marywahlmeierbracciano's reviews
827 reviews

Little Shrew is a perfect book.  I'm literally obsessed with every detail.  Three slice-of-life snippets are beautifully illustrated, alternating color and black-and-white.  This relatable creature of habit will steal your heart, and you'll want to read his stories over and over.

Ghosts of Gold Mountain is one of very few books chronicling the fascinating story of the Chinese workers who built much of America’s Transcontinental Railroad.  Even as not a single firsthand account from the Railroad Chinese has been found, Chang does a great job of piecing together what little exists in historical records.  He paints a picture of enterprising young men from the Pearl River Delta, dreaming of Gold Mountain fortune, who brought their culture with them to California and beyond.  Despite their incredible accomplishments—hand-built tunnels and retaining walls, endless miles of efficiently-laid track, and a successful strike—the Railroad Chinese were dehumanized to the point of being nameless and numberless, most even to this day.  It’s a shame we don’t know more, but this book is a great start.

Too disturbing 

The Serviceberry is Robin Wall Kimmerer’s inspiring call to action to reintroduce Indigenous wisdom into our society by way of the gift economy.  This would mean allowing the cycle of resources to be less transactional and more personal, moving away from individual excess and towards mutual flourishing.  She invites readers to see everything from nature as a gift—clean water, fresh produce, meat from animals—so long as it is freely given, and to keep the gift moving through the cycle of generosity.  Growing up, I was often told to “trust that God will provide.”  In a community of abundance and reciprocity, we can trust that our neighbors (human and more-than-human) will provide, so long as we do the same. 

Your Farm feels like setting up a farm play set, but in book form.  Jon Klassen's matter-of-fact style leaves room for readers to create a new story each time they read it.  And it doubles as a bedtime book!

Travel to the 19th-century Netherlands in Marjolijn Hof’s The Curse of Madame Petrova!  This dark, adventurous novel follows twin runaways who, before their birth, were predicted by a fortune teller to die by each other’s hand.  Straightaway, they’re living off the land, but before long they’re forced to seek civilization.  Gender roles are subverted, the tarot is a major theme, and the twins will learn hard lessons about money and lies.  An especially satisfying read during the colder months, this book comes together so nicely at the end.

Jason Reynolds’s Twenty-Four Seconds from Now is like Judy Blume’s Forever, but from the perspective of a tender, shy, Black seventeen-year-old boy.  It’s Neon and Aria’s two-year dating anniversary, and they want to have sex…now.  The story rewinds in increments of twenty-four—seconds, minutes, hours, and finally twenty-four months before, when Neon and Aria first met.  Neon’s colorful family adds humor and heart to this realistic story, which takes great care in doing the heavy lifting of normalizing teen sexuality.  In Reynolds’s signature conversational yet poetic style, even sheltered readers will catch mentions of porn, masturbation, and, most especially, feeling nervous and excited about sex.

Andrew Joseph White just doesn’t miss.  Compound Fracture is yet another stunning, visceral novel from the absolute master of trans YA horror.  Miles is proud of his Appalachian heritage, but it ain’t easy being an Abernathy.  The brutal murder of his great-great-grandfather—an outspoken socialist, labor organizer, and coal miner—ignited a decades-long blood feud that has Miles beaten to within an inch of his life in the book’s first pages.  What follows is a bloody, beautiful story about finding power in family—past and present, touching on radical politics, the opioid crisis, and trans erasure and with much-needed undiagnosed autistic representation.  Dani Martineck’s narration is incredible.  Read this instead of Hillbilly Elegy.