Monique Polak

A young girl’s grandmother gives her a brass charm, and passes along a story of hope and kindness during an unimaginable time.Tali is staying at her Oma’s apartment after a storm demolishes their house. She is upset at losing everything. “People have survived worse,” says her mother ― Oma survived World War II, and never speaks of it. But that night, Oma shares her story of Holocaust survival, the brass monkey charm that she was given in the camp, and a message of kindness and perseverance in the face of disaster.… (more)

Claiming the F Word in turbulent times… This was one of the best Early Review books I’ve received in the last 10 years. I loved it. Before I read this book, I never considered myself a feminist. Women and men become feminists for different reasons. Equality. Stoping Rape. Stoping Sex Slavery. Stoping violence against women. Changing gender norms. And for any of those reasons you can call yourself a feminist. You can be female or male or nonbinary… any religion… any race… any economic background… anybody. I loved the book and bought two extra copies after I received my free one. I think this is nice for teenagers and adults.

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A bit more on the challenging side of things, this MG book explores the very serious and hard side of divorce and its effects on children. While this story is needed, it's not a very fun book to read. It's hard to read and see the reality of the effects of divorce on children in this book at times.
Of course, it's difficult to read about the hard truths about divorce and its effects on everyone in this book, but especially on the kids. This is written from the perspective of the 12 yr old daughter of divorced parents. Justine and her little sister, Bea, have to go back and forth between her Mom and Dad's places as they live with her Mom and their Dad gets them every Wednesday night and 2nd weekend of each month. Justine's mom has very serious anxiety and has to take medication for it. Justine's mom's anxiety also manifests as a need for control and she feels that their father and older half-sister are not good for Justine and Bea so she enlists Justine to get evidence so that she can have sole custody of Justine and Bea. Justine, of course, wants to have her mother's approval, and such so she writes notes about her Dad's unfit parenting behaviors and so forth until something happens and she creates a serious and outright lie for her mother's case, and then she begins to question herself and her mother and their behavior.
Justine has to learn how to deal with the complicated relationships and family dynamics with the divorce. Then ultimately she has to learn how to get up the nerve, to tell the truth after she created the lie no matter what the consequences may be.
This is enlightening, depressing/saddening and heart-wrenching to read and see the serious side of the negative effects of divorce and these types of situations on children. It's necessary and good for kids to see and read this especially if they're going through this type of thing so they can see they're not alone. It's also good for parents to see this and realize how their actions and words etc can affect their children in this type of scenario as well.
Thanks to NetGalley and OwlKids Books/OwlKids for letting me read and review this thought-provoking and heartfelt read. All thoughts and opinions are my own.… (more)

I won this book as a librarything giveaway. It is an excellent young adult book. The characters are very realistic and well developed. Within a few pages, I was convinced that this book was autobiographical until I read about the author. I love Eric Walters books and I would rate this book as being equally good and would recommend the author to young adults. You can easily feel the excitement of the protagonist as she arrives in Montreal and her emotions as she deals with the various elements of her life at camp. It teaches you to push through your fears and try your best. It also deals with handling peer pressure and peer competition.

I highly recommend this book. I will happily pass this along to a young adult reader and hopefully she will read others by this author as well.… (more)