From My TBR: 15 Young Adult and Middle Grade Books By Black Authors

 

(Warning: this post references racism and police brutality)

There are three important reasons for me writing this post:

1. Black Lives still Matter.

2. It's always a good time to highlight diverse books.

and 3. There are so many amazing Black creators out there, who don't always get the recognition they deserve.

So here's a small selection of some of the Young Adult (YA) and Middle Grade (MG) books on my TBR list that were written by Black authors.

For those of you who don't know the book-blog lingo - a TBR is a 'to-be-read' list. Mine is immortal and cannot be stopped. Send help.

For those of you who are British like me, and/or haven't heard the book blogging term, Middle Grade books are those aimed at (roughly) ages 8-12, or 8-14, depending who you ask.

(Quick disclaimer: obviously, I haven't read these books, just their synopses, so I don't know what they're like in terms of content, quality, etc.)

I hope you find something to add to your own TBR, and remember to support Black authors, and other Black creators.

There're so many talented Black authors out there who deserve our attention!

Comics Wrap-Up - Can't Erase the Scars With A Bandage

It's Thursday. 2020 is still 2020. Let's get some superhero-y goodness!

Friday Fics Fix - Magical Matilda

'Her lips pursed into a nearly invisible line. “And I feel obligated to let you know that Wormwood is a Wizarding name, while Honey most certainly is not.”'

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant Hapus/Happy St. David's Day!

St. David is the patron saint of Wales - he doesn't have as interesting a story as Santes Dwynwen, he basically faffed around founding churches and doing the odd miracle here and there - but it gives me an excuse for a Welsh connection to this post!

(And you probably know that any excuse to include Wales in a post is good enough for me!)

Month in Review(s) - January 2018

January felt like a month which put a rocket to my secret* blogging powers.

I don't know why, but I actually really liked the posts I wrote this month! And I'm (finally) beginning to get a handle on the whole 'juggling work, life, blogging, and miscellaneous other stuff' thing.

That said, I've probably just jinxed myself for the year ahead. My life tends to resemble an episode of Milo Murphy's Law sometimes 😅

Review Time! - Goodnight, Boy by Nikki Sheehan

Title: Goodnight, Boy

Author: Nikki Sheehan

Genre: Kids (Middle Grade/MG,) Young Adult*, Contemporary**

*YA crossover appeal

**ish

Amazon: UK - USA

2017's Top 4 Books (...In The Opinion of Yours Truly)

2017 can't be well and truly dusted off and put back on the shelf* without some input from your favourite Bookish Rebel (moi, ofc,) on the bestest books of the year.

This is TOTALLY MY OPINION ONLY.

Obviously, I can only pick from books I've read. And within that only books published in 2017.

Even given those rules, there's a bunch of books that I've read that I didn't include - THAT DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T LIKE THEM!!!!

This is basically a snapshot of the stand-outs. There were loooooads of other books I could've included - promise!

(My Anxiety kicks in when I think I might be leaving someone/something out that deserves recognition - does it show?!)

*Ha, shelf? Books? Hehe! XD

Month in Review(s) - November 2017

November was one of those super-busy months where I barely had time to think!

As such, guys, I apologise if I've been a little more AWOL than usual.

I haven't had much chance to be social and all that - so, hi! I am still here! XD

Mini-Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill

Title: The Tea Dragon Society

Author: Katie O'Neill (aka Strangely Katie)

Genre: Kids/Middle Grade, Fantasy, LGBTQ+ (F/F; M/M)

Series: The Tea Dragon Society

Amazon: UK - USA

Month in Review(s) - August 2017

August. Yeah, August...

August, for me, was stressful.

My 88-year-old grandfather was very unwell and ended up in hospital, he's better now but we still have to do a lot to make sure he and my grandmother are safe, happy, and as healthy as they can be.

Review! - Chengli and the Silk Road Caravan by Hildi Kang

Title: Chengli and the Silk Road Caravan

Author: Hildi Kang

Genre: Kids/Middle Grade, Historical Fiction

Amazon: UK - USA

Comics Wrap-Up - House of the Rising Sun

Film Trailers

New Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer!!!!!!!

I'm loving the whole Tony-Stark-as-out-of-his-depth-father-figure vibe! :)

Warning: flashing images

Mini-Review! (Comics Edition!) - The Sun Dragon's Song #2

Title: The Sun Dragon's Song #2

Author: Joyce Chng

Artist: Kim Miranda

Genre: Comics, Fantasy, Kids

Series: The Sun Dragon's Song

Amazon:
The Sun Dragon's Song #1: UK - USA
The Sun Dragon's Song #2: UK - USA
Two issue bundle #1&2: UK - USA

Reading Roald Dahl in Welsh (Part 2)

You may remember, dearest nerdlets, that I'm attempting to read 5 books in the Welsh language in 2016, using translations of Roald Dahl.

Why Roald Dahl books? Well, a) he's a Welsh author, what could be better? and b) I already know the story, so am less likely to get completely and utterly confused.

So, this time around, it was Matilda.

Turns out Matilda is a damn sight harder than Moddion Rhyfeddol George (George's Marvellous Medicine) - so thank God I know the story in my sleep!

The translator, once again, was Elin Meek, and once again she did a great job.

Since the language is more complex though, this took me a lot longer to read than Moddion Rhyfeddol George - it did feel just a little bit like I was wading through it.

Still, all the more time to notice the quirks of the language that come with reading a book in translation.

Honestly, I really like reading books in more than one language - it definitely brings different aspects to the fore, and makes you look at things through a different lens.

Plus, you notice funny things that make you laugh nerdishly - like that one of the Welsh words for 'that' is hynny - which sounds like honey. This made a lot of sentences with Miss Honey far jollier and more rhyming than they were in the original.

Oh, and another quirk of Welsh? We have no literal word for 'rat.'

Rats are not rats in Welsh, they are simply 'big mice.' Interesting enough to begin with, no?

Combine that with imagery, and, long story short, Mr Wormwood in the Welsh version of Matilda is, in fact, 'big-mouse-faced,' rather than rat-faced ;)

Mouse = llygoden
Rat = llygoden fawr






I personally think this rat/big mouse debacle is a significant act of denial on the part of my ancestors:

"Oi, butt, was tha' a rat?"

"Noooo.... just a big mouse."

"Are you sure? It looked like a-"

"No. IT WAS A BIG MOUSE, OK?"

"Alright butt, duw! Big mouse it is mate."

via GIPHY

(Honestly, my head is a weird - and very Wenglish - place sometimes)

So, that was my experience of book #2 - book #3, here I come!

Like this post? Try these:

• Reading Roald Dahl in Welsh (Part 1)
• St. David's Day - My Top 5 Roald Dahl Books

Wonder Woman and the UN

In case you haven't heard it yet - Wonder Woman was named a UN Ambassador for women recently. And some people aren't happy about it.

Now, I totally get why this is an issue for a lot of people. I also get why some people are happy about this announcement.

But - and this is the radical bit - this occurrence is neither the end of the world nor the saviour of humanity.






Let me sum-up a bit for you dearest nerdlets, and show you that all sides have some pretty impressive, and equally valid, points:





Not a 'real' woman


The evidence for the prosecution, m'lady, is as follows:

• Wonder Woman is fictional - she's not 'real.' There are plenty of non-fictional women who deserve the recognition of this role.

• She is often over-sexualised. Do we really want little girls looking up to a sex symbol as their role model?

• The creator of Wonder Woman was a man; her writers and artists are usually men. She is controlled by men.

• She has no voice of her own - only what people give her. She is a puppet with no agency of her own.

• Wonder Woman is commercial property - she is owned by DC comics. The UN currently has a women's ambassador who is beholden to commercial interests.

• Wonder Woman is too American to be a global ambassador.

Seems like there's a real case to be answered against her, doesn't it?

Women are warriors

The defence presents it's case m'lady:

• Wonder Woman is undeniably an icon with global recognition potential that needs little to no explanation.

• To many, she seems more real than the 'real' women - your average little girl is more likely to recognise - and relate to - Wonder Woman, than to Angela Merkel; so let's use that recognition for good.

• Wonder Woman was invented as a feminist icon - someone girls could look up to. This is a reclamation of her original identity - an undoing of the subversion of her original character; she wore a mini-skirt and knew it said nothing about her as a person. It was others who judged her for it.

• She saves the dude-in-distress constantly. Seriously, that's what she spent the first lord-knows-how-many years of her career doing - saving the useless dude's a*s, so that he didn't get his butt killed.

• She's canonically queer - any step forward for intersectional feminism can't be 100% bad.

• She shows girls that women can be whatever they want to be. A boob-tube and a mini-skirt doesn't make you stupid, weak, or ineffective.

So, valued members of the jury, what do you think? Is the case for or against Wonder Woman strong enough to make a valid judgement?

Here's my take: let's do something really radical, and assume that appointing one UN Women's Ambassador isn't enough! Let's appoint, oh, I don't know - 2 women? 3 women? 5 women? A whole team of women? Lord knows there's enough work for them.

The question shouldn't be: should we appoint a fictional character to this position?

It should be: Can we appoint this fictional character and this activist and this neuroscientist and this CEO and this charity worker and...?

Because Wonder Woman is going to a great job, regardless of who's for her, and who's against her - but why the hell should she have to do this alone?

Like this post? Try these:

• Review Time! - Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life by Liesa Mignona (Ed.)
• Nerd Church - When Heroes Fall

Month In Review(s) - October 2016

October is over!!! And I'm sure most of you are currently stuffed with sweets and/or chocolate from Halloween.

So, without further ado my dearest nerdlets - let's get this wrap-up started!

October was a pretty cr*ppy month for me, depression-wise, but I'm lucky enough to have a) family, b) The Bestie, and c) all of you guys.

Seriously, I appreciate you guys a butt-tonne! You make me smile :)

And even though someone who I once considered cool - a fellow bookworm in fact - unfollowed me when I tweeted about LGBTQ+ things, the number of people actually doing that has reduced from what was happening last month.

This is possibly because I've put Sexually Fluid/Queer on my Twitter bio - so the a*shole bigots probably aren't following me to begin with.

And the very lastest day of this month saw my two-year blog anniversary! And with over 40k pageviews over all, and over 7k pageviews this month, DORA is still going strong (and I'm so surprised and happy, you honestly wouldn't believe it!)

So, to the books I reviewed this month:

Young Adult

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley - historical fiction, LGBTQ+ (F/F)

Adult

Finders Keepers by Stephen King - crime, thriller

Star-Shot by Mary-Ann Constantine - magic realism*, sci-fi* (*ish)

Comics/Graphic Novels

Bread and Butter #1 - contemporary

Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead - kids, horror, zombies

Comics Wrap Up - Things Are Shaping Up To Be Pretty Odd

Film Trailers

Marvel made a Doctor Strange trailer that makes 2 different trailers! One when it's played forwards, and one when it's reversed.

It's called 'Strange's Time' (yes, the trailer has it's own title, but to be fair, whoever made it is probably pretty chuffed with themselves right now.)

Here it is played forwards:

Annnnd here it is in reverse:

And just because I like your robot, dear nerdlets, here's the new TV spot for Doctor Strange too:

TV Trailers

Dudes, the next series of DC's Legends of Tomorrow looks EPIC!!!!

As a reminder: this is the series which totally shouldn't work but does - a ragtag spinoff with minor characters from CW's DC pantheon, along with him-off-Dr-Who (otherwise known as Arthur Darvill, here playing Rip Hunter,) and a flying time machine.

We also have one of the only LGBTQ+ superheroes to ever make it on screen (and still be LGBTQ+ - Harley Quinn, Mystique, Loki, et al. had that part of their identity erased when transferred to screen) - the amazing and beautiful Sara Lance, aka the White (formerly the Black) Canary.

Yes, my dearest nerdlets, this looks pretty damned cool:

Graphic Novels

This week I read and reviewed Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead (UK - US.)

This is a fun and zombie-filled kids/all-ages graphic novel, which I enjoyed a helluva lot more than I thought I would!

You can check out my review of Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead here.

So that's it for my week in comics, dearest nerdlets: on to the next week!

Like this post? Try these:

• Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead
• How Superhero TV Shows Are Leading the Way For Diversity

Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead

Title: Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead

Author: Steve Bryant

Contributors: Mark Stegbauer, Jason Millet

Genre: Kids, Horror, Zombies

Series: Ghoul Scouts #1-#4

Release Date: 18th Oct 2016 (US); 20th Oct 2016 (UK)

Amazon: UK - USA

A few starting notes:

I received a free digital review copy of this book via Edelweiss. Edelweiss provides review copies from publishers in exchange for fair and honest reviews.

In honesty, I thought this would just be OK, and nothing more. Turns out, it was really freaking awesome! :)

Premise:

Full Moon Hollow - Paranormal Capital of the World. But of course, those are just stories.

A scout jamboree. Fun, right?

Until the zombies show up, and the remains of two scout groups have to fight to find their way to safety...

What the hell is going on in Full Moon Hollow?

Best bits:

Have you ever thought what would happen when you smoosh a multi-racial Scooby-Doo style gang of kids (unfortunately, without the dog,) into Brian K Vaughn's Paper Girls, with the more family-friendly parts of the film Zombieland?

Nope, me neither. But clearly someone's been thinking about it - because here it is.

And it's really fun!

Bright, spoopy ('spooky' to the purists amongst you,) and with an adventure that really scoops you up and drags you along with it, this is a really involving book.

The artwork was effective - bright, but not too in-your-face.

And the main characters are pretty evenly split between white characters and people of colour (PoCs). Overall, the split may even be slightly in favour of PoCs - depending on who you count as main characters.

It's done well - not forced; it simply is (as it should be.)

Not so great bits:

While the kids were relatively well-drawn characters (in the metaphorical sense - though in the literal sense too, I suppose,) I think they still could do with some character development - though this may be expanded on in continuations of the series.

I also think that things maybe weren't tied up correctly...?

Like, how did the kids explain the zombie attack to the adults? And where the hell did the zombies come from in the first place?

Again, this is possibly just a symptom of first-volume restrictions - and it's entirely possible that this'll get sorted in later instalments.

OK, so I'm nit-picking a little... but someone has to ;)

Verdict:

This was so fun! A well-rounded kids' story (and big kids, like yours truly, of course,) with a diverse cast and zombies!

With room for growth, and perfect for Halloween, I really do recommend this one guys - I enjoyed the hell out of it! :)

Buy Now UK – Buy Now USA – Goodreads

Liked this post? Try these:

• Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Paper Girls, Vol 1
• Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Malice in Ovenland by Micheline Hess

Comics Wrap-Up - Live Without Warning

TV Trailers

Marvel's Agents of Shield will be back soon! ...With Ghost Rider.

Yeah... I'm hoping this will work but... yeah... it's an interesting choice.

-0-

Also in the category of 'oh God, please don't have taken this a series too far' is the up-coming series of Arrow.

I love Arrow. Like, really love it - but we've already come to several natural endings to this series. So please forgive me for being a little wary of this latest continuation.

Single Issues

This week I wrote a mini-review of The Sun Dragon's Song #1 by Joyce Chng and Kim Miranda (UK - US.)

It's a beautiful book, and a great start to the series. The artwork is truly incredible.

You can check out my mini-review here.

Other Stuff

Annnnd this Toon Sandwich spoof of the Justice League trailer made me laugh.

There's a bunch of random violence - just to let you know.

Like this post? Try these:

• Mini-Review! (Comics Edition!) - The Sun Dragon's Song #1
• Comics Wrap-Up - And She's Dangerous

Mini-Review! (Comics Edition!) - The Sun Dragon's Song #1

Title: The Sun Dragon's Song #1

Author: Joyce Chng, Kim Miranda

Genre: Kids, Fantasy

Series: The Sun Dragon's Song

Release Date: 21 September 2016

Amazon: UK - USA

Verdict:

I received a free digital review copy of this book from the publishers, Rosarium Publishing, via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I know I normally write full reviews instead of mini-reviews when I have an ARC, but this is only a single comic issue, so I figured a mini-review would give me enough time to talk about it. :)

This is the first issue in 'The Sun Dragon's Song' series - and it's a promising start.

First off: the artwork. THE ARTWORK. SERIOUSLY, THE ARTWORK.

It's stunningly beautiful. I would frame any page from this book and put it on my wall. Wow. Just... WOW.

I also liked the slow pace to this first issue, it's very gentle, but not at all boring - which I really like.

Pretty much the only criticism I can make of this book is that some of the dialogue felt a little overly-exposition-based, and perhaps a little forced...?

But overall, that really wasn't a big problem. And I'm being a little nit-picky now, I know; but that was really the only thing that I could criticise.

I just hope the rest of the series is this beautiful! Seriously, it's hard to exaggerate just how stunning this comic was visually.

(And dragons! I mean... dragons!!!!!)

Hopefully our little hero will get closer to his dream of being a Sun Dragon Rider, and prove the a**-holes who make fun of his disability wrong! (Yes, I'm invested in this... very much so!)

Buy Now UK – Buy Now USA – Goodreads

Liked this post? Try these:

• Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Malice in Ovenland by Micheline Hess
• Graphic Novels With Latinx Main Character/s