Mary Ann Rodman

The year is 1964, and Alice Ann Moxley's FBI-agent father has been reassigned from Chicago to Jackson, Mississippi, to protect black people who are registering to vote. Alice finds herself thrust into the midst of the racial turmoil that dominates current events, especially when a Negro girl named Valerie Taylor joins her sixth-grade class -- the first of two black students at her new school because of a mandatory integration law. When Alice finds it difficult to penetrate the clique of show more girls at school she calls the Cheerleaders (they call her Yankee Girl), she figures Valerie, being the other outsider, will be easier to make friends with. But Valerie isn't looking for friends. Rather, Valerie silently endures harassment from the Cheerleaders, much worse than what Alice is put through. Soon Alice realizes the only way to befriend the girls is to seem like a co-conspirator in their plans to make Valerie miserable. It takes a horrible tragedy for her to realize the complete ramifications of following the crowd instead of her heart. show less

I really enjoyed this book, I really appreciated the way it addressed Grandma's death and Zach and Grandpa's grief. The plot of the story pleasantly surprised me, I assumed it would just be a book about a child learning to conquer his fear of roller coasters, I was not at all suspecting him to be grieving his grandmother! It was very well developed and I liked that in the end, Zach knew how to help his Grandpa by talking about his Grandma and what he misses about her. I feel that this book show more pushes readers, especially adults, to think about how we process grief and loss in the family. Zach's parents don't want him to bring Grandma up around Grandpa because they think the reminder will make him sad, but Zach knows that Grandpa just needs someone to talk to about her. I liked that the point of view was in first person and told from the little boy's point of view because it helped the story maintain it's innocence and it's genuineness by showing a little boy navigate grief for the first time unaffected by the way society tells him to mourn. The message of this story is to navigate your fears, whether they are heights or grief. show less

At almost-five this is Kid's new favorite book. The narrator is a six-year-old girl who desperately wants to be best friends with a seven-year-old who is rude to her; the narrator tries to impress the older girl but nothing works, and eventually she finds a true friend who likes her for herself. The book ends on a hopeful note that maybe when the kids are more mature they can all be friends, but for the time being Lily, the narrator, is happy with her new best friend rather than trying to show more impress the older Tamika. Kid loves what are for him some fairly complex social situations, and seeing a book full of kids that look like him (all the characters are black, with a few people of other races seen in the background). show less

{My Thoughts} - This book is about a little girl named Haley that is going through the transition from Kindergarten to First Grade. She has a difficult time adjusting and is constantly comparing her Kindergarten teacher to her First Grade teacher. She has a hard time with understanding how so many things can change in just one summer.

I can understand how it can be difficult for a young child to go through the early year transitions in school. School it a very different environment then what show more children are use to at home. They spend all year going through one grade and then the next year it changes and they aren’t ready to accept or deal with that change. Some understand that it needs to change and some just go with the flow where others want to hang back and decide if they like the change or not. Haley is the kind of child that hung back until she decided she was okay with the change.

This is a wonderful book that I think any child going from Kindergarten to First Grade would benefit from being read to or with. It helps children to see that the transition is normal and for some children that might be all they need to survive such a stepping stone in their educational careers. show less