Promise Boys
Author: Nick Brooks
Published: January 31st, 2023 by Henry Holt and Co.
Summary: Promise Boys is a blockbuster, dark academia mystery about three teens of color who must investigate their principal’s murder to clear their own names. This page-turning thriller is perfect for fans of Karen McManus, Jason Reynolds, Angie Thomas, and Holly Jackson .
The prestigious Urban Promise Prep school might look pristine on the outside, but deadly secrets lurk within. When the principal ends up murdered on school premises and the cops come sniffing around, a trio of students―J.B., Ramón, and Trey―emerge as the prime suspects. They had the means, they had the motive . . . and they may have had the murder weapon. But with all three maintaining their innocence, they must band together to track down the real killer before they are arrested. Or is the true culprit hiding among them?
Find out who killed Principal Moore in Nick Brooks’s murder mystery, Promise Boys ― The Hate U Give meets One of Us Is Lying.
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation and Discussion Questions:
Please view and enjoy the educators’ guide I created for Cake Creative Kitchen:
How to Heal a Gryphon
Author: Meg Cannistra
Published: October 4th, 2022 by Inkyard Press
Summary: To save her family, she’ll have to make a dangerous bargain and tip the scales off balance.
With her thirteenth birthday just around the corner, Giada Bellantuono has to make a big decision: Will she join the family business and become a healer or follow her dreams? But even though she knows her calling is to heal vulnerable animals, using her powers to treat magical creatures is decidedly not allowed.
When a group of witches kidnaps her beloved older brother, Rocco, and her parents are away, Giada is the only person left who can rescue him. Swept into the magical underground city of Malavita, Giada will need the help of her new companions to save her brother—or risk losing him forever.
Review: In the first book of the Giada the Healer series by Meg Cannistra, we enter a world where magic is real and mythical creatures exist and we get to meet Giada, a thirteen year old girl from a family of healers. She has magic, just like the rest of her family, but unlike them, her magic works best with animals. She knows she is going to have to tell her family that she wants to work with animals, not humans, but she has been putting it off trying to figure out how to break it to them without them being too upset. But before she can get a chance, she finds herself in the most important fight of her life–one against the witches underground to save her brother. Through this journey, will Giada be able to show that her passion is just as important as tradition?
Readers will love Giada and her story. It is paced so well, with a balance of plot-driven and character-driven elements, a body-positive message throughout, and the magical system & world building is intertwined with aspects of Roman mythology and Italian folklore. I also particularly love the lesson found within the book about passions: Giada’s internal struggle of passion versus expectation is one that so many readers will connect with, and Giada will be a great guide for those in similar situations.
I was lucky enough to be able to create a discussion guide for Cake Creative Kitchen and Inkyard Press for this book and educators will find that Cannistra’s novel includes imagery and descriptive language, complex characters, an opportunity to look at cause and effect, thought-provoking reflection opportunities, a quest-focused plot that follows the hero’s journey, and more elements that allow the reader to deeply delve into the text.
This book will definitely leave any reader wanting more, but they’re in luck! The second book in the series, How to Save a Unicorn, is waiting for them! Happy reading everyone!
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation and Discussion Questions:
Please view and enjoy the educators’ guide I created for Cake Creative Kitchen:
Futureland: Battle for the Park
Author: H.D. Hunter
Published: November 8th, 2022 by Random House Books for Young Readers
Summary: When an extraordinary flying theme park arrives above Atlanta, one boy must stop a sinister force from stealing the park’s tech and taking over the world.
Welcome to the most spectacular theme park in the world.
Everyone wants a ticket to Futureland, where you can literally live out your wildest dreams. Want to step inside your favorite video game? Go pro in a sports arena? Perform at a real live concert? Grab your ticket and come right in.
Yet with all its attractions, Futureland has always just been home to Cam Walker, the son of the park’s famous creators. And when Futureland arrives at its latest stop, Atlanta, Cam is thrilled for what promises to be the biggest opening ever. . . .
But things aren’t quite right with the Atlanta opening. Park attractions are glitching. Kids go missing. And when his parents are blamed, Cam must find the missing kids and whoever’s trying to take down his family . . . before it’s too late.
Discussion Questions:
Please view and enjoy the discussion guide I created for Futureland: Battle for the Park:
Apart, Together Author: Linda Booth Sweeney
Illustrator: Ariel Rutland
Published October 17th, 2023 by Balzer & Bray
Summary: This bold, surprising picture book demonstrates the magic of everyday transformations (and introduces cause-and-effect) for the youngest readers.
What happens when 1+1 equals . . . something other than 2?
Apart, blue is blue and yellow is yellow . . . but together they make green. Bees and flowers together make honey. Soap and water become foam!
With playful art and a simple, lyrical structure, this picture book is a delightful read-aloud and the perfect way to talk about all the wonderful ways that, so often, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
About the Author: Linda Booth Sweeneyis a writer, educator, game maker, and trampoline jumper who writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her picture books includeMonument Maker: Daniel Chester French and the Lincoln Memorial,When the Snow Falls,andWhen the Wind Blows.She lives in Boston, MA. You can visit her online atlindaboothsweeney.com.
Review and Tools for Navigation: This picture book seems simplistic, but its underlying lessons are so much more complex than at first glass. The book’s creators definitely have created something that is accessible for so many ages of readers and will lend itself to read alouds and lessons.
This text has so many discussion opportunities. It looks at cause & effect; science including animals, plants, & pollination; primary/secondary colors; team work; and baking! It is also a wonderful mentor text for students to create their own apart & together spreads, including illustrations.
Discussion Questions:
What other items can you think of that are different when they are apart versus when they are together?
How are some apart, together examples, like the soccer one, different than the others, like the paint one?
What other colors combine to make another?
What else do bees and flowers combine to make?
What else do seed, soil, sun, & water combine to make?
What else do flour, eggs, & sugar combine to make?
What else do bricks & blocks combine to make?
What else can players combine to do?
What else do soap, hands, & water combine to make?
What else do twigs, feathers, & love combine to make?
Flagged Spreads:
Read This If You Love: Simplistic picture books that teach big lessons
Recommended For:
**Thank you to Spark Point Studio for providing a copy for review!**
Up In Flames Author: Hailey Alcaraz Published: October 3, 2023 by Viking
Summary: Gorgeous, wealthy, and entitled, Ruby has just one single worry in her life—scheming to get the boy next door to finally realize they’re meant to be together. But when the California wildfires cause her privileged world to go up in flames, Ruby must struggle to find the grit and compassion to help her family and those less fortunate to rise from the ashes.
At eighteen, Ruby Ortega is an unapologetic flirt who balances her natural aptitude for economics with her skill in partying hard. But she couldn’t care less about those messy college boys—it’s her intense, brooding neighbor Ashton who she wants, and even followed to school. Even the fact that he has a girlfriend doesn’t deter her . . . whatever Ruby wants, she eventually gets.
Her ruthless determination is tested when wildfires devastate her California hometown, destroying her parents’ business and causing an unspeakable tragedy that shatters her to her core. Suddenly, Ruby is the head of the family and responsible for its survival, with no income or experience to rely on. Rebuilding seems hopeless, but with the help of unexpected allies—including a beguiling, dark-eyed boy who seems to understand her better than anyone—Ruby has to try. When she discovers that the fires also displaced many undocumented people in her town, it becomes even more imperative to help. And if she has to make hard choices along the way, can anyone blame her?
In her powerful debut novel, Mexican American author Hailey Alcaraz chronicles a riveting portrait of transformation, resilience, and love with an unlikely heroine who, when faced with unforeseen disaster, surprises everyone, especially herself.
Review: This book reminds us all that we are imperfect, and we won’t always make the right choices. Ruby’s story is set in a backdrop of the California wildfires. The book includes richly realized themes, and I particularly appreciated the ways in which Author Hailey Alcaraz interrogated the intersections of race and class. I was invested in Ruby’s story and rooting for her from the beginning to end. She is certainly flawed (as we all are), and she felt very real to me. I really enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it. (The audiobook is excellent!)
Tools for Navigation: Teachers might have students map some of the many themes of this book, considering how they are integrated within the text and the lessons they teach readers.
Discussion Questions:
How would you describe Ruby? What qualities does she have that are positive? What qualities might she work on? What lessons does she learn?
How does the setting shape the story? How might the text be different if the setting was different?
How are Ashton, Remy, and Charlie different? How does Ruby’s relationship with each help us understand her more?
Flagged Spreads/Passages: She understood that some things required more than sheer willpower. Some things—the important things, the hard things, the things that defined you as a person—required patience and trust and listening, too (p. 370, Advanced Reader Copy, and the quote may change).
Read This If You Love: Realistic Fiction, Romance, Social Justice Stories
Recommended For:
**Thank you to Aubrey at Penguin Young Readers for providing a copy for an honest review**
Last Gate of the Emperor
Authors: Kwame Mbalia & Prince Joel Makonnen
Published: May 4th, 2021 by Scholastic Press
Summary: An Afrofuturist adventure about a mythical Ethiopian empire. Sci-fi and fantasy combine in this journey to the stars.
Yared Heywat lives an isolated life in Addis Prime — a hardscrabble city with rundown tech, lots of rules, and not much to do. His worrywart Uncle Moti and bionic lioness Besa are his only family… and his only friends.
Often in trouble for his thrill-seeking antics and smart mouth, those same qualities make Yared a star player of the underground augmented reality game, The Hunt for Kaleb’s Obelisk. But when a change in the game rules prompts Yared to log in with his real name, it triggers an attack that rocks the city. In the chaos, Uncle Moti disappears.
Suddenly, all the stories Yared’s uncle told him as a young boy are coming to life, of kingdoms in the sky and city-razing monsters. And somehow Yared is at the center of them.
Together with Besa and the Ibis — a game rival turned reluctant ally — Yared must search for his uncle… and answers to his place in a forgotten, galaxy-spanning war.
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation and Discussion Questions:
Please view and enjoy the educators’ guide I created for Last Gate of the Emperor:
The Rumor Game
Author: Dhonielle Clayton & Sona Charaipotra
Published: March 1st, 2022 by Disney
Summary: All it takes is one spark to start a blaze.
At Foxham Prep, a posh private school for the children of DC’s elite, a single rumor has the power to ruin a life.
Nobody knows that better than Bryn. She used to have it all—the perfect boyfriend, a bright future in politics, and even popularity, thanks to her best friend, cheer captain Cora. Then one mistake sparked a scandal that burned it all to the ground.
Now it’s the start of a new school year and the spotlight has shifted: It’s geeky Georgie, newly hot after a summer makeover, whose name is on everyone’s lips. When a rumor ignites, Georgie rockets up the school’s social hierarchy, pitting her and Cora against each other. It grants her Foxham stardom . . . but it also makes her a target.
As the rumors grow and morph, blazing like wildfire through the school’s social media, all three girls’ lives begin to unravel. But one person close to the drama has the power to stop the gossip in its tracks. The question is—do they even want to?
From Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra, authors of the Tiny Pretty Things duology (now a Netflix series), comes the edge-of-your-seat social thriller everyone will be talking about.
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation and Discussion Questions:
Please view and enjoy the educators’ guide I created for Cake Creative Kitchen:
