Author: Allan Wolf
Published: 2020 In 1846, the Donner and Reed families, along with several others, decided to make their way from Illinois to California in order to get land, a journey of about 2000 miles. Partway through their journey, this group had a decision to make--take the well-known Oregon Trail or take a shortcut that would supposedly save them a lot of time. The Reeds and the Donners along with some others decided to use the shortcut they had heard about. The group was led by George Donner and so they called themselves the Donner party. Unfortunately, the shortcut was not actually a shortcut and led them through land that caused them to lose their wagons, their oxen, and was very hard on the travelers. By the time they finished with the supposed shortcut, it was in late September. When winter came early, the Donner party got snowed in in the Sierra Nevada mountains. This is a fictionalized account of the horrifying true event of what happened on the Donner party's journey west. When they were snowed in, they didn't have enough food and faced starvation. They did what they had to in order to survive, though not everyone did survive. Told from the different perspectives of people on the journey along with the voice of Hunger, this book is haunting and dark and real. I had a very hard time putting it down, and I also had a hard time thinking about the horrors this group experienced.
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Author: Kacen Callender
Published: 2020 King's older brother Khalid unexpectedly died about a year ago, and ever since the funeral, King is convinced that Khalid has come back to Earth as a dragonfly. When Khalid was alive, he would talk in his sleep and King would write down what he said. He would talk about how he had dragonfly wings and he would talk about the stars and the sky, like he knows secrets about the universe that others don't see. At the funeral, a dragonfly landed on Khalid's casket and King just knows that it was Khalid. Every day after school, King goes to visit the same space in the bayou where all the dragonflies gather so he can be close to his brother. King has been struggling ever since Khalid died. The grief is so strong, and he has a hard time handling it. He especially is struggling because of something Khalid said when he was still alive. One of King's best friends Sandy told King that he might be gay. Khalid overheard and told King that he shouldn't spend time with Sandy anymore because otherwise other people might think that King is gay too. This is confusing to King. He tells Sandy he cannot be his friend anymore because he wants to do what Khalid would have wanted, but is that actually the right thing? What an absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking yet hopeful story. As soon as I finished it I just had to sit with it and really think. King and the Dragonflies is a fantastic story about grief, family, identity, and toxic masculinity. |
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