Sofia’s YA Book Nook: Five Survive by Holly Jackson

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Sofia is a 13-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. Since she was 8 years old, on select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with other young people her age! She is one of the most well-read youth that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!


Dear readers,

Hello and let me introduce you to Five Survive by Holly Jackson! I love this thriller that takes place in the middle of nowhere and think it would actually make for a nice rainy day or snowy day read. I read Five Survive with my mom in our book club and we both loved it! The fact that every chapter ends in a cliff hanger made us want to keep going! Since this book is so suspenseful, I also think it would be a good pick to get a reluctant reader hooked on books!

Goodreads Summary

Eight hours. Six friends. One sniper… Eighteen year old Red and her friends are on a road trip in an RV, heading to the beach for Spring Break. It’s a long drive but spirits are high. Until the RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere. There’s no mobile phone reception and nobody around to help. And as the wheels are shot out, one by one, the friends realise that this is no accident. There’s a sniper out there in the dark watching them and he knows exactly who they are. One of the group has a secret that the sniper is willing to kill for. A game of cat-and-mouse plays out as the group desperately tries to get help and to work out which member of the group is the target. Buried secrets are forced to light in the cramped, claustrophobic setting of the RV, and tensions within the group will reach deadly levels. Not everyone will survive the night.

My Thoughts

This is a truly amazing thriller! I feel like this would be more of a winter book than a summer book, so if you are looking for a book with “summer vibes”, this might not be it for you! Otherwise, this book is truly fantastic! I love Holly Jackson’s work, especially the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series. I feel like it keeps you on the edge of your seat and fully immerses you into the book. For example, I was definitely holding my breath in multiple of the life threatening situations in Five Survive! My mom said that she liked “learning more about the characters, their relationships, and backstories.” We also always wondered who the sniper could be after. Questions like this led us to have really in-depth conversations, sharing our different perspectives and theories. We didn’t see the ending coming!

Five Survive is recommended for ages 14-17 and I mostly agree. I think that most adults would enjoy this (my mom did!) so almost any age can read it. As for the minimum age, I think it is fine to read for anyone who can handle murder, drugs, and guns/shooting. It is quite thrilling and a little scary.

**Thanks so much, Sofia!**

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 10/14/24

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
For readers of all ages

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop we host which focuses on sharing what we’re reading. This Kid Lit version of IMWAYR focuses primarily on books marketed for kids and teens, but books for readers of all ages are shared. We love this community and how it offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other.

The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. The Kid Lit IMWAYR was co-created by Kellee & Jen at Teach Mentor Texts.

We encourage you to write your own post sharing what you’re reading, link up below, leave a comment, and support other IMWAYR bloggers by visiting and commenting on at least three of the other linked blogs.

Happy reading!

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Tuesday: I, Too, Am Here by Morgan Christie, Illustrated by Marley Berot

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Young-Adult Fiction as a Means to Teach the Unteachable” by Ian X. Cho, Author of Aisle Nine

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

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Kellee

 This is my week off! You can always learn more about any of the books I’ve been reading by checking out my read bookshelf on Goodreads.

Ricki

I was at the National Indian Education Association’s annual conference (it was wonderful!). I am trying to catch up with emails and work, so I will share what I read next time!

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Thursday: Sofia’s YA Book Nook: Five Survive by Holly Jackson

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Encouraging Kids’ Curiosity” by Sarah Albee, Author of Bounce! A Scientific History of Rubber

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Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!

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Author Guest Post: “The YA Classroom: Using Young Adult Fiction as a Means to Teach the Unteachable” by Ian X. Cho, Author of Aisle Nine

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THE YA CLASSROOM: Young-adult fiction as a means to teach unteachable ideas”

While school is a vital place for teens to learn invaluable knowledge, lessons, and skills, there are some things in life that cannot be taught in a curriculum. But this is where YA books can serve as a fantastical additional classroom.

The illuminating power of the YA genre comes from its dynamism. Filled with interiority, emotional richness, and often written in first-person, YA books allow young readers to dive headfirst into the lives of fictional kids. Many YA stories create a heightened reality by stripping away rules and gatekeepers, which forces characters to take bolder strides toward their problems.

Often, these problems can be hard to voice in real life, but YA fiction is a creative space to illuminate complex things. Below are four random ‘unteachable’ things you might find in YA books…

MEANING IS A CHOICE: Sometimes life hits the skids. But while there’s no study plan to help kids understand misfortune, YA books can be a way to explore not only tragedy, but also, what can come of it. In Adam Silvera’s They Both Die At The End, a senselessly unfair event drives the characters of Mateo and Rufus out into the real world. Within their ensuing adventure, a key takeaway isn’t how the boys react to meaningless tragedy, but rather, how they choose to make something meaningful of their limited time.

YOUNG ADULTHOOD IS A PARADOX: Growing up is complicated and often paradoxical. In our modern world, many teenagers are simultaneously heading toward adulthood and yet somehow already adults. In the opening chapters of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen works part-time as a hunter, which makes her an additional provider for her family; Later she chooses to stand-in for her sister at the Reaping, which makes her an adult-like protector. The liminality of young-adulthood is not only a key element in modern YA, but one source of its inner tension.

CURIOSITY CAN BE A COMPASS: Our modern world can be deeply confusing and irrational, and a clear path isn’t always visible. In Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time, Meg Murry is thrown into an adventure that takes her to bizarre and often terrifying worlds. But her curiosity and intelligence are pivotal compasses that help her to navigate the darkness. When coupled with her capacity for love, these elements make her a powerful protagonist. Meg doesn’t shy away from complicated mathematical, scientific, and philosophical concepts—and in doing so, young readers are encouraged to do the same.

NO ONE REALLY KNOWS JACK ALL… BUT MAYBE THAT’S OK: For plenty of teens, it’s a rite of passage when they realize that many adults are not actually wiser or more competent. In my novel Aisle Nine, 17yo Jasper lives in a world riddled with hell portals and monsters. Without parents or school, Jasper works as a clerk in a discount store (that has a portal) and spends his days watching adults make up crap as they go along. This unspoken truth—that almost everyone is rolling with the punches—can be deeply comforting.

The journey toward stable adulthood is neither straightforward nor a straight line. But YA fiction shines in its ability to not only show zigzagging paths toward bigger lives, but the strange insights we can learn along the way…

Published September 24th by Harper Collins

About the Book: It’s Black Friday—and the apocalypse is on sale! Ever since the world filled with portals to hell and bloodthirsty demons started popping out on the reg, Jasper’s life has gotten worse and worse. A teenage nobody with no friends or family, he is plagued by the life he can’t remember and the person he’s sure he’s supposed to be.

Jasper spends his days working as a checkout clerk at the Here for You discount mart, where a hell portal in aisle nine means danger every shift. But at least here he can be near the girl he’s crushing on—Kyle Kuan, a junior member of the monster-fighting Vanguard—who seems to hate Jasper for reasons he can’t remember or understand.

But when Jasper and Kyle learn they both share a frightening vision of the impending apocalypse, they’re forced to team up and uncover the uncomfortable truth about the hell portals and the demons that haunt the world. Because the true monsters are not always what they seem, the past is not always what we wish, and like it or not, on Black Friday, all hell will break loose, starting in aisle nine. Rising star Ian X. Cho delivers an unforgettably freaky and hilarious YA debut with Aisle Nine, perfect for fans of Grasshopper Jungle or The Last of Us.

About the Author: Ian X. Cho lives on Australia’s sunny Gold Coast. He writes fiction for young adults and works as a freelance graphic designer. In his free time he enjoys creating 2D pixel animations.

Thank you, Ian, for showing the importance of YA in the journey of young adulthood!

I, Too, Am Here by Morgan Christie, Illustrated by Marley Berot

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I, Too, Am Here
Author: Morgan Christie
Illustrator: Marley Berot
Published September 10th, 2024 by Second Story Press

Summary: The street a young girl lives on is made up of families from all over the world. Her family shares with her their stories of journey and struggle. Her own story begins here in this country, but she is sometimes made to feel she does not belong. She listens to her family’s voices. They tell her she will soar, they tell her she is beautiful. She listens and she says I, too, am here.

A multigenerational story of immigration, racism, and what it truly means to belong. Inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem, “I, Too.”

About the Author: 

Morgan Christie is the author of four poetry chapbooks, a short story collection, and a collection of essays. She has won the Arc Poetry Poem of the Year Contest, the Prairie Fire Fiction Prize, the Digging Press Chapbook Series Prize, and the Howling Bird Press Nonfiction Book Award. ‘I, Too, Am Here’ is her second picture book and she continues to work towards affecting change through reading and writing. Morgan is based out of Toronto.

Marley Berot is an illustrator with over ten years of combined personal and professional experience. Her portfolio includes cover art for Neuron, graphic design work for the Toronto International Film Festival, logo design, and book illustration. She runs her own online store called MarleysApothecary.com. Marley is very passionate about her work as an artist, and this can be seen in every piece she creates. She lives in the Toronto area.

Review: The author shares that, “In reading this story, she hopes young readers will learn to see the ways our words and actions can affect others,” and I truly believe they will. I don’t know how anyone could argue that the beautiful family in the story should have anything but happiness. I also love that the author “drew inspiration from Hughes’s poem to write this book because she wanted to remind everyone who’s been told or made to feel otherwise how much joy and wonder they bring to the people and places around them,” and this is a message that all young people, all PEOPLE, should hear loud and clear, which this picture book delivers in words and art.

Tools for Navigation: This picture book can be read along side Langston Hughes’s “I, Too” poem to look for similarities, how it was influenced, the themes of both, etc.

Discussion Questions: 

  • Why does the narrator not understand the racism that his family faced?
  • What character traits would you use to define each of the characters in the story?
  • What should you do if you hear someone being racist (or prejudice in another way) towards a peer?
  • How does the history of slavery and the Jim Crow south still affect America today?
  • How was the book inspired by Langston Hughes?

Flagged Spreads: 

Read This If You Love: Picture books about multigenerational families, anti-racism, immigration, Black history, poetry

Recommended For: 

classroomlibrarybuttonsmall 

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**Thank you to Nicole Banholzer PR for providing a copy for review!**

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 10/7/24

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
For readers of all ages

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop we host which focuses on sharing what we’re reading. This Kid Lit version of IMWAYR focuses primarily on books marketed for kids and teens, but books for readers of all ages are shared. We love this community and how it offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other.

The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. The Kid Lit IMWAYR was co-created by Kellee & Jen at Teach Mentor Texts.

We encourage you to write your own post sharing what you’re reading, link up below, leave a comment, and support other IMWAYR bloggers by visiting and commenting on at least three of the other linked blogs.

Happy reading!

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Tuesday: The Light of Home: A Story of Family, Creativity, and Belonging by Diana Farid, Illustrated by Hoda Hadadi

Thursday: Sofia’s YA Book Nook: The Canyon’s Edge by Dusti Bowling

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Tackling My Own Book’s Educators’ Guide” by Anna Olswanger, Author of A Visit to Moscow

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

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Kellee

Picture Books

  • Lost by Bob Staake: Bob Staake is a genius when it comes to writing wordless picture books. His ability to use art to create narratives full of emotions is one of the best in the space. Lost is no different. In the story you will follow a young girl as she searches for her cat and deals with many different obstacles and feelings along the way. The book is just so smart and just a joy to read!
  • I Worked Hard on That! by Robyn Wall & A.N. Kang: Wall and Kang’s book is a great introduction to the world of creative thinking, perseverance, and growth mindset. Through the spiders journey, readers will see that beautiful things happen if failure does not make you give up. (And shout out to orb spiders!)

Middle Grade

    • On the Block: Stories of Home edited by Ellen Oh:  This anthology from We Need Diverse Books is one of my favorites I’ve read yet. I loved the wide representation in the book, how it all took place in the apartment building, and the stories intertwine but can also stand alone. And no wonder it was amazing–look at that list of authors that contributed! (I’m lucky enough to have been asked to write the educators’ guide for it, so keep an eye out!)
    • Pearl by Sherri L. Smith, Illustrated by Christine Norrie: What a fascinating look at an experience during WWII that I had not truly thought about. Amy is a 13-year-old Japanese American girl growing up in Hawaii when she goes to Japan to visit her family and is unable to return because of the start of the US’s entrance to the war. The author and illustrator do a great job showing how Amy is torn between the two places and is truly stuck in a situation that no one could prepare for.
    • The Shadow Prince & The Longest Night in Egypt by David Anthony Durham: This adventurous duology is about Ash, a boy who is competing to become the protector of Egypt’s prince, who finds himself surrounded by competitors that seem to be stronger and better than him and facing situations filled with demons and evil gods that he doesn’t know if he is prepared for. This series was hard to stop listening to when I got where I was going, and I had to start book two as soon as I finished the first one.

Young Adult

    • Go Home by Terry Farish & Lochan Sharma: This book was a tough read for me because of the (very real) hatred that Samir and his family face in their New Hampshire town because of their immigration status. His family is refugees and looking to have a good life, but Gabe and other racists in the town do not want them there. Told in two points of view (one written by Farish and one by Sharma), we get to see how the hatred looks from Samir’s eyes and Gabe’s girlfriend’s eyes.
    • Shackled: How Two Corrupt Judges Defiled Justice, Made Millions, and Harmed Thousands of Children by Candy J. Cooper: WHOA! It is so hard to believe that something like this would happen but this very true story of two judges purposefully sending children to a for-profit juvenile center just to make money is a very real story. This is a great example of a book to show someone who doesn’t think nonfiction is a good read–I couldn’t put it down!
    • Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy: I love Huda (both the author and character)! This one also has an overlap for me because her family comes to visit Disney World, which I know pretty darn well. This second book about Huda is as funny and heartfelt as the first–these are must reads.
    • Sync by Ellen Hopkins: Ellen Hopkins is back with her raw stories that bring to light the lives of kids that are often not talked about. In Sync, we meet twins separated in the foster system who both face challenges that no child should have to face. The book was so tough to read at times, but like all of Hopkins’s books, it is done truthfully, respectfully, and beautifully.

 And you can always learn more about any of the books I’ve been reading by checking out my read bookshelf on Goodreads.

Ricki

This is my week off–see you next week!

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Kellee

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Tuesday: I, Too, Am Here by Morgan Christie, Illustrated by Marley Berot

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Young-Adult Fiction as a Means to Teach the Unteachable” by Ian X. Cho, Author of Aisle Nine

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Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!

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Author Guest Post: “Tackling My Own Book’s Educators’ Guide” by Anna Olswanger, Author of A Visit to Moscow

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“Tackling My Own Book’s Educators’ Guide”

Near the bottom of this page is a download link to the student guide for A Visit to Moscow. If you open the link, you’ll discover several discussion questions, beginning with this one:

Rather than opening directly with the Rabbi’s arrival in Moscow, the book opens and closes with Zev’s dreamlike, enigmatic vision. Why do you think the author chose to bookend the story with these sequences? From whose perspective or perspectives are we experiencing this story?

When Creators Assemble! (the nonprofit that works to bring graphic novels into educational spaces) was developing the guide, I wondered how I would answer the question myself. Why did I bookend the story of Zev’s vision? Why didn’t I just tell the simple, chronological story of the rabbi visiting Moscow and discovering Zev as a little boy, hidden away by his parents to protect him from the Soviet government’s antisemitism? Why add the dream-like, enigmatic opening and ending?

The simple answer is that, like any author, I wanted to add my own thumbprint to a story I had heard. I wanted to make it my own. But then I thought about where my part of the book had come from.

In listening to the story that would become A Visit to Moscow from Rabbi Rafael Grossman, the inspiration for the rabbi character in the graphic novel, I asked him endless questions about the real Zev and his family. I wanted to understand how the little boy, who had never been outside the room he was born in, would view the world. Would he be angry? Would he be afraid? Would he be bitter?

Zev, the little boy, later told Rabbi Grossman that when his mother was sleeping, he would turn the shade a little to see what was outside. Zev knew that in the winter it snowed. He knew there was rain. He knew when it was warm and when it was cold. As he looked out the window, he wondered about the world. He thought it was made up of mean people because he couldn’t go out and play, but—Rabbi Grossman emphasized—Zev never thought the world was ugly. He wanted to know more about it.

As soon as Rabbi Grossman arranged for the family’s visas to Israel, Zev and his parents were put on a flight to Europe. Zev thought the car that took them to the airport was an incredible thing. The airplane totally fascinated him. He talked about it later at his bar mitzvah in Israel and said he went up to God and then came down.

Rabbi Grossman said that when he visited the family in Israel, Zev ran around showing him things: his school books, his soccer ball, his kippah. Zev was excited and full of life, introducing his pals to the Rabbi, shouting, singing–not at all restricted. He seemed to love everything about his life.

Rabbi Grossman said Zev was extremely happy in Israel. His life was filled with learning the language, making friends, and playing sports. He traveled on buses and went to every part of Israel. Later, he went to a hesder yeshiva (a yeshiva program that combines advanced Talmudic studies with military service in the Israel Defense Forces) and received a degree in mechanical engineering. He married and had children. And through it all Zev had a very strong, loving relationship with his parents. Zev talked about the world as a beautiful place. He talked about Lebanon and how the mountains were extraordinary.

Lebanon, where as a young man he stepped on a land mine while on reserve duty and was killed.

That view of the world as an extraordinary place sustained Zev, whether in the one room in Moscow where he could only peek out the window or in the openness of the land and cities of Israel. I think for him, being alive on this earth was like being in heaven.

And that is what I added to the story to make it my own, Zev’s feeling of being alive on this earth. It’s why I added the opening where the adult Zev has just died and is looking down at the area in Lebanon where he stepped on a land mine and sees the lush landscape—a river, haze, the ruins of a rampart. He thinks he’s looking down from heaven, and then everything starts to disappear. He can’t remember his name or who he was. He hears a voice and follows it. He sees a man (later we realize it is the fictional version of Rabbi Grossman, the rabbi who visited Zev and his family in the Soviet Union) at his Shabbat table with his family. The man is about to tell his family a story, and the story is his meeting Zev and his parents during a visit to Moscow. I then added the ending where Zev remembers all the events in the book, realizes he has died, remembers he has been alive. That was where I added the line, “He remembers being alive was like being in heaven.”

The book couldn’t have been just the simple story of what happened to Rabbi Grossman. It had to include what Zev knew, what Rabbi Grossman knew, and what I came to know through hearing the story, writing it, and reading it—that this world, in all its richness, is heaven.

Will students have any idea about my reason for including the mystical bookends to the story as they try to answer that question in the student guide? No, but they might imagine a reason, and that is the start of making sense of what we experience in life and making our own story part of life’s big story. Hearing a story we don’t quite understand and working to make sense of it by filling in the blanks is, at least for me, what being a human in the chain of history is about.

Published May 24th, 2022 by West Margin Press

About the Book: This haunting graphic novel takes place in 1965 when an American rabbi travels to the Soviet Union to investigate reports of persecution of the Jewish community. Moscow welcomes him as a guest—but provides a strict schedule he and the rest of his group must follow. One afternoon, the rabbi slips away. With an address in hand and almost no knowledge of the Russian language, he embarks on a secret journey that will change his life forever. Inspired by the true experience of Rabbi Rafael Grossman, A Visit to Moscow conveys the spiritual Holocaust and dev­as­tat­ing antisemitism that existed in the Soviet Union, and the com­mit­ment of one Jew to bringing the hor­ri­fy­ing real­i­ty into the light. It offers a window into the bias that still exists against Jews today, both in Russia and in America. This brief, beautiful, digestible visual narrative is a perfect on-ramp for student interest in the history of religious persecution, the oppression in the Soviet Union, and the experience of the Jewish people at large. It’s a wonderful tool for teachers—approachable, brief, illustrated. A volume that can be read and discussed in a 40-minute class or used as the foundation for broader study.

2023 Eisner Award Nominee, Best Adaptation from Another Medium

2022 Brightness Illustration Award Longlist

About the Author: Anna Olswanger first began interviewing Rabbi Rafael Grossman and writing down his stories in the early 1980s. She is the author of the middle grade novel Greenhorn, based on an incident in Rabbi Grossman’s childhood and set in New York in the aftermath of the Holocaust. She is also the author of Shlemiel Crooks, a Sydney Taylor Honor Book and PJ Library Book, which she wrote after discovering a 1919 Yiddish newspaper article about the attempted robbery of her great-grandparents’ kosher liquor store in St. Louis. Anna is a literary agent and represents a number of award-winning authors and illustrators. Visit her at www.olswanger.com.

About the Illustrator: Yevgenia Nayberg is an award-winning illustrator, painter, and set and costume designer. As a designer, she has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts/TCG Fellowship for Theatre Designers, the Independent Theatre Award, and the Arlin Meyer Award. She has received multiple awards for her picture book illustrations, including three Sydney Taylor Medals. Her debut author/illustrator picture book, Anya’s Secret Society, received a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection Award. Her latest picture book is A Party for Florine: Florine Stettheimer and Me. Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Yevgenia now lives and draws from her studio in New York City. Visit her at www.nayberg.org.

Thank you, Anna, for this insight into analyzing your graphic novel!

Sofia’s YA Book Nook: The Canyon’s Edge by Dusti Bowling

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Sofia is a 13-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. Since she was 8 years old, on select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with other young people her age! She is one of the most well-read youth that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!


Dear readers,

Hello and welcome to my book review! The Canyon’s Edge by Dusti Bowling was a surprisingly good read for me! It is a book in verse which I am usually not very interested in but The Canyon’s Edge really hooked me! When I picked this book up from the library, I didn’t even know it was in verse and I only picked it up because it was on the Nutmeg Award (a book award that is given to a few kids books each year in Connecticut) shelf and I recognized the author. Since reading it, The Canyon’s Edge has made me think differently about my life and how lucky I am to have things that I often take for granted. This book is emotionally heavy so even though, in theory it is a short read, I found myself taking a second to process all of my feelings after every page.

Goodreads Summary

A novel in verse about a young girl’s struggle for survival after a climbing trip with her father goes terribly wrong. One year after a random shooting changed their family forever, Nora and her father are exploring a slot canyon deep in the Arizona desert, hoping it will help them find peace. Nora longs for things to go back to normal, like they were when her mother was still alive, while her father keeps them isolated in fear of other people. But when they reach the bottom of the canyon, the unthinkable happens: A flash flood rips across their path, sweeping away Nora’s father and all of their supplies. Suddenly, Nora finds herself lost and alone in the desert, facing dehydration, venomous scorpions, deadly snakes, and, worst of all, the Beast who has terrorized her dreams for the past year. If Nora is going to save herself and her father, she must conquer her fears, defeat the Beast, and find the courage to live her new life.

My Thoughts

This book has now found a very special place in my heart. I usually don’t read such emotional books, mainly because I find them boring, but that was not the case here! This book was pulling at my heartstrings while having me on the edge of my seat! The Canyon’s Edge has made me grateful for things that I didn’t think about before and opened my eyes even more to the tragedies in the world around me. This book was a nice break from reading mystery/thriller books and it was still exciting! I highly recommend it and think it is an essential read! Enjoy!

The recommended age on Amazon to read this book is 8-12 but I feel like it is more suitable for anybody over 10. This is because of the difficult topics and because I find it will be interesting for adults as well. Some sensitive topics included in this book are PTSD, gun violence, death/loss of a loved one, and flash floods.

**Thanks so much, Sofia!**