Fresh Reads, Honest reviews, Educator-approved
Kindra Neely never expected it to happen to her. No one does. Sure, she’d sometimes been close to gun violence, like when the house down the street from her childhood home in Texas was targeted in a drive-by shooting. But now she lived in Oregon, where she spent her time swimming in rivers with friends or attending classes at the bucolic Umpqua Community College.
A true story of two Jewish teenagers racing against time during the Holocaust—one in hiding in Hungary, and the other in Auschwitz, plotting escape. It is 1944. A teenager named Rudolph (Rudi) Vrba has made up his mind. After barely surviving nearly two years in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, he knows he must escape. Even if death is more likely.
Darrin Bell’s The Talk is a powerful and emotional memoir exploring race, identity, and parenthood. Through striking artwork and honest storytelling, Bell shares his journey from childhood to fatherhood, confronting systemic racism and the generational weight of “the talk.”
She loved numbers, defied injustice, and helped launch a man to the moon. A Computer Called Katherine is an inspiring, beautifully illustrated story of brilliance, courage, and breaking barriers.
Tani Adewumi didn’t know what Boko Haram was or why they had threatened his family. All he knew was that when his parents told the family was going to America, Tani thought it was the start of a great adventure rather than an escape.