A Nation's Hope, Matt de la Peña, Kadir Nelson

A little while back I blogged about Ball Don't Lie by Matt de la Peña. That book is a YA novel, edgy and quick paced, quite fabulous, but definitely for middle school and up.

Here, we have a completely different kind of book by the same author. This is a picture book, illustrated by Caldecott Honor winner Kadir Nelson. The story is about the 1938 boxing match between the heavyweight champion, an African American, Joe Louis and the German fighter Max Schmeling. Now perhaps that doesn't seem like much, but at the start of World war II, this was a VERY important match, and not just in the boxing world. Max Schmeling was the only man to have knocked Joe Louis down in a match before. Max Schmeling was a sort of poster child for Hitler's perfect race and a symbol of Hitler's regime. the whole country was rooting for Joe Louis, regardless of their skin color. Again, to many of you reading this blog, that probably doesn't seem like much, but in the 1930's, there was a lot of discrimination against people of color.

This is a fascinating story, well told and beautifully illustrated. Highly recommended.

2 YA books - Ball Don't Lie, Sean Griswold's Head

I am really excited that Matt de la Peña is coming to Portland this year for the Multnomah County Library Teen Author lecture in October. I think he's going to be fab. Ball Don't Lie is a GREAT book with lots of suspense and action. If you love basketball, this is definitely a book for you. This book is a little cahllenging at the start, though, becasue the author's style is a little different than most other authors. It's a very stacatto type of writing and it jumps right on into the action. Plus, the main character of this book, Sticky, is a bit of a quirky character. What I have to say is, STICK with it (get it. Stick with Sticky). It's so totally worth it. Stayed up til like 2 AM reading this one!

Sean Griswold is a completely different kind of book. More "normal" I guess you could say. the main character in this book is going through some struggles, so her counselor tells her to pick a focus object and write about it in a journal. She really means an OBJECT, but Payton can't pick one, so one day she just decides, why not Sean's head. See he sits in front of her in pretty much every class, so she sees a lot of his head. Seems as good as any other thing, right? Except this object is actually attached to a person, and that sort of complicates everything.

It's a funny story and also heartbreaking at times with the struggles Payton is going through. It's really well done and I definitely recommend it. Available at the Multnomah County Library.