#BFYA2019 Nominees Round Up, April 27 Edition

The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore
Alfred A. Knopf/Penguin Random House
Publication Date: September 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1524701246

Living in the 125th Street neighborhood of Harlem, Lolly’s life is populated by a vibrantly drawn, diverse cast of characters: his ma and her girlfriend Yvonne, his best friend Vega, the neighborhood kids at the community center where he attends after-school, and the young thugs who populate his neighborhood, pressuring him to join up in the wake of his older brother Jermaine’s gang-related death. Amidst these pressures and his still-raw grief at Jermaine’s death, Lolly finds solace in building fantastical, epic cityscapes out of the Lego bricks Yvonne brings home from her job as a security guard at a toy store. When his outsized buildings and imagination outgrow his apartment, community center director Mr. Ali lets him expand into the basement of the rec center. There, his Lego building attracts the attention of the other kids and especially Big Rose, a bullied girl with a prickly manner and a big heart, who may be on the autism spectrum but has no interest in being labeled autistic. Lolly and Big Rose form a tentative but meaningful bond based on mutual respect, even as he feels Vega withdrawing from him towards the pull of the streets.

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#QP2018 Nominees Round Up: More Fiction!

The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: September 19, 2017
ISBN: 9781524701246 

Wallace “Lolly” Rachpaul and his family are attempting to go through the motions, preparing for their first Christmas without his older brother, Jermaine… a “street pharmacist” gunned down in the neighborhood. The crew is now trying to recruit 12-year-old Lolly and others close to him to join them. Lol wants no part of that life and finds a reprieve engineering intricately detailed Lego creations that result in over 250,000 followers online.

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Booklist: Surviving Middle School

Middle school is the time of greatest change for teens. It is when you go from from 11 to 12-years-old to becoming an actual teenager. It is a time changing friendships and changing bodies, becoming more aware of yourself and of others. It is a time when identity is being explored, but also a time of growing empathy and sense of social justice. Books about the middle school experience are tricky to categorize, some speak to the younger side and some to the older, and choosing books for middle schoolers can be difficult because they are reading everything.

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