Next : D'Bow's High School Hoops by Kevin Waltman (Review)

I will admit that sports books are outside of my comfort zone. I'm a vampire and alternate reality type of girl, but I will say that Waltman's Next: D'Bow's High School Hoops drew me in with great dialogue and the kind of break-neck action that has you waiting on the end of your seat and skipping to the next page to see what will happen next, and this is despite my little knowledge of basketball terminology, and that's saying quite a bit. I was four chapters in before I figured out a "bucket" was a good thing.

Derrick Brown is the next rising start at Marion East High, the struggling inner city school on the wrong side of town. His coach is hard on him, mostly because he can see potential, but Derrick bristles. When Hamilton East, the preppy private school in the "nice" part of town comes calling Derrick can't help but listen, especially when they thrown in a few perks to sweeten the deal, but after a full season of sweat and tears with his team can he just transfer and turn friends into enemies?

You can kind of get an idea of what Derrick will choose early on, but it's a nice ride and it's a quick pick for anyone who is interested in basketball. What's also great is that while the dialogue is completely on point there was no effort to dumb down the content for the reader. This is a mistake that I see too often with sports books and books targeted for boys, especially boys of color.

Pick it up!

Girls Like Us by Gail Giles (Review)

Gail Giles weaves a tale as rich and thick as triple-chocolate cake. We all know that some people think diversity is just double-speak for Black, but in Girls Like Us we get to know girls who are marginalized, not just because of their color, but because of their experience, their placement in school, their pasts.

Biddy and Quincy are "Speddies", or slang for special education students who have just graduated from high school and are placed together in an apartment that they rent from an elderly woman in town. Biddy cleans house and works as a home-health aide and Quincy does the cooking at a local bakery. Both girls are developmentally disabled on different levels, but we get to learn how they navigate the world, how they treat it and how it treats them in return.

The pain of their childhoods cut deep and Quincy's quick Southern tongue is a special treat for someone like me who has a soft spot for regional fair. These girls aren't rich, pretty, or neurotypical. They aren't at all what is usually presented to us and you have to love them. It is a must read and a punch to the gut in the same way that Push by Sapphire was when it came out. I totally expect it to be challenged and for that you should have your school book club read it now!

Side note: I'm pissed at Candlewick for this awful, awful cover. If you can't do justice to the multiracial backgrounds of the characters then don't depict them at all. There are tons of font heavy covers to offer you inspiration.

Placed on Recommendation list for a GA Peach Award. (By the by. If you want to read great fiction. Review it and let people know about it.)

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson : What Awesomesauce is made of

Feminist, sci-fi, queer friendly, post-apocalyptic, Portuguese, afro-Latino revolution music. That's what The Summer Prince is. It is what you've always wanted to be printed, what you've been waiting for, but just didn't know it.

Alaya Dawn Johnson weaves a tale set 400 years after the apocalypse in a floating glass pyramid on the shores of what was once known as Brazil. In this matriarchal society (yes, I said, a city ruled by a Queen and her sentry of Aunties) a strange custom has evolved where each moon year and sun year a Prince is crowned from among the wakas (citizens under 30. With advanced technology, death has been almost eliminated as people age well into their second century) only to shine brightly until the end of winter where he'll be sacrificed and choose the new queen with his final dying act.

June is our heroine and she is "the best artist in Palmarez Tres." When her best friend Gil and she both ogle over the newly elected Summer Prince, no one is shocked more than she is when Enki chooses Gil to be his consort at the very first inaugural dance. (You caught that right. I said the PRINCE chose, GIL, a boy to be his consort). Raised in the verde, the bottom tier of the pyramid and dark as night, Enki gives the Aunties a little more than they bargained for with his revolutionary leanings, leanings that June is all to happy to attach herself to as she tries to make a name for herself as an artist. What follows is a tale of revolution, the pain of accepting love and the joy of accepting death, and there is plenty of  data streaming, spider bot, technological body modifcation to satisfy any sci-fi lover.

Our characters are honey-colored, sandy brown and almost blue black. The language is Portuguese but we're reading it in English, our food is spicy and the lines of sexuality are so blurred they either no longer matter or no longer exist. Technology is running rampant to the point where a soul can be downloaded and the body left behind. The New World Order has left many of our issue behind, but the struggle for power still holds true and the battle between young and old, rich and poor, still exist.

This is a must read, a MUST read.

Newly endowed with power I've recommended the title to be considered for the Georgia Peach Award List for 2014-2015. This is where a call for diversity starts working to lift good titles to the forefront. Diversity advocates have to sit on the boards that recommend titles for recognition, they have to write reviews and they have to constantly push the books with characters of color, with characters who are LGBT, with characters who are other than affluent, suburban, straight and blonde.