More of the new SSYRA 3-5 2020-2021

I'm always surprised when the SSYRA list comes out that there are so many great books that I missed reading this year!  People who know me always say I read a lot, but CLEARLY, I'm missing a big chunk of great stuff because there are always surprises on the list!  These two titles were terrific surprises.

The first one is realistic fiction.  It's called Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn.  It's about a girl named Cat who lives with her mom and her little brother.  Her dad died awhile back and her mom struggles to make a living as an author and illustrator.  They are planning to spend some time with some friends who have moved far away over the summer but their friends have an unexpected emergency and so Cat and her little brother end up at the their grandparents' house in NC.  Except that they've never actually met their grandparents because they had a falling out with Cat's mom before the kids were born.  To complicate matters further, Cat's little brother Henry (who is called Chicken) struggles with anger management and social appropriateness (it's never named but from the way he behaves, it would seem that he might be somewhere in the autism spectrum).  Cat is very good at getting Chicken to do what needs to be done, but she's starting to kind of resent the fact that she has to take so much responsibility for him.  She also wonders why exactly her mom and her grandparents stopped speaking to each other and why it's so hard to make friends.  This is a really nice story about families and taking care of each other and forgiving each other when you make a mistake, both asking for forgiveness and offering it.  I thought this was a really great story.  I like Cat's character a lot and I think kids will like it too.

The second one is also realistic fiction, but it's not as realistic as Caterpillar Summer, in fact, there were times it almost felt a little cartoonish.  It's called Bernice Buttman, Model Citizen by Niki Lenz. It's about Bernice, who is the youngest of 6 kids and the only girl.  Her brothers and Bernice live in a mobile home with their mom and her boyfriend.  The kids have limited supervision, few morals and even less good judgement.  Bernice has no friends and bullies the other kids in her school mercilessly.    Bernice decides she needs a friend and picks the least offensive person she can think of, a boy in her class named Oliver.  Oliver doesn't really want to be friends with Bernice, but when she shows up at his church, the people there welcome her and that's when she gets her big idea.  The church is taking up a donation to help less fortunate people so Bernice comes with a plan for an online giving organization.  She makes up a dog that needs surgery and puts it online, asking for money.  What she really wants to do is go to a stunt man camp in California.  But her mom figures it out and takes the money for herself and sends Bernice to live with her aunt, who is a nun.  Bernice thinks this is a terrible idea but she can't see any way out.  When she gets to the small town where the church is, Bernice decides that she can re-invent herself and she tries.  This is a lovely story about people creating their own path and I think the kids will like the balance of funny and serious in this one.