The summer holidays are here and Jamela is bored as a girl can be! All she can think about is the Afro-Idols TV final, so when she lands a job at Divine Braids hair salon, she can’t believe her eyes when Afro-Idols celebrity Miss Bambi Chaka Chaka arrives at the salon to be coiffed. But while Jamela’s idol dozes and Aunt Beauty designs her starry hairdo, a buzzy fly appears on the scene and threatens to ruin everything.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 5, Issue 3.
It is a hot summer afternoon. A frog is hiding tiredly in the shade. Nothing is stirring. Even the grass and flowers are still.
Suddenly the birds are flocking overhead. The small animals are racing for shelter. Then the rain starts pouring down. The sky is as dark as night. Thunder booms. Lightning cracks and flashes.
Mick, Mack, and Molly are caught in the midst of one of the most mysterious and magical moments of summer: a sudden summer thunderstorm. It can be scary; but for the three squirrel children, safe and dry in a cave, it brings new friends.
From the Bellybutton of the Moon is renowned poet Francisco X. Alarcon’s fresh collection of 22 bilingual poems inspired by his touching recollections of childhood summers in Mexico. With a poet’s magical vision, Alarcon takes us back to his childhood when he traveled with his family to Mexico to visit his grandma and other relatives. We travel with him in the family station wagon, across the misty mountain range to the little town of Atoyac. There, in the beloved town of his ancestors, we hear his grandma’s stories, sample Auntie Reginalda’s tasty breakfasts, learn about the keys to the universe, and take playful dips in the warm sea. The lighthearted illustrations of Maya Christina Gonzalez perfectly capture the spirit of a summer in Alarcon’s Mexico where “colors are more colorful, tastes are tastier, and even time seems to slow down.”
After her father is killed in the Korean War, young Blanca Estela and her mother leave California to spend the summer in Revilla, an old town in Northern Mexico with Blanca’s grandmother. At first, Blanca is unhappy in their holiday retreat, but gradually makes friends and becomes part of the community.
After moving with his emotionally distant father to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, twelve-year-old Owen faces a lonely summer until he meets an abused girl who may be a space alien.
Just when things were going so well. Jess had the perfect summer planned: She and Fred, lounging in the park, gazing into one another’s eyes and engaging in witty repartee. It was going to be so romantic. And then her maddening mum stepped in: She suddenly announced a two-week “road trip” to Cornwall to visit Jess’s dad, something Jess might have enjoyed, actually, were it not for the monstrously bad timing. Not only will this force Jess and Fred apart for two whole weeks, it will also leave the darling and handsome Fred in the clutches of Jess’s blindingly beautiful best friend, Flora—who, you might recall, expressed an interest in Fred not too long ago. As if all this weren’t enough, Jess’s mum seems to expect her to weep at the grave of every departed literary hero in Britain’s long history. It’s absolute torture. And little does Jess know, a huge surprise awaits her when she visits her dad at his home for the first time in years.
Twelve-year-old Jane, who lives at the beach in a run-down old house with her mother, two brothers, and sister, has an eventful summer accompanying her pastor on bible deliveries, meeting former boyfriends of her mother’s, and being coerced into babysitting for a family of ill-mannered children.
World War II has just been won, and everything seems possible to young Keely Connor. She sees herself as a hero on a white charger, able to conquer the world, even though in reality her charger is Lola, the placid horse that lives in the field behind her house. One fateful summer day her brother Patrick is stricken with polio. Here is an enemy Keely cannot conquer. With all the will in the world, she cannot pass on to Patrick her zest or her energy or her own good health.
Morris the crocodile and his best friend, Billy, a tortoise, like nothing better than messing around at the waterhole with their animal friends. In five amusing stories, Morris and company do just what kids do during a hot summer —- perform ill-timed stunts on the diving board, get beaten in soccer by a team of moms, and see their wildebeest friends off on vacation (aka their annual migration). By turns wry and laugh-out-loud funny, Bob Graham’s whimsical waterhole gang pays tribute to the merriment and mishaps of young friendships everywhere.
16-year-old overachiever Vassar Spore, daughter of overachiever parents, who in true overachiever fashion named her after an elite women’s college. Vassar expects her sophomore summer to include AP and AAP (Advanced Advanced Placement) classes. Enter a world-traveling relative who sends her plans into a tailspin when she blackmails Vassar’s parents into forcing their only child to backpack with her through Southeast Asia. On a journey from Malaysia to Cambodia to the remote jungles of Laos, Vassar sweats, falls in love, and uncovers a family secret that turns her whole world upside-down.