Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

  Title: Towers Falling Author: Jewel Parker Rhodes Publisher: Little, Brown & Co., 2016. 228 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Summary:   When her fifth-grade teacher hints that a series of lessons about home and community will culminate with one big answer about two tall towers once visible outside their classroom window, Deja can't help but feel confused. She sets off on a journey of discovery, with new friends Ben and Sabeen by her side. But just as she gets closer to answering big questions about who she is, what America means, and how communities can grow (and heal), she uncovers new questions, too. Like, why does Pop get so angry when she brings up anything about the towers? My Review:  This deceptively simple book has some elements that are too predictable--any adult will know from the beginning what the trouble is with Deja's Pop, for example--but it does do what the author sets out to do: presents the story of 9-11 in a way that will be accessible ...

  Title: One Crazy Summer Author: Rita Williams-Garcia Publisher: Amistad, 2010. 217 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Summary: In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp. In a humorous and breakout book by Williams-Garcia, the Penderwicks meet the Black Panthers.   My Review:   Before I start my review, I'm going to share the list of awards this book has received:  Newbery Honor (2011), Scott O'Dell Award (2011) , Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award Nominee (2012) , Coretta Scott King Award for Author (2011) , Publishers Weekly's Best Children's Books of the Year for Fiction (2010) ...

  Title: Beyond the Bright Sea Author: Lauren Wolk Publisher: Dutton Children's Books, 2017. 283 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Summary: Twelve-year-old Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny, isolated piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Abandoned and set adrift on a small boat when she was just hours old, Crow's only companions are Osh, the man who rescued and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their fierce and affectionate neighbor across the sandbar. Crow has always been curious about the world around her, but it isn't until the night a mysterious fire appears across the water that the unspoken question of her own history forms in her heart. Soon, an unstoppable chain of events is triggered, leading Crow down a path of discovery and danger. Vivid and heart wrenching, Lauren Wolk's Beyond the Bright Sea is a gorgeously crafted and tensely paced tale that explores questions of identity, belonging, and the true meaning of fam...

  Title: Gangsta Granny Author: David Walliams Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books, 2011. 297 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: Another hilarious and moving novel from David Walliams, number one bestseller and fastest growing children’s author in the country. A story of prejudice and acceptance, funny lists and silly words, this new book has all the hallmarks of David’s previous bestsellers. Our hero Ben is bored beyond belief after he is made to stay at his grandma’s house. She’s the boringest grandma ever: all she wants to do is to play Scrabble, and eat cabbage soup. But there are two things Ben doesn’t know about his grandma. 1) She was once an international jewel thief. 2) All her life, she has been plotting to steal the Crown Jewels, and now she needs Ben’s help…   My Review:  I got this book thanks to our March 2017 Goodreads GMGR group read. It was a bit different this time: we were all supposed to pick books we thought had a particularly ...

Sort of a dual review of Homecoming and Dicey's Song,  the first two books of the Tillerman cycle by Cynthia Voigt. A review of #3, A Solitary Blue, will come separately as these two are the books of the cycle that are really about Dicey.      I couldn't find an image of the cover of Homecoming from the hardback I read. I did find it for Dicey's Song, so I'm including it. I think I like it better. Publisher: Homecoming: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1981. 320 pages. Dicey's Song : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1982. 204 pages. Source: Library Summary: Homecoming follows the four Tillerman children--Dicey, age 13, James (10), Maybeth (9), and Sammy (6) after their mother walks away from them in a shopping mall parking lot. They find their way, mostly walking, to their great-aunt's house in Bridgeport, but nothing there is what they expected. So the Tillermans set out again, in search of the home they need. In Dicey's Song, the siblings are settl...

Title: The Turn of the Tide Author: Roseanne Parry Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers, 304 pages. Source: Library Summary:  (I really didn't like the publisher's summary, which I found misleading), so I'm writing my own this time). Kai has lost nearly everything he cares about in a tsunami. To make it worse, his parents send him from their devastated home in Japan to stay with and aunt and uncle he scarcely knows in Astoria, Oregon, instead of letting him stay to do the honorable thing and help clean up. His cousin Jet isn't too sure she wants him, either, despite her sympathy for him. She has her own problems. Together, the two find their connection through the thing they both love most: sailing. A summer's adventures in their small boat brings them healing and maybe the way to fulfill their dreams. Review: This wasn't a terribly deep or significant book in some ways, but it did offer an interesting take on a number of things (actually, that is my...