their dates: Penney's long-term boyfriend, Mina's boyfriend of convenience, and Sheryl's cute classmate. While their experiences that night are vastly different, they wind up at the same Planned Parenthood office having received the same news: they are all pregnant. Their decisions to continue the pregnancies form an unexpected alliance among the three, with Mina, Penney, and Sheryl vowing to look after one another and their families. Eighteen years later, their children are preparing for their prom night, with complex issues of their own. Blossom is trying to figure out how far she should go with her boyfriend. While Amber has consented to attend with her girlfriend, she still takes issue with the gender-biased nature of the prom rules -- and decides to address it on a school-wide level. Cole discovers a family secret while attempting to navigate his own problematic ideas about consent. The book, which alternates among all these characters and between the two time periods, considers issues of women's rights, misogyny, classism, and more from multiple viewpoints. There are no easy resolutions to any of these topics, but Magoon's empathetic, sometimes humorous style will leave readers with a sense of empowerment to form their own views. Appended "reflections and resources" address the state of contemporary reproductive rights in the U.S.

Reviewer: Eboni Njoku | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Anna Forlati. In this thought-provoking book (published in partnership with UNESCO), Santos presents an engaging version of the guessing game "What Am I?" Readers can infer from the book's title that the answer is the thing that makes us human, and the first-person text drops hints as to its identity ("I can show you love. But also hurt you") on every double-page spread, letting readers know that it is both old and new; that it is everywhere; that we can see, hear, and feel it; and that it defines a culture. What is this ubiquitous thing? It is language. This book's call for active engagement aptly celebrates the many ways of looking at a concept. Forlati's digital illustrations represent both literal and figurative interpretations of the text and beg to be re-examined by the reader. For example, the speaker -- language -- states: "When you were a baby, you hardly knew me. Over time you have gotten to know me better and better. But when you are old, you may start to forget me." The accompanying illustration depicts five stages of a child's growth -- during which time the child is knitting a sweater that grows larger, revealing a distinct pattern, one that fades as the sweater unravels and the child ages. Back matter discussing the growth, and loss, of languages and a note from UNESCO explaining the goals of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032) complete this fine book.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) YA West Virginia, the Mountain State, is also historically known for both coal mining and Appalachian poverty. Watkins explores the nexus between them in this overlooked chapter in the history of the labor movement. By the early twentieth century, West Virginia had emerged as a cheap source of coal, in large part because capitalism allowed wealthy mine owners to exploit workers. Coal mining was dangerous, the hours were long, the conditions deplorable, and the pay minimal -- often paid in scrip, currency accepted only at the company store. The tension between mine owners and labor unions came to a head in 1920 during the Matewan Massacre and in 1921 during the Battle of Blair Mountain. Watkins introduces the major players and aptly delineates the causes and effects of these bloody and violent events. He reflects on how this history has been erased from books on West Virginia, a history that could have served as a source of pride in resistance. He concludes with a discussion of the current state of coal mining, still a mainstay of the area's economy despite mounting national pressure to move away from fossil fuels. Numerous black-and-white photographs ably support the text, while sources, notes, and an index are appended.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) K-3 Gaiman, who serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency, used social media to ask people about their memories of being warm, to draw attention to--and raise money for--those unhoused or displaced due to violent conflict. He wove respondents' words into the free-verse poem that is this compelling picture book's text. The twelve loose stanzas are vivid and specific with relatable details. Each is interpreted by a different artist (with fascinating explanatory notes from the illustrators appended), including Yuliya Gwilym, Petr Horaek, Oliver Jeffers, and Nadine Kaadan. What makes us warm? Physical things like blankets, radiators, fireplaces, coats and gloves, and hot cocoa, as well as more abstract concepts such as a smile, memories, safety, or a kind word. The double-page spreads create entire scenes that expand both the context and the meaning of the lines--all in only three colors: shades of black, white, and orange. It's an unusual palette; the orange is especially effective in conveying heat and warmth, and the grayscale provides a unifying thread across the various artistic styles. Midway, the illustrations feature several scenes of refugees and migrants, but the hopeful conclusion depicts children at play and at home with the words, "You have the right to be here." One other intriguing element is the graphic look of the text, with spacing that varies and key words in a larger font size--creating another telegraphic poem-within-a-poem.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Cátia Chien. In this powerful picture book, readers learn about artist/activist/filmmaker Ai Weiwei, the worldwide refugee crisis, and the effects art can have in shining a light on humanitarian issues. Readers meet Ai Weiwei in contemporary times as he helps a large group of newly arrived refugees in boats landing on a Greek beach. Flashing back, the text relates that his own tumultuous childhood in a 1960s Chinese labor camp was when he started making art using ordinary objects. The book's main focus is on his notable protest artwork, visually referenced on the pages; the story concludes by returning to the plight of current-day "wave riders." Ho's vivid, expressive prose and Chien's bright orange and blue impressionistic pencil and pastel drawings--incorporating waves, life jackets, and documentary photographs--inspire empathy for the refugees, many of whom are young children or families. More straightforward biographical details appear in the back matter; and Ho writes that Ai Weiwei's "art and activism call on us, the citizens of the world, to lift each other up." This book is a good companion read for Ho's Playing at the Border (rev. 9/21) and Gravel's What Is a Refugee?

Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kate Gardiner. Taking its title from Eleanor Roosevelt's 1958 remarks delivered at the United Nations about the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights she had helped champion ("Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home"), this book informs young children of their own rights and responsibilities as humans. Hopkinson's text (also inspired by that Declaration) uses active first-person language: "I am free to choose what I think and believe. And it's up to me to listen and respect how others think and believe too." Each assertion is direct and powerful, with sections starting with "Me" and then expanding to "My School and Community" and on to "My Country and World." Gardiner's gouache and pencil illustrations, assembled digitally, have a soft color palette with pops of yellow and tomato red and demonstrate human rights playing out across a variety of communities. Front and back matter pay tribute to Roosevelt's work, including resources for learning more about her and the United Nations. This elegantly and accessibly presented book empowers the youngest humans and their accompanying grownups to recognize their rights and safeguard them by extending them equally to others.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(2) YA Growing up in the slums around Mumbai, India, seventh grader Minni has been raised to follow the rules and stay out of trouble, but she can't keep quiet when she spots injustice. She dreams of going to college but keeps bumping up against the realities of poverty that make that nearly impossible. The narrative focus is on Mumbai's unstable, often non-potable water supply and the lack of indoor plumbing in Minni's neighborhood. When her brother spies the “water mafia” siphoning water illegally, he is sent away for his safety, while their mother goes to the country to recover from a serious illness. This leaves Minni to obtain water and boil it, take on her mother's job as a maid, and struggle to attend school full time. Her own sleuthing leads to a shocking conclusion about corruption and Mumbai's water resources. Bajaj's suspenseful novel peels back the curtain on modern-day class and caste inequities and how they create a cycle of poverty that spirals through generations. Minni's thirst for what's right steers the novel toward an optimistic conclusion in which one person can bring about big changes.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Marta Altés. George, the new kid in Daniel's class, is "weird." Lacking in affect, stiff, and overly literal, he arrives with an aide who takes notes on his every action. When George's ear falls off, revealing a USB port, Daniel and his friends realize, as the reader has probably already guessed (with help from the jaunty cartoonlike illustrations), that he is a robot. By this time, however, the other kids have become fond of him, and when members of the evil corporation that "owns" George come to retrieve him (after what has been a kind of beta test), his classmates rally to save him. At this point the story morphs from a lighthearted romp to something dreamier, in which George spends a single idyllic day in Almond's (Skellig, rev. 5/99; The Color of the Sun, rev. 11/19) favorite territory, a wild place at the edge of a town. He gets grubby, roughhouses with the other kids, learns to tell a joke, and becomes alert to the natural world. The other children face big questions. For example, Daniel contemplates the mind-body problem: "Do you have to be a thing that can pee if you're going to be a thing that can think?" Inevitably, the denouement is bittersweet, leaving us with a simple and sturdy answer to one of the most relevant questions of our time. What defines us as humans? This story's answer is friendship.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(2) K-3 Translated by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite. Illustrated by Magdalena Mora. This book's bilingual text tells the story of a young child and his parents as they leave the United States for Mexico during the repatriation process in the 1930s--an overlooked part of U.S. history. The child's family--mother and son were born in the United States; Papá was born in Mexico--harvests pecans in Texas until new immigration policies and the threat of deportation force them to move to Mexico to keep their family together. Martínez's straightforward prose centers the boy's feelings of sadness, uncertainty, and hope as he leaves his home behind for a place he and Mamá only know about from Papá's stories. The cool colors of Mora's dreamlike gouache, ink, and digital illustrations offer reassurance as the family drives toward their future. An appended author's note details a difficult history of forced migration shared by many, while the story emphasizes the importance of family and ultimately feels optimistic. Butterflies--a contemporary symbol of the immigrants' rights movement--are included on most pages. This motif and the author's note contextualize the historically set narrative within the continued struggle for immigrants' rights.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

(2) 4-6 White South African writer and apartheid fighter ­Naidoo (Journey to Jo'burg, 1985) sets her novel in the fictional Stone City, where the population is divided into "Permitteds" and "Nons." It's a dangerous place for Nons: Permitteds can confiscate their homes, and it is easy for Nons to land in jail. Adam, almost thirteen, and his younger sister, Leila, are the musically talented children of Nons. After their father suddenly dies with their mother's required annual paperwork not yet approved (without it she will be deported), Adam decides to take advantage of an upcoming concert to draw attention to their situation. But his energetic and mischievous neighbor Zak tangles with some Permitteds, landing both boys in detention--a terrifying experience that puts them and their families at risk. A precious violin and diaries in which Adam writes poetry and Leila writes letters play important roles in the outcome. Well-developed characters, weighty themes, and a quick pace, along with evocative use of metaphor (e.g., Adam's mother's "arms hung down at her sides. For a moment he thought of broken wings"), distinguish this substantial novel.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

(1) 4-6 Illustrated by Jason Griffin. Reynolds's introspective narrative poem, with a young man at home during quarantine as its speaker, shares the stage with Griffin's emotive collagelike illustrations done in Moleskine notebooks and reproduced on the pages to make it look like a real teen's journal. The first-person text is presented in three parts, or "breaths." In "Breath One," the narrator says he's "sitting here wondering why / my mother won't change the channel // And why won't the news change the story / And why the story won't change into something new." Along with concerns about the world outside, he thinks about his father coughing behind closed doors, his sister talking about protests, and his brother lost in video games. When the wonderings get to be too much, the narrator reminds himself to breathe "in through the nose // out through the mouth." By the end of "Breath Three," the narrator realizes that his "oxygen mask" for living through this uncertain time is the people he loves and the moments they share. The poem and images create an authentic-sounding adolescent narrator trying to grapple with the confusion and fear of the double pandemic (COVID-19 and systemic racism) he is facing. The book ends with a conversation between the two Jasons about their collaborative process for creating this work during the pandemic.

Reviewer: Nicholl Denice Montgomery | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2022

(2) YA The remarkable life of Black activist, attorney, and Episcopal priest Pauli Murray (1910–1985) is presented in an engaging, extensively documented nonfiction account in verse. Drawing heavily on Murray's autobiography, poems, and other writings, the book spans her entire life and identifies her influences as she became determined, from a young age in Jim Crow North Carolina, to learn and help others appreciate the true history of her people. She endured great hardships in order to graduate from Hunter College, but her efforts to get ahead were thwarted by the Great Depression. She began a lifelong passion for writing to newspapers and public figures about social issues, which she called "confrontation by typewriter," and was very successful at making those messages heard by people in power, including President Roosevelt. Later, at Howard University Law School, Murray was a strong proponent of overturning Plessy v. Ferguson because "separate could never be equal." In the later chapters, the authors acknowledge the limitations of language employed at the time, speculating that today "transgender / is possibly / what Pauli would call herself... Pauli's pronouns may have been / they/them/their." This is a compelling biography of an "unsung force"--an inspiring and transformative figure who broke barriers pivotal to both the civil rights and women's movements. Appended with photographs, authors' notes, a timeline, source notes, and a bibliography.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2022

(2) YA Multiple legal, social, religious, and medical strands comprise the history of reproductive rights in America. Blumenthal, in her trademark straightforward journalistic style (Tommy: The Gun That Changed America, rev. 7/15; Bonnie and Clyde, rev. 1/19), creates a narrative that not only presents a comprehensible overview of the facts but also establishes the historical culture in which those facts existed. Blumenthal incorporates well-chosen case studies and numerous sidebars (each unfortunately titled a "Pregnant Pause")--such as charts reporting the historic trend of deaths related to abortion or the changing positions of major religious groups. These reveal the misogyny (until the midpoint of the twentieth century, unmarried women could not legally buy contraceptives); racism (women of color were often sterilized without their knowledge); and classism (overwhelmingly white, financially stable women were, and are, able to get abortions) that influenced the issue of unwanted pregnancies for a century and a half. In addition, she outlines the unexpected consequences, including social pressures, mass media coverage, and death, that some women faced when trying to obtain abortions before the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, as well as the limits that have been imposed on the law since the 1973 decision. Blumenthal's impeccable research is revealed in the extensive back matter (including documentation, a subject bibliography, a timeline, and a glossary) that completes this compelling book.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2020

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Steven Salerno. Bold colors and a rainbow motif decorate this picture book introduction to Harvey Milk, his cause, and the symbol he helped create (with designer Gilbert Baker) for gay equality. The book's first half focuses on Milk's biography; the second tells of gay rights achieved after his assassination and the evolution of the pride flag. Back matter includes notes and photos of pride demonstrators. Reading list, timeline, websites.

Reviewer: Christina Dorr

(3) K-3 In association with Amnesty International. Life, protection, safety--Riddell pairs each of sixteen "different freedoms" with an explanatory sentence (regarding protection: "Nobody has the right to hurt or torture us") and a sketchlike illustration (a winged white horse hugs a child). Inspired by the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this timely little book offers clear-cut definitions for kids who are ready for abstract concepts.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Translated by Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Illustrated by Yara Kono. In association with Amnesty International. A family searching for political and educational freedom instead finds itself in a society limited by conformity; but the mother takes boring, solid-color sweaters--offered only in green, orange, and gray--and makes fantastically patterned sweaters, inspiring others. Based on a family from dictator-led Portugal exiled in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, the allegorical picture book features graphically strong three-color illustrations.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(3) K-3 A peaceful protestor is jailed. When the guard burns the letters the man receives by bird, the traveling smoke becomes an international call to action. All this is relayed without words in poignant, sketchlike line and wash illustrations that appear to have been executed with fervor; an appended note cites inspiration from Amnesty International's letter-writing campaign for the wrongly imprisoned.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) 4-6 Beyond the Headlines! series. This volume touches on slavery, gender inequality, child soldiers, marriage, labor, discrimination against the disabled, refugees, and education access. Heavily illustrated with color photos and charts, the book does an adequate job of quickly introducing many issues and some of the relevant United Nations agencies. A starting place to explore the many world problems related to human rights. Reading list, timeline. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Daniel Minter. William "Doc" Key was a self-taught veterinarian who was born into slavery and became a free man after the Civil War. With Doc's gentle, noncoercive training, his colt, Jim, learned to read, spell, write, and do sums, and thus became the star of Doc's traveling shows. Bowman's narration is steady and natural. Minter's woodcut-style illustrations are enticing and warm. Bib.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2017