It’s springtime, really; at least the calendar says so, even if snow is supposedly due tomorrow. Oh well, time to hunker down for some good reads. 

Despite the thrilling detective series – Michael Connolly’s Harry Bosch tales – I listen to in the car that makes the drive to the grocery store a challenge of concentration, I find middle grade books suit the evening calm. There are challenges aplenty for the characters, but viable solutions and reconciliations generally bring the stories to a satisfying ending.

In each case, the cover artist has conveyed the author’s intent perfectly. In Corey Ann Haydu’s Eventown, only one house of the identical homes is taken over by encroaching vines, while dark clouds cast shade on a few streets: what could be happening? 

The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, by Ashley Herring Blake, depicts two girls carefully seated at the beach, one in a one-piece, the other in a bikini with bright suns, facing a swirly blue, mermaid-inhabited ocean. 

Finally, a young black girl of middle school age is shown with three stripes of progressively lighter coloring painted across her face in Genesis Begins Again, by Alicia D. Williams. Foreshadowing begins on the covers!

Sunny is facing some major challenges: she’s recovering from a heart transplant, facing her birth mom after an eight year absence, and wondering why, when she sets her goal on kissing a boy, she always imagines her new BFF, Quinn of the sunshine bikini. It will take her mom, Lena, her “Kate,” who has raised her, and Dave of the whiny guitar songs to help her untangle the chaos of feelings inside that are “brand new to Sunny” heart. Who ever said being 12 was a snap?

Black middle schooler Genesis has to move again – ugh – because her alcoholic dad can’t pay the rent, while Mom does her best to keep them from falling back on the “evil” Grandma. I choose that word the way my kids would, as in, someone who makes your life just soooo miserable. 

The move lands them in a Detroit suburb and away from some poisonous friendships. In Farmington Hills, Genesis finds a sympathetic math teacher who leads her to a cool, violin-playing tutor, is found by a new friend, and struggles with not only her dad but her own perceived image of being just too dark-skinned. 

What she goes through to achieve lightness and truth in all forms of being is enough to make you wish you were there with her. Just so you know, the music teacher is a real gem!

Eventown is just that; everything from gymnastic routines and music class to houses and the weather is even, that is, the same. When identical twins Naomi and Elodee settle in with their parents, they’ve left a heartache behind in their lives in Juniper … but not so fast. Always the different and outrageous twin, Elodee has her Welcome Center session interrupted by her new BFF’s mother, Ms. Butra, cutting off the process of essentially leaving the past behind. 

What a blessing that interruption turns out to be, as Elodee and Veena Butra seek out the hidden stories of Eventown’s residents in a race to escape the new wild weather and encroaching vines and weeds.

I promised the Bachelder Library book group that I would mention the May selection: Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. It’s bound to be a provocative and revealing read and discussion. Join us on Friday, May 28 by emailing Lee Wells at WABLibrary@nullgmail.com for the Zoom connection.