(2) 4-6 In her reimagining of a classic, Smith gives readers a decidedly modern look at the magic, adventure, and mystery of Barrie's Peter Pan, without its derogatory depictions of Indigenous people. The story opens in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where stepsisters Wendy Darling and Lily Roberts are weathering the fallout of their parents' marital crisis and conflicting professional ambitions. Ms. Roberts-Darling is Muscogee Creek and is committed to the economic development of her tribe. She'd offered to officially adopt Wendy, but Wendy balked at the idea in deference to her late mother and is heading to New York for the summer with her English financier father. The rifts between the once-inseparable stepsisters and between their parents are not the only ones. Peter Pan (who shows up at the Roberts-Darling residence on a mission to find a storyteller to bring to Neverland) has been deserted by his shadow, who is sick and tired of the boy's bullying ways. With a generous dose of fairy dust, Wendy and her little brother Michael are whisked off to Neverland, and Lily follows to try to rescue them. In that would-be paradise, there are environmental and humanitarian disasters looming all around, and even the satisfaction of finding a longed-for storyteller is short-lived once Wendy announces that she's about to turn thirteen and so, by Peter's own decree, must be fed to a giant crocodile. This smart and engaging middle-grade novel intertwines bits of Barrie's language, some strong and resourceful Indigenous kids, and themes of the importance of family and the powerful bonds of sisterhood into an original and wholly satisfying bit of magic.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2021

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. In 1921, over the course of sixteen hours, the Black community of Greenwood, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was all but destroyed, with most of its residents left homeless, injured, or dead. In picture-book form, Weatherford and Cooper skillfully present this history to young people. Great care is taken to describe the Greenwood community as it once was: known as "Black Wall Street" and home to Black professionals and working-class folk alike, "where some say Black children got a better education than whites." Small details add to the authenticity of the narrative, such as Miss Mabel's Little Rose Beauty Salon, where "maids who worked for white families got coiffed on their day off and strutted in style." Far from romanticizing history, Weatherford is equally descriptive in explaining how a false accusation of assault brought simmering racial tensions to a violent end, with a white mob "looting and burning homes and businesses that Blacks had saved and sacrificed to build." Many survivors left the area, and those who stayed "did not speak of the terror." Not until 1997 was the little-known incident investigated and discovered to be not a "riot" but a massacre--abetted by both police and city officials. ­Cooper's illustrations ("oil and erasure") are the perfect partner to this history, the sepia-toned images resembling historical photographs. The portraits of Black residents are particularly moving, seeming to break the fourth wall to implore the reader to remember their story. The author's and illustrator's notes provide additional information, including their individual connections to the topic.

Reviewer: Eboni Njoku | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

(2) YA The story alternates between the voices of two seventeen-year-olds--a contemporary biracial girl, Rowan Chase, and Will Tillman, son of an Osage mother and white father in 1921. While remodeling Rowan's home, workers discover a skeleton beneath the floorboards. Rowan plays amateur detective, researching Tulsa history to find clues to the skeleton's identity. An intricately plotted mystery that also addresses America's continuing racial problems.

Reviewer: Sarah Hannah Gomez | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2016