Author: Candace Buford
Published: 2021 The towns of Monroe and Westmond are right next to each other but they couldn't be more different. Monroe is mostly Black and poor; Westmond is more white and wealthy. Rus and his best friend Marion have dreams of getting a scholarship to play football, and they have a good chance too. A police officer was transferred to Westmond after killing an innocent Black boy. Rus and all the other Black teens are terrified that he is so close to them and that the same thing could easily happen to one of them. During a football game with Westmond, two white boys on the opposing team call Marion the n word and then start a fight with them. The white boys face no consequences, but who do the police arrest? Marion. He is facing charges and is suspended from the team in the meantime. His chance at getting a football scholarship is ruined. Because of all the injustices going on, Rus makes the decision to kneel during the National Anthem at a football game. He faces tons of backlash--the anger of some of his teammates, his coach, his dad. He is worried that he just ruined his future as well. But doing the right thing is not always easy. Kneel is a fantastic story about the Black Lives Matter movement that is extremely important in our society today.
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Author: Anne Blankman
Published: 2020 The Blackbird Girls is told from three different points-of-view. Valentina and Oksana are living in Ukraine in 1986. Rifka is also in Ukraine in 1941. Valentina and Oksana are not friends. In fact, Oksana is a bully who makes fun of Valentina because she is Jewish. Both of their fathers work at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It is 1986 and Valentina wakes up and notices that all the birds are gone and there's a weird blue smoke coming from the power plant. They soon find out that there was an accident at Chernobyl and the men who were working there are in critical condition or worse. Soon everyone is ordered to evacuate because of the dangerous radiation effects from the disaster. Valentina and Oksana find themselves traveling together. Rifka lives with her mom and her two younger brothers with another younger sibling on the way. Her family is Jewish, and when there are rumors that Germans are coming, Rifka's mom tells her that Rifka must escape on her own for a chance at surviving. Rifka has to leave behind her family knowing that they are in serious danger. These two stories told forty years apart connect. The Blackbird Girls is a fantastic historical fiction novel that fans of Jennifer Nielsen will devour! |
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