Echo Mountain

Wolk, Lauren.  Echo Mountain.  Dutton Children's Books. 2020.  New York, NY.

image: Library Nut

Ellie's family has lost everything in the Depression and they have moved to the mountain to a patch of land to survive.  When they first arrive, they don't even have shelter.  Ellie and her family live in a tent while they struggle to build a solid shelter before winter sets in.  As Ellie and her family struggle to survive, there are very few bright moments.  But one day, a mysterious carving appears attached to the dog's collar.  Ellie finds this treasure and keeps it for herself.  She hides it where only she can see it so that she doesn't have to share with anyone else.

As we join Ellie in the story, her father has suffered a tragic action.  He lies deep in a coma after a tree has fallen on him.  The mysterious carvings continue to appear where she can find them - but she can never discover who is leaving them for her. They are a bright spot in a hard life made more difficult because everyone blames her for the accident.

Determined to make her father better, Ellie decides to approach the hag at the top of the hill.  Whispers on the mountain are that the hag has the skills to heal most anything, but everyone is afraid of her.

But there are deep secrets on the mountain, and all of them lead back to the hag.  If Ellie can gather the courage to approach the hag, will she agree to help Ellie heal her father? 


Author Web Site: http://www.laurenwolk.com/

Chirp

Image: Kate Mesner Website

Messner, Kate.  Chirp.  2020. Bloomsbury Press.  New York, NY.

Mia and her family have moved back to Vermont to help her grandmother.  Mia's grandmother has had a stroke, and they want to help her grandmother with her business.  You see - grandma owns a Cricket Farm.  She sells her crickets and cricket products out of her own store front restaurant.

It's summertime, so Mia has to signs up for two summer camps to "keep her busy" over the summer.  She signs up for Launch Camp and Warrior Camp - never expecting to enjoy either one.  The Launch Camp turns out to be an unexpected challenge.  Students enrolled in the camp will develop a business, a business plan, or an invention to take to market.  At the end of the summer, they will present their plans to an investors group, and the winner will receive an award and $10,000 to help get the business up and running.

The Warrior Camp turns out to be an unexpectedly fun challenge.  Fashioned after a Ninja-Warrior style competition, the kids work to develop their skills and successfully finish The Course by the end of the summer.

Mia enjoys both camps more than she thought possible.  She works with a team of people to develop a business plan to help save her grandmother's business.  And the warrior camp helps her overcome and injury that happened while participating in competitive gymnastics the previous summer.

But unexpected challenges appear - marketing cricket products is more difficult than she had anticipated.  It appears that someone is attempting to sabotage Grandma's business, but nobody believes her.  This devastates Mia, who has a dark secret of her own that she is afraid to share for fear that nobody will believe her.

Will Mia be able to save her Grandmother's business?  Will she get the courage to share her secret with her family?

Bettina's Note:
I'm going to put a trigger warning right here - Mia struggles with several incidents of inappropriate touching by one of her gymnastics coach that happened before the family moved to Vermont.  Kate Messner gently handles this topic with love, giving children and parents alike the words and conversation starters needed to help spur conversations about their own lives. 

I adore spunky Mia with her enthusiasm, love of life, determination and courage.  The innovative way that she and her friends work together to try to save a business is encouraging - especially considering the very uncertain economic times in which we find ourselves.

Author's Web Site: https://www.katemessner.com/

The Blackbird Girls

Blankman, Anne.  The Blackbird Girls.  2020.  Viking Press, New York, New York.

On April 26, 1986 the worst Nuclear Disaster in History happened.  An explosion occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor during a standard safety drill.  The explosion and fire released large amounts of radiation into the environment and forever changed life in the Ukraine.

image: World Cat

On the 26th, with the devastation of the reaction unknown to the general public, life continued on as it always had.  People ran errands, worked in their gardens, went to school, and played in the mysterious foam that was on the ground.

Valentina and Oksana lived in the same building and attended the same school.  The girls were not friends with each other, even though their fathers worked together at the power plant.  The devastation in the wake of the explosion was phenomenal.  Oksana's father did not survive the initial explosion, and Valentina's father was deathly ill with radiation poisoning. 

When the mandatory evacuations were announced, the girls found themselves in line for the same bus.  Each and every person was scanned with a Geiger Counter as they got onto the bus.  If their levels of radiation were too high, they were sent to a hospital.  Oksana's mother was deemed to be to ill, so she was sent to a hospital.  Valentina's mother found herself unexpectedly in charge of both girls.  Fearful of a bus that would send them to Kiev and keep them close to the radiation, she found a bus that would take them to Moscow - where she hoped to meet up with a college friend who could shelter them.

As the girls face an uncertain future and people who are afraid to help them or shelter them for fear of getting sick from them, Valentina's mother is forced to send the girls to her own mother in Leningrad.  A woman who had dangerous ideas and held dangerous beliefs.  As the two girls live with Babulya, they discover an unconditional love and friendship forged through deep trials and tribulations.  

The story moves between tales of flight and adaptation - between Oksana and Valentina and Valentina's grandmother and her saviors during WW 2.  The struggle all of the girls faced for survival in the face of great odds against them, and how each girl found her secret best friend, a friendship that lasts a lifetime - her Black Bird Girl.



I highly recommend this book.  The history of the Chernobyl Accident is relatively new, and stories about that time from Russia are difficult to find.  I enjoyed the story, and the look into Russian Culture and History.  The character of Valentina is Jewish.  I did not understand the challenges faced by Jews in recent Russian History.  The author does an excellent job of exploring Bubulya's faith, and what it has meant for her over the course of her lifetime.

Author's Web Site: http://www.anneblankman.com/

Information about the Chernobyl Disaster from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/chernobyl-bg.html