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Author Archives: Alicia Abdul

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About Alicia Abdul

You'll find me drinking tea in a dress and reading... or making lists.

Six sensational books near/by/about water

19 Jun

With a heat index of about 100 degrees here in New York State, I figured water both to hydrate and swim in is the best way to keep cool besides air conditioning. Hence, today’s topic featuring water!

  1. The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag: Featuring a selkie.
  2. A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Arshay Cooper: Like Crossing the Line by Kareem Rosser, addressing racism in sports notoriously dominated by white people leads to a deeper understanding of the discipline of any sport and how it shapes us as humans.
  3. In Waves by A.J. Dungo: Deeply emotional, this graphic memoir is an homage to surfing and a woman.
  4. Swim the Fly by Don Calame: So stinkin’ funny and also about a boy winning the affections of a girl on the swim team by joining the swim team.
  5. Aniana Del Mar Jumps In by Jasminne Mendez: Being diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, Dominican girl Aniana conspires with her dad to swim against mom’s wishes.
  6. Swim Team by Johnnie Christmas: A middle grade graphic novel with a big heart.
 
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Posted by on June 19, 2024 in Authors, Fiction, Graphic novels, Illustrators, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 

Six sensational manga series

18 Jun

Reading a first volume of a manga series is make or break for me. I’ll know by the end whether I’d want to invest more time in the rest of the series and they typically hold strong if the storyline, characters, or setting (or all three!) are compelling. Here are some of my favorites:

  1. The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe: A unique relationship between a fantastical creature “from the other side” that the girl calls Teacher.
  2. Blue Box by Kouji Miura: A sweet sports romance.
  3. The Way of the House Husband by Kousuke Dono: It can’t get more humorous than a reformed gangster taking care of his wife and the household.
  4. Cells at Work by Akane Shimizu: I wouldn’t want to learn about the human body any other way.
  5. Spy X Family by Tatsuya Endo: A spy, an assassin, a telepath, and a dog with premonitions create a found family for a mission without knowing each others’ true identities.
  6. Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama: A magical adventure, a delightful protagonist in Coco, and an atelier that trains witches in sigils and glyphs.
 
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Posted by on June 18, 2024 in Manga, Middle grade, Young Adult

 

Six sensational books with characters in prison

17 Jun

As with the list featuring characters dealing with sexual assault and violence, it’s hard to celebrate “six sensational” when it comes to being imprisoned, but again, it’s a necessary topic in literature.

  1. Dear Justyce by Nic Stone
  2. Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
  3. Juvie by Steve Watkins
  4. From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
  5. Born Behind Bars by Padma Venkatraman
  6. Hands by Torrey Maldonado
 
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Posted by on June 17, 2024 in Fiction, Middle grade, Verse, Young Adult

 

Six sensational books about dads

16 Jun

It’s Father’s Day here in the United States, so it’s natural to highlight stories featuring dad’s prominently– the good, the bad, and anything in between.

  1. Brownstone by Samuel Teer and Mar Julia: A dad wanting to teach and get to know a daughter who he hasn’t raised but wants to reconnect starting over a summer while fixing up a brownstone.
  2. The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn by Sally J. Pla: A dad who doesn’t see his daughter’s autism as a hindrance for her personal growth.
  3. My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame: Single dads raising daughters and gay culture in Japan.
  4. Spy X Family by Tatsuya Edno: How do you be your spy self, find a wife, and adopt a girl all in the name of a work assignment?
  5. Peak by Roland Smith: Pushing his son to the limits of mountaineering but maybe he has different ambitions.
  6. Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry illustrated by Vashti Harrison: It takes all types of hair to be a dad and help a daughter with hers.
 
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Posted by on June 16, 2024 in Childrens, Fiction, Graphic novels, Manga, Middle grade, Young Adult

 

Six sensational school stories

15 Jun

With school coming to a close for us in New York State, I’m dedicating today’s post to six sensational stories that rely on school as a primary backdrop for the story. This doesn’t include the boarding school stories typically providing the vibe for dark academia books which will come in a future post.

  1. Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui: A classroom of students whose quest it is to try to surprise and kill their alien octopus teachers before he destroys the world… good luck.
  2. The Superteacher Project by Gordon Korman: How many of your teachers do you think might have been robots??!?!
  3. The Pregnancy Project by Gabby Rodriguez with Jenna Glatzer: A memoir of a girl who faked a pregnancy in her senior year of high school to capture the attitudes of teen pregnancy provides a mirror for us all.
  4. Schooled by Gordon Korman: How does a kid go from homeschool to middle school and not make a few mistakes?
  5. Invisible by Christina Diaz Gonzalez and Gabriella Espstein: The racism the students experienced being put together in the cafeteria for a service project bonds them in more ways than one.
  6. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: Ostracized after Melinda called the cops at a summer party, it’s making her first year of high school miserable, especially when she has to see HIM; luckily her art teacher is helping her lean into her pain.
 
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Posted by on June 15, 2024 in Fiction, Graphic novels, Manga, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 

Six sensational books with sensitive content

14 Jun

Obviously a title like “six sensational” paired with books featuring a sexual assault or sexual abuse is oxymoronic. However, if you’ve been following each post this month, I’m attempting to create mini booklists for topics with the theme of “six sensational”. This topic is one that I knew I wanted to address and here are books that have both been popular with teens for lit circles and individual readers advisory and also have the capacity to show empathy and understanding.

  1. Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess: Evil that lives inside the home.
  2. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez: Historical and gutting.
  3. Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley: There are caring adults that exist.
  4. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: A contemporary classic that can be paired with Shout by Anderson as well.
  5. Fault Line by C. Desir: Desir’s work other than writing provides a larger context for why teens need to read the book.
  6. Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott: A thin book that packs the ultimate punch.
 
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Posted by on June 14, 2024 in Fiction, Middle grade, Young Adult

 

Six sensational retellings

13 Jun

Where there’s a classic story, there’s a retelling of that classic story. Here are a few favorites.

  1. Red Hood by E.K. Arnold: Little Red Riding Hood but feminist.
  2. An Arrow to the Moon by Emily X.R. Pan: Romeo and Juliet but add Chinese mythology.
  3. The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson: Carrie but with racism.
  4. Snow & Rose by Emily Winfield Martin: Snow White and Red Rose but more woodsy and with mushrooms.
  5. Hunted by Meagan Spooner: Beauty and the Beast but with a Firebird.
  6. A Drop of Venom by Sajni Patel: Medusa mythology with more snakes.
 
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Posted by on June 13, 2024 in Fiction, Young Adult

 

Six sensational books set in space

12 Jun

When done well it pulls me in because science fiction isn’t my go-to category to read from. However, these were all fantastic and of course, of course, of course, I have to highlight Saga. If you ever want to talk about Saga with me, I’m always available. I own them all AND I have reread them several times over.

  1. The Martian by Andy Weir: Survival in space alone.
  2. Crownchasers by Rebecca Coffindaffer: A reluctant rise to power and a space race.
  3. The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James: Atmospherically intense.
  4. Space Trash by Jenn Woodall: Will they ever get back to earth after it’s been trashed.
  5. Crash From Outer Space: Unraveling the Mystery of Flying Saucers, Alien Beings, and Roswell by Candace Fleming: A well-presented middle grade about all things outer space from a prolific nonfiction writer.
  6. Saga series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples: I cannot say anything that comes close to doing this series justice (even though it’s not even finished yet), so I won’t. All I can say is, it’s a must-read and certainly adult content.
 
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Posted by on June 12, 2024 in Adult, Comics, Fiction, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 

Six sensational haunted house stories

11 Jun

Having recently finished Not Quite a Ghost, I realized there are quite a few fantastic stories that featuring houses- not necessarily always haunted but possibly enchanted, but quite the characters all on their own. A list of six of them here.

  1. She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran: Body and house horror combine for a haunting good time.
  2. Saint Juniper’s Folly by Alex Crespo: When a house takes you hostage.
  3. Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke: We all have things in the basement.
  4. Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu: In the mind or in the walls?
  5. The Curious Vanishing of Beatrice Willoughby by G.Z. Schmidt: A mystery from a house party ten years before.
  6. Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury: A ten year difference in the same house for two different girls both yield danger.

 
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Posted by on June 11, 2024 in Fiction, Graphic novels, Middle grade, Young Adult

 

Six sensational honeybee stories

10 Jun

Now that summer is in full swing, bees are a-buzzing. Last year, we put up a honeybee home by our flowers and plants and are hoping that the bees find their way soon enough. It got me thinking about a few stories that feature bees, both fiction and nonfiction.

  1. Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera by Candace Fleming illustrated by Eric Rohmann: The perfect picture book about honeybees.
  2. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd: The Black beekeeping sisters certainly make the book memorable.
  3. The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May: Using the animal world as a mirror for the human world as she moves past her dysfunctional upbringing is an emotional journey.
  4. The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us by Bee Wilson: All of Wilson’s books have been fabulous, so exploring everything from the use of honey in words like honeymoon and calling someone a busy bee to how it enhances food was a work of art.
  5. Between You, Me, and the Honeybees by Amelia Diane Coombs: An enemies to lovers YA romance about a girl who loves her apiary.
  6. A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings: A Year of Keeping Bees by Helen Jukes: An unhurried story of learning about life through learning from bees.
 
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Posted by on June 10, 2024 in Adult, Authors, Childrens, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 
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