3. The Red Pencil
The Red Pencil is a fiction book based in Sudan about Amira, a 12-year-old girl who loves to learn. She lives a good life in her town, but one day the Janjaweed militants arrive and attack the community. Amira and her family are forced to flee to a refugee camp, and they face many troubles on the journey and once they are there. One of the big things is that Amira stops talking, but when she is gifted a red pencil things slowly start to change for her. But, it’s not all sad. There are quite a few hopeful and positive moments throughout the book. This book is also directed to a little bit of a younger audience than the other two books, but I still recommend that you give it a chance just because it’s really neat to see how different people’s lives can be and how huge things can happen to just young kids. This book was 5 out of 5 stars for me because I think that the author did a great job portraying the seriousness and importance of real stories similar to this one while also making it more universal and understandable for younger kids to be exposed to these matters. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone and everyone, especially if you are looking for a book with inspiring messages.
2. Brown Girl Dreaming
Brown Girl Dreaming is a very well-known memoir about Jacqueline Woodson’s childhood and what her experiences were growing up as an African-American girl living in the 60s and 70s. After her parents split, Jackie and her family move down to South Caroline to live with her mother’s parents. The kids grow up there, and after their mother moves up to New York, they are taken care of by their grandparents. This book speaks wonderfully about fighting segregation and racism, and what makes this book so special is that it’s written from the eyes of a child. While it is technically a middle-grade novel, I would say that people of all ages should read Brown Girl Dreaming because there is always something that you can get from it. I gave this book 5 stars as well just because it was unlike any other books that I have read and I absolutely love the messages. If you haven’t picked it up yet, I highly highly recommend that you do.
1. Turtle Under Ice
This book is not as well known as the other books on this list, but it really deserves more hype. Turtle Under Ice is a contemporary novel written in a dual perspective about two sisters, Rowena and Ariana. Their mom passed away a few years ago, and this story talks about them dealing with their grief as well as how they sort of lost each other with their mom. Ariana, the older sister, has had a hard time dealing with the stress of her mom’s passing as well as the thought of Row looking up to her and being disappointed. Row needs support that she doesn’t have, and when Ariana disappears one night, Row has to figure out what happened and where Ariana went. I gave this book 5 stars also because I loved everything about this book. The author has a lovely writing style and this book just flowed so well through the poems. I really enjoyed the use of metaphors and there were many instances where I had to put the book down and just process what I had just read. This was also one of the very few books that I actually cried at. The whole book was wonderful and the ending was just so pure and perfect. I think that everyone should read this.
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