Author and librarian Ann Clare LeZotte is deaf, so this story of a deaf girl living in community that is half deaf and half hearing on Martha’s Vineyard is born out of the author’s own experiences, for what that is worth. I do think it’s always enlightening to read “own voices” stories when they are available and well written.

The story takes place in the early 1900’s when there actually was such a community of mixed hearing and non-hearing persons living together on Martha’s Vineyard. This community used their own version of sign language (MVSL) to communicate, and that sign language formed part of the basis for ASL (American Sign Language) years later in the mid-nineteenth century.

Mary Lambert, the protagonist of the story, is a deaf girl who has grown up up safe and protected in little island community. Nevertheless, before the story opens, Mary’s family has experienced a devastating tragedy: Mary’s brother George died in accident. And no one else knows that the accident was Mary’s fault. George saved her life at the expense of his own.

Mary’s mother particularly doted on George, and Mary is unsure about whether her mother truly loves and cares for her, now that George is gone. At this point the story veers off into the coming of a stranger to the community, a stranger who wants to study the deaf people on the island and find out “what’s wrong with them.” The problem is the stranger’s prejudices; the islanders, hearing or not, don’t think anything is wrong with being deaf.

This novel definitely gives new perspectives on both deafness and Native American attitudes and culture. (Some of the minor characters in the book are Wampanoag, and the author goes to great lengths to write about the Wampanoag respectfully and accurately.) About halfway through Something Bad happens, and the story gets exciting. I really did enjoy and learn from reading this book about a place and time in history that was previously unknown to me.

However, there are some weaknesses in the book. It starts off slow and veers off onto various rabbit trails that ultimately go nowhere. What is the point of the Wampanoag servant characters, father and daughter, who work for Mary’s father and Mary’s best friend’s family? In fact, what is the point of pages and pages about Mary and her best friend, Nancy and their escapades? Why do the two friends apologize to each other at the end of the book? (Maybe I missed something?) The ending itself went on way too long, several chapters of getting home and tearful reunion. And yes, the setting and characters were unique and interesting, but the friendships in the story were odd and unfocused.

Hank Hudson can’t stand one more day of listening to his teacher read aloud the horrible, sad book about a boy who is hiding in the forest from the Nazis. He’s already protested and asked to be excused, to no avail. So he does the only thing left to do: burn the book.

With this scene of attempted book burning (no one is harmed and even the book survives the attempt), we are introduced to Hank who loves rocks, and perceptive readers will understand that ten year old Hank is “on the spectrum” even though the label of autism is not introduced until later in the story. Hank’s unsuccessful book burning catches the attention of a girl in his class, Maisie, who is looking for an accomplice and a friend to help her rescue a dog named Booler, and off we go with Maisie and Hank on a series of madcap, slightly dangerous, highly illegal adventures.

Maisie is not autistic, but she is quite immature and fixated on Booler, a dog with a seizure disorder. Maisie sympathizes with the next door neighbor’s dog to an excessive degree. Hank, on the other hand, just wants a friend, and he finds one in Maisie, even though the two fifth graders both have some things to learn about true friendship.

This middle grade fiction book is a funny, easy read with a good message–“different is not less”–and a good heart. The story is a sensitive yet entertaining portrayal of autism and other differences and of good intentions gone awry.

Korean American seventh grader Pippa Park gets a scholarship to a rich private school where she tries to ingratiate herself with the popular clique while covering up her working class, public school background. She’s also busy with trying to understand algebra, play winning basketball, and take care of her chores and responsibilities at home. The popular girls get mean; Pippa gets exhausted, enmeshed in lies and half-truths; and the good-looking math tutor that Pippa’s sister hired for her barely acknowledges Pippa’s existence.

It’s a fairly cliche plot with a standard cast of characters. However, the thing that made this book fun for me is that it’s a “reimagining” of the Charles Dickens classic Great Expectations. Pippa is Pip, of course. Her rich math tutor, Eliot Haverford, who lives in a mansion and deals with unreasonable family expectations, is a take-off on Estella. Pippa lives with her older sister, Mina, who also has high expectations for Mina’s academic achievements, and with Mina’s husband, Jung-hwa, who is a warm and fuzzy Joe Gargery. And so on.

If reading this book would cause some middle school readers to take on Great Expectations, I’m all for it. I think Great Expectations is one of Dickens’ most accessible novels. I read it aloud to three of my children the they were about ten, eight and six years old. I’m not sure the six year old followed all of the plot and action, but she listened with the other two who did demonstrate an understanding of the basic outline and ideas of the novel. And we all enjoyed the read aloud, so I’m sure an average middle schooler could handle Dickens’ rags to riches story.

Pippa Park Raises her Game has a lot of crushing on boys, mean girls being mean, and Pippa herself being somewhat deceitful and ashamed of her family and background. If you would rather not read about any or all of these subjects, then caveat emptor. Never fear, however, good does triumph, and Pippa, like Pip, learns her lessons after much drama and turmoil brought on mostly by her own actions.

Oh, I liked the fact that Pippa listens to K-pop and watches K-dramas. These are good details in a good, solid book that reads a little bit like a K-drama.

In 1960, children’s author Mary Stolz published a book called The Dog of Barkham Street, about a boy, a dog, an undependable uncle, and a bully named Martin. Three years later the sequel to The Dog of Barkham Street, The Bully of Barkham Street, told the same story from the point of view of Martin, the villain/bully of the first story. I remember reading these two books and being made to think about how the same story can look completely different from a different point view. Author Susan Perabo writes about this recognition that everyone has his own story in a blog post at Read It Forward called What I Learned on Barkham Street.

It’s an important lesson, and not one we learn from being preached at. As Ms. Perabo says, “In the hands of a lesser writer, these books might have seemed like teaching tools instead of great stories—a ten year old can smell a life lesson a mile away.” I still have Mary Stolz’s books in my library, and they still speak powerfully to children (and adults) about understanding and character and looking at people from a different perspective. Nevertheless, there’s room in the world for more than one story like this. Finding Langston and Leaving Lymon by Lesa Cline-Ransome are two books written much in the same vein as Mary Stolz’s titles. And the two books together have the power to bring a sense of empathy and understanding to a new generation of readers.

Finding Langston tells the story of a young African American boy who moves from Alabama to Chicago with his father during what is called The Great Migration, the movement of many Black Americans from the Jim Crow South into the cities of the northern United States. Langston is a country boy, and he finds the streets and schools of the big city unfriendly and difficult to navigate. The bullying and teasing he receives from classmates, especially the mean, hostile for no reason, Lymon, is almost more than Langston can stand. Nevertheless, Langston finds solace in the library and in the poetry of Langston Hughes.

Lymon is a minor character in Finding Langston, an unrepentant bully and just another hard thing for Langston to learn to overcome or endure. But in Leaving Lymon, Lymon gets his own story. We find out why Lymon is so angry, why he doesn’t have the strength or maturity to be kind or friendly, and why Lymon and Langston can’t understand each other despite their similar backgrounds. Both boys have moved to Chicago from the South; both come from country roots,; both find some comfort in the arts, Langston in poetry and Lymon in music. But instead of sharing their stories and finding connection, both boys are trapped by their own troubled circumstances.

In spite of the difficult topics that are covered in these two novels—death, grief, abuse, bullying, abandonment—both books do have the requisite somewhat happy and hopeful ending. Langston learns to stand up for himself and to feel a connection to his dead mother. Lymon is still angry at his parents for abandoning him, but he learns to express that anger and to look to the future rather than dwelling on the unfixable past. I think Mary Stolz would like these new books on an old theme of walking a mile in the other person’s shoes.