New titles from CYBILS reading

Reading for the first round of the CYBILS award is one of my favorite things to do.  Imagine, binging on your favorite kind of literature and I do mean binging.  We've read and evaluated over 100 middle grade chapter books since October.  Some days, I feel a bit overstuffed (I'm not going to lie, not all of them are wonderful) but there are some that are SO good...  

My latest favorite is called the Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu.  Anne Ursu is a terrific author and I’ve loved some of her other books, like The Real Boy and The Lost Girl . She writes such interesting characters and this one is no exception.  It’s about Marya, who lives with her family in a different time and place.  It feels kind of like a fairy tale time where there are sorcerers that protect the villagers from evil.  Marya feels unvalued and put upon.  Her older brother, Lucas, has been been groomed from the time he was small to a sorcerer.  A sorcerer is a position of honor and power and once he becomes a sorcerer, Maria and her parents will be well taken care of with a fancy house, but Marya will essentially be a servant to her brother.  Marya doesn’t think this sounds like such a sweet deal, although her parents seem to think this would be a big upgrade from their current circumstances.  Marya and her brother have been torturing each other with a series of escalating pranks, with any consequences from their parents falling on Marya, so Marya spends a lot of time at their neighbors.  The neighbor’s wife is a weaver and she has two little boys.  Marya comes to watch and play with the boys, so it’s a break for everyone.  The weaver teaches Marya to read even though her parents believe this is unnecessary.  Then comes the day of Lucas’s evaluation by the sorcerers. A prank goes awry,   Lucas is not chosen as sorcerer and everyone seems to think it’s Marya’s fault.  Then, a letter comes informing the family that Marya is going to go to the Dragomir School for Troubled Girls.  No one has ever heard of such a place and attendance is mandatory and Marya will be picked up the following day.  She doesn’t need to bring any special things with her, but brings a quilt that belonged to her baby brother who died and an apron woven by her neighbor that has some protection spells woven into the pattern.  The weaver explains that some of the patterns are a kind of a code and suggests to her that the stories powerful people tell are often meant to serve themselves or others rather than being facts.  At school, Marya finds girls like herself who are struggling to find their way, some of them from families of great power.  The rules are strict and strictly enforced.  Marya finds herself curious about the school and why it was founded.  As she digs into more research, some of the other girls are curious as well and they all end up in trouble.  This is a terrifically suspenseful story.  Marya was an easy character to identify with and her combination of innocence and determination made me want to read more.  The story moved a long at good pace, but what I really loved was this overlay of a message of responsibility - it’s the responsibility of consumers of media to ask hard questions and not just accept a message at face value.  It’s the responsibility of readers to ask who a story serves rather than just enjoying the story.  In today’s increasingly polarized political landscape, that kind of questioning is exactly what young readers need to do.  Anne Ursu is a genius for placing a message like this in such a highly relatable and entertaining story.  

Here's the gorgeous compelling cover.

And here's Colby Sharp's take on it!

The other one that I can't stop talking about is called The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera.  She has written books like Lupe Wong Won't Dance and a picture book called El Cucuy is Scared Too.  This one is pretty different-it's dystopian fiction with a side of science fiction.  It's about Petra, who is 12.  She lives with her parents and her younger brother.  Her grandmother is a big part of her life.  Her grandmother is a story teller and Petra would like to be a storyteller too, but sometimes the storytelling doesn't go very well.  Her parents are scientists and they would like her to be a scientist.  There is a bit of pressure about choosing at 12 because there is an asteroid heading for earth that will destroy life as we know it.  Several space ships are preparing to leave the earth and Petra's family will be on one of the spaceships.  The journey to the new planet is long (380 years!) so the family will be in suspended animation.  Caretakers will monitor their life functions and be replaced by others along the way and new information can be downloaded into their brains, so Petra plans to learn botany and geology but also literature.  The process of going to sleep doesn't work quite the way it was described and Petra is aware of things going on around her (OMG, this was terrifying to me!) but unable to communicate.  She realizes that her caretaker is downloading some of the world's greatest literature into her brain and later, that he is being taken away from her forcibly.  The message to her brain changes and instead of world literature, there is a single line-an identifying code and a pledge of allegiance to the new order.  So when she's woken up, things are different.  Her parents and brother are not there.  There are people that she saw as they were entering the space ship, but they are very different.  There are people who were born on the space ship and they are also very different.  It turns out that a group has taken over the ship that believe that art and literature are dangerous and cause conflict.  They are willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of conflict.  This story is beautifully written with wonderful references to amazing world literature, with a strong emphasis on Petra's own Mexican American heritage.  Middle grade teachers are going to have a great time talking about the text references and maybe taking a deep dive into some of those.  But the kids are going to love thinking about what would it look like in space?  What would it be like to have to been in suspended animation?  What kinds of things would you want to take with you?  What would you leave behind?  What would you have to leave behind unwillingly?  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.  Petra's courage and persistence are remarkable and I think this story is going to impact a lot of kids.  At least I hope so!  Don't miss this one.  

Check out this gorgeous cover!