Book Review

Willodeen loves nature. In fact, she would much rather be outside, alone, away from everyone, and surrounded by her favorite creatures, screechers. As her eleventh birthday approaches, Willodeen notices how much things have changed in the outside she adores. Perchance, her village, is on the precipice of a calamity because the annual migration of hummingbears to their blue willow trees is threatened.

It’s 1941, and Natt enjoys a relatively easeful and innocent childhood in the small town of Zastavna. While Natt knows war is raging elsewhere, it does not hit home until the Russian invasion reaches his town.

Golden Maroni is a soccer fanatic, and there is no one this 8th grader worships more than Lionel Messi. With soccer season just around the corner, Golden works tirelessly to master the sport and reach the milestone of ten thousand hours of practice. He even tries to apply the concept of “ten thousand” hours to his dad, a former pro soccer player diagnosed with ALS.

Several years after Mary Lambert was treated as a “live specimen” and subjected to a cruel experiment, she receives a letter asking her to serve as a teacher of sorts for a young child in a wealthy household. The eight-year-old girl is deaf, like Mary, and needs a teacher to help her communicate.

Becca suffers from severe anxiety. Even with the help and guidance of a therapist and journals that name her fears and offer ways to cope, panic attacks still threaten to surface at any time, especially this summer. Since Becca’s father lives in Austria and her mother wants to travel across Europe, her parents hatch a plan for Becca to spend the summer in a new country.

Melvin wants nothing more than to vocalize the smooth, free-flowing words in his mind. However, his speech impediment prevents him from saying much of anything. When he starts high school in Spokane, Washington, the challenges Melvin will face, speaking up in class, standing up to his bully, and even talking to his crush Millie, seem nearly insurmountable.