I, Emma Freke by Elizabeth Atkinson

Emma Freke doesn’t have it easy.Why couldn’t her mother have at least said her name aloud before naming her: “am a freak”?That is exactly how Emma feels.She doesn’t fit in with her expressive Italian mom, Donatella, who likes to leave out the fact that she has a daughter while she is meeting potential suitors.Her Nonno, who lives with them above their bead shop, is either asleep in his chair or out walking the dog. And you can imagine what school can be like for a 5’ 10’’ tall 11-year-old with her name.

Donatella, in a rare instance of maternal action, gives Emma a thoughtful birthday gift this year. Home-schooling! Donatella says that Emma’s Nonno will help out with the teaching by bringing Emma to the library daily, as home-schooled kids generally do.Emma realizes that the materials her mom gave her to use are a bit dated, so she enlists the librarian Stevie, to suggest some more recent workbooks at a higher grade-level. Stevie makes a few phonecalls, and Emma isn’t really surprised to hear that Donatella didn’t exactly go through the proper channels to get Emma into home-schooling in the first place. This makes Emma think on something that her neighbor and best friend Penelope planted in her brain…maybe Emma, like Penelope, is actually adopted. It would explain a few things. She doesn’t look like her mom or her other relatives, and she certainly doesn’t act like them.

No such luck. In an unexpected turn of events, Emma is soon whisked off to the Freke family reunion. She knows that her own father who she has never met will not be there due to a rift in his own family relations, but maybe Emma will find some sense of place in her namesake family.

Elizabeth Atkinson has written a story about family and finding your place in it. What is a family, after all? Can you ever fight how you fit in yours? What traits do you pull from the folks who raise you, and what do you get from genetics? It’s also a story about finding your voice, your courage and your confidence. Diversity of all sorts is woven into the story, from Phoebe’s lesbian moms, and Phoebe’s own Liberian decent, to Emma’s own inter-generational family and her cousin Fred’s non-conformity. Feeling like the square peg is very understandable for tweens, and readers will be charmed by Emma’s journey.

Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze, by Alan Silberberg

Milo and his family move around a lot. He is currently on House #5, which seems nice enough, but you never know. He has to change schools again and this time he’s headed to Junior High. With a name like Milo Cruikshank he knows he will never be part of the “Cool Name Club” like all of the Bobs, Ricks, Steves, Daves and Mikes, but nonetheless, he’s trying to look at all of these changes as opportunities.

For example, he’s already spied a super cute girl at the corner store, and it doesn’t matter too much that he was buying toilet paper when he saw her.

But there’s a heck of a lot more to Milo than the regular nerdy kid moving and going into middle school. See, house #4 was coined “the fog house” for a very good reason. That’s where Milo was living when his mom was sick and went into the hospital. Everything from that house is a bit blurry because really, who wants to remember that time?

Milo’s dad has even gone as far as trying to erase his mom.  The clothes, the pictures, the jewelry boxes, even the pots and pans are gone. It just kind of happened. It was never discussed.

Meanwhile, Milo has managed to find himself some friends. He has Marsh (aka One Eyed Jack), and Hillary from next door. Milo’s not too sure about Hillary and her sticky notes at first, but Marsh doesn’t question Milo’s freak flag, and even seems to like the same stuff as he does. Things almost seem good.

But then there’s Sylvia…the lady across the street that seems to think that Milo should work on remembering his mom, instead of just letting his dad erase her. After all, Milo is feeling that not only his mom is gone; his dad has turned into someone that he doesn’t even recognize.

Alan Silberberg has written an astounding illustrated novel that deals with the loss of a parent. Milo’s feelings are real and raw, and he’s busy coping with trying to be in 7^th grade, while sorting out needing a parent who is no longer there. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, readers will effortlessly be drawn to Milo and his friends and family. This is not simply a book about losing a parent…it is a pitch perfect story of being in middle school, the push/pull of need and independence, and the story of a boy.

Outstanding.

One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Last time I had a book in hand on the train to ALA, it was Grace Lin's Where The Mountain Meets the Moon.  This time I took along One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, and was pleased as punch when I closed the book upon arriving at Union Station.

Delphine is trying to keep her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern calm as they jet through turbulence on the way to go meet their mother Cecile in California.  Delphine has an inkling of the turbulence she and her sisters may be in for once they get to Oakland.  She has vague memories of being with Cecile in their kitchen in Brooklyn while she wrote on the walls and muttered to herself.  She also knows that Cecile left soon after Fern was born.  After that, Big Ma moved from down South to Brooklyn and took up right where their mom left off.

Now the girls are about to spend their summer with Cecile, just because Daddy says it's time.  Cecile didn't send for them, or ask about them, but they are coming anyway.  When they finally land, the stewardess hands them off to Cecile -- a strange woman in a pair of man's pants, gigantic sunglasses and a scarf.  Not one for affection, she tells them to follow her and strides off.  After a commute that involves a particular taxi and a bus ride, the girls enter into Cecile's house.  It's more than the girls thought it would be based on all of the talking that Big Ma had been doing.

But it's not quite homey.  The girls are banished from the kitchen, and are told to head to the back bedroom that they would all be sharing.  There's no food in the house, no television, and it becomes obvious quite quickly, that the girls won't be depending on Cecile for any entertainment this summer!

The morning after they arrive, Cecile directs Delphine and her sisters to the People's Center to get some breakfast.  She tells them that it will be easy to find.  After all it's "black folks in black clothes rapping revolution and a line of hungry black kids." (p. 57)

This sets the stage for the slow reveal.  The story is one of family, of politics, of race and friendship.  Williams-Garcia has seemingly effortlessly woven in the feel of the time period (1968), and allowed a window into Oakland and the reality of the Black Panther movement; whether it be senseless arrests or educating children.  There are enough jumping off points to bring on a study of the time period, but the story never veers into message territory.  Delphine is the epitome of the 11 year old.  She's a responsible first born who is trying to figure her mother out, while finding her own self at the same time.

I was amazed upon finding the reality of Cecile's existence.  All of the characters in this book are multifaceted, and remind the reader to look a little deeper.

A must read.

Goddess Girls : Athena the Brain

In this kicky new series, authors Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams have taken the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus and given them the tween treatment by placing them at Mount Olympus Academy -- a private school located on the Mount.

In the first book, Athena is busily hanging around with her best-friend Pallas when a message scroll from Mount Olympus breezes through her bedroom window. When she opens it, she cannot believe what it says! The scroll is from Zeus himself, and it says that Athena is his daughter and that she is commanded to journey to Mount Olympus to attend the Academy with the other godboys and goddessgirls. She isn't a hundred percent sure that she wants to leave her best friend and the life that she knows, but she doesn't have much choice in the matter.

Before long, Athena is whisked by chariot up to Mount Olympus by Hermes himself, where she finds herself before a nine headed secretary (Ms. Hydra) who wants to know what classes she is taking. She chooses the first five that sound interesting, then is whisked into the hallway where she sees all kinds of intriguing folks including a trio of girls with shimmery skin.

These girls turn out to be none other than Artemis, Aphrodite, and Persephone and soon they and Athena are hanging around and trying to stay out of Medusa's way.

This is a fun, breezy series with the background of Greek Mythology that isn't too heavy, but is filled with the trappings that readers will recognize. Ambrosia, a teacher named Mr. Cyclops, a cute godboy name Poseidon and many more make multiple appearances in this installment. With its super cute cover and perfect drop of drama and romance, I predict this series will fly off the shelves and be passed hand to hand.