ROSA BY ANY OTHER NAME by Hailey Alcaraz

 

I just can't stop falling in love with everything I read. This story is inspired by Romeo and Juliette if the nurse and Mercutio also fell in love and they were teenagers caught up in the Chicano civil rights movement in Arizona in the 50s. No need to recap the plot, it's a tale as old as time, but with a lovely historical fiction patina. Rosa, or Rosie as she is called at the fancy new school where she passes for white, wants to go to college and be a journalist, hence the passing. Her best friend Ramon, and her school friend Julianne meet and fall in love, which ends tragically. The real power of the book is how Rosa finds her own voice and path in the aftermath. 

The love stories are front and center, but it is the depiction of the fallout that sets this apart. It is a perfectly rendered setting and, while it is certainly heartbreaking, it ends on a note of hope - followed by some commentary by the author. Even though my students don't flock to historical fiction, but pushing the romance aspect (always a popular genre) I bet I could fool them into learning something about history too! God knows, the only history I ever learned in my life was delicately folded into some novel or another...

The only downside to this book was that I kept singing Doug Judy's Rosa song the whole time I was reading it -  small price to pay.

INTO THE SUNKEN CITY by Dinesh Thiru

 

This is not at all something I thought I would like. The cover is awesome. However,  it is an underwater adventure and a dystopian retelling of TREASURE ISLAND. I hate everything in that sentence. And yet, I couldn't put it down! 

The earth is under constant cloud cover and rain. Almost no one alive has ever seen the sun, unless they are filthy rich and can afford to climb Everest to get above the cloud cover. Arizona is barely above water and Jin and her little sister Thara, who run an inn, are on their own since their father's death in a diving accident. Both girls are excellent divers, but Thara is only 14 and Jin is very cagey about diving since she lost her dad. 

But then Bhili enters their lives with a sweet little pile of gold coins that they definitely need to keep the inn afloat and Thara in school and they get caught up in a caper to salvage LOTS of those gold coins from beneath the sea in the ruins of Las Vegas. There is also Taim, Jin's ex, who is now in the Coasties who might not be trustworthy and Joao Silva, a disreputable pirate with a killer backstory. 

The action is grippy, the stakes are high and despite the very satisfying ending, there is clearly a second volume in the making. Thiru makes a large cast of characters individually memorable and has a nice detail about salvage where works of art are mentioned in enough detail for the reader to investigate and find them online which adds a nice little enrichment activity. Some of the violence was a little too visceral for me, I'm a big baby about that sort of thing, but it mostly just reinforced my desire to never do a deep sea dive. If I'm being honest, there was never a chance anyway. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this book and I am eagerly looking forward to more.

(Read for MTCBA and it BETTER get nominated!) 

A WORLD WITHOUT SUMMER by Nicholas Day with art by Yas Imamura

 

Do you like scary geological events? Do you like starvation and death? Do you like unwed mothers writing monster novels? Then this is the book for you! This is the story of the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 and the devastating impact it had on the world. 

It also led directly to the writing of Frankenstein, so it's got that going for it. I read this book so fast, in spite of it being both nonfiction AND about the weather which are two of my least favorite things. But the interesting perspectives and the clever tone kept me hooked. It was completely surprising to me how much I liked it and I think I could get kids to read it too. The flyleaf straight-up says it is middle grade, but my students are not averse to reading middle grade if it is interesting. And this is quite interesting!

THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN by Matt Haig comes out May 26, 2026

 

Wow, there is a lot of Matt Haig that I have not yet read - how exciting! Like every other library professional, I read THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY, and then I listened to HOW TO STOP TIME on a long road trip and, ironically, it made the time pass quickly! I immediately grabbed this when it came up on NetGalley and was not disappointed. 

It is the story of Wilbur who dies and is ushered aboard the Midnight Train which lets him visit the most impactful moments of his life before he completely shuffles off to the great beyond. Except what he sees makes him realize that he has made some grievous errors in his life. So he completely breaks the rules of the Midnight Train to try to remedy them. And it is delightful.

The midnight books are my favorite kind of post-death story - the chance for, if not a do-over, at least another perspective. And I love trains. So I knew going in that I was going to love this. I read it quickly and happily. All the pieces work beautifully together and while Wilbur is the main focus, the secondary characters are the most fun. His wild brother, his future wife, his Bowie-obsessed best friend - they all come to life as Wilbur recounts his. 

This very nearly made me cry, which is my favorite, of course. I didn't quite get there, but I was crying on the inside. And what's more, I wanted to go further. What happens after the train? Does Wilbur make the best use of his new information? And will I get to review my life on the Midnight Train someday in the far, far future? I sure hope so!

JOINED AT THE JOINTS by Marissa Eller

 

Ivy has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and social anxiety and it is not easy being her. She spends most of her time baking and avoiding people until she starts attending a support group for young people with chronic diseases and meets Grant. She does not avoid him. But she has a lovely, slightly awkward romance with him. There's also some stuff about how her Grandma died on her 12th birthday and she hasn't gotten over that. Her mom has lupus, her sister has celiac disease, her dad works a lot, and her brother is annoying, so that keeps her busy too, one of my colleagues on the Mass. Teen Choice book award committee pointed out that the book is about Ivy and her life and interests and one of them is Grant. There is enough romance here that you could definitely sell it as a love story, but it isn't overpowering. The family relationships and friendships feel real and Ivy seems like a kid I could have sitting in my library right now. I just loved this!