"Fish in a Tree" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Flashback, 1970s.  Ally can't read, doesn't have friends, and hates school.  She falls in with other oddballs, Keisha, the only black girl in the class, and Albert, who is obsessed with Star Trek, the original series.  The problem with this problem novel?  It's not set in the 1970s.  The true problem?  This is yet another one of those books where the author is exercising some personal demons by writing a "fictional" novel which is clearly autobiographical (which Ms. Hunt openly admits to in the end-notes).  This is a personal beef, but I really dislike it when real life is disguised as fiction.  In my mind, it creates stories which are flat, or idealized, or simply unrealistic.  "Fish in a Tree" hit the trifecta.  First, it goes through chapter after chapter of Ally, the main character, feeling awful.  At first, you want to have sympathy, but after a while, I really wanted the story to move forward (at 266 pages, it is far longer, IMHO, than it needs to be).  The mean girls are mean, the oddball kids are odd, but there is little fleshing out -- the author may have seen these characters in her mind because she experienced them, but it didn't translate onto the page.  Shay, the ultimate mean girl, has all the dimension of a mustachioed villain from a 1920s silent film.  Or any character from a CW TV show.  The one Asian character, Suki, is as stereotypical as it comes, right down to "honoring Grandfather" and her pigeon English.  The ending is all flower and roses, like any after-school special from 1973 -- everything works out just great and goodness wins.  The biggest distraction for me, however, was the setting.  There are brief references to technology -- information is occasionally Googled and, in the end, Dad is Skyped, but by and large, this didn't feel like a contemporary story.  No one has a cellphone and cyberbullying doesn't make any kind of showing.  There is Albert's obsession -- it's hard to believe a kid with few resources would know of Star Trek, the original series, much less be watching it on television (as a confirmed Trekkie, I can promise you it only came back to cable very, very recently, thanks to the new films, and would be hard to find in a small-town setting) and the whole school structure seems dated.  A kid shows up with bruises every day and Social Services isn't called immediately?  Lastly, every mention of Albert's black t-shirt with white lettering saying "Flint" confused me.  He explains it as a Star Trek reference, and it is eventually used as as a Science gag, but how could you have a character in 2016 wear a shirt like that and not be referencing Flint, Michigan, and the racial struggles epitomized there?

Here is what I wish -- that Ms. Hunt, Mr. Gantos, and all the other authors who have written these pseudo fiction tales would just own up and write a real memoir -- for kids.  Who says that young people can only digest a story if it is fictionalized?  Who says young people can't understand the power of a personal narrative when it comes to life struggles?  The issues Dyslexic kids face is very real, and haven't we learned that being open and honest with people is the best way to tell a story?  This is another one of those books written for adults, who, with our bleeding hearts, will hand it out to every kid we think "needs" it.  Sadly, most of those kids who might benefit from the story won't be able to read this lengthy tome.  Maybe next time, authors like this can write something real.

"The Terrible Two" by Jory John and Mac Barnett, illustrated by Kevin Cornell

What an absolute blast to read this fun, smart, unexpected book!  A real refresher after some long/serious stuff.  It is easy to see why kids are flocking to this title, by popular author Mac Barnett and up-and-comer Jory John (author of "All My Friends are Dead" books).  The tale of a prankster who is out-pranked by a mysterious visionary when he transfers schools, the kids here take on Peanuts-like personas with very adult reflections on the world around them.  It works.  The humor functions on all levels, from laugh-out-loud to more subtle snickering.  The drawings add to the Charlie Brown-esque feeling of our protagonist, Miles Murphy.  The cows were a constant giggle.  A definite winner.  Read, smile, enjoy.

"All American Boys" by Jason Reynolds and Brandan Kiely

McCormick's "Sold" may have been devastating to read, but this one was viscerally painful -- getting inside the head of a young black man beaten by a police officer.  While Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely may have known how topical their award-winning book would be as they were writing it, the impact of the story in yet another summer of police shootings of black men was stunning as a read.  Taking place in a ubiquitous "Springfield, USA" we have the tale of two high school students.  One is Rashad, a black ROTC kid with a stern father.  He goes into a store to buy some chips before heading to a party, collides with a white woman and is beaten by a police officer who believes he was trying to steal from the store and assaulted the woman.  The other is Quinn, a white basketball player whose military father died in service, heading to the same party, when he sees the cop pounding Rashad into the pavement.  Problem -- the cop is the older brother of Quinn's best friend, and has been a mentor to Quinn after his father's death.  Told in alternating chapters, with each section being a day in a single week, the changing perspectives bring the entire national conversation front and center, covering all perspectives.  In the case of Rashad, this works.  His tale is personal, real, and far more complex than I ever imagined.  For instance, it never occured to me that members of black families might have different takes on an incident like this, or that the victims of police brutality might feel, well, like victims -- ashamed and embarrassed.  In the case of Quinn, however, the book stumbles a bit.  Quinn's "voice" is not consistent.  At times, he reads like an uneducated hick, and other times, he comes off as erudite.  The author voice is clearly inserted from time to time to "make a point" which is a huge pet peeve for me.  On the other hand, Quinn's swings may be part of the teenage male mind.  Having no idea what may be in a teenage male mind (or a few adult male minds) I tried to give Mr. Kiely credit that this is a young man trying to make sense of something which is very hard to make sense of.  The one big regret I had with the story was that Rashad creates a piece of art to work through his pain.  While it is well described, words do not do justice to art, and I would have liked to see a finished version of what Mr. Reynolds had in mind.

This story is black and white (no pun intended).  Rashad is a good kid, he is unarmed, he is not guilty of what he is accused of.  Did he resist?  Unclear, but unimportant.  It is made obvious that the police officer continues to beat him long after he is capable of resisting.  Unfortunately, many of the incidents which have captured national attention are less clear-cut, making the ongoing conversation in our society critical.  This book has the ability to start that conversation, if we are brave enough to have it.  Another new thing I have become aware of in the past month?  The "conversation" that black parents must have with their black sons regarding what to do when stopped by police.  What an awful lesson to learn as a child.  In a clear, plaintive, and resonating voice, this novel successfully asks the question -- why can't everyone be "All American Boys" regardless of skin color?

"Winter" by Marissa Meyer

Ahh -- the delightful sense of "something" when you finish a series -- particularly when it takes FOREVER for the final book to come out.  I read a lot of "first book in the series" as part of my job, but this was a series which had me reading the whole thing.  That's a good sign.  As mentioned in previous reviews, Ms. Meyer did an outstanding job of world-building in this SciFi/Action/Romance twist on Fairy Tales.  The "Lunar Chronicles" series is inventive, fresh yet familiar, fun and engaging.  This final book, at 823 pages, seemed overwhelming, but, like J.K. Rowling, she writes in an accessible, friendly way, which can draw you in.  The short chapters and changing perspectives had me careening through the novel much faster than expected. 

I sometimes tell people they don't have to read certain series books in order.  That's not the case here, where the back-stories of our previous heroines (Cinder, Scarlet and Cress) weave very heavily into the stories of the new characters, centered around Winter.  Throw in interplanetary war, a ravaging disease and mutants and you have a story which spins from one couple trying desperately to connect to another.  For those afraid of "mush", no need to fear.  The romance is there, but it is more spare than I expected.  This is about battles, and more battles.  There is lots of blood (real and imagined, but for that, you have to read the book).  Even the ending, which is satisfying, didn't exactly wrap up the way I expected, given the fairy-tale underpinnings of the whole thing.  Nonetheless, it was a terrific conclusion to a series which became far more epic and complex than I ever expected when reading "Cinder", the tale of a cyborg Cinderella.  A great escape from a hot summer day, I curled up all day on a Sunday and plowed through half of it.  Enjoy.