Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

Cover Art by Bernadette Vigil and Dian Luger

ISBN: 978-0446600253

Ages 13 and above

Book Trailer by Mrs. Flores

The Big Read teaching resources

Good Reads book review:

Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima enters his life. She is a curandera, one who heals with herbs and magic. 'We cannot let her live her last days in loneliness,' says Antonio's mother. 'It is not the way of our people,' agrees his father. And so Ultima comes to live with Antonio's family in New Mexico. Soon Tony will journey to the threshold of manhood. Always, Ultima watches over him. She graces him with the courage to face childhood bigotry, diabolical possession, the moral collapse of his brother, and too many violent deaths. Under her wise guidance, Tony will probe the family ties that bind him, and he will find in himself the magical secrets of the pagan past—a mythic legacy equally as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America in which he has been schooled. At each turn in his life there is Ultima who will nurture the birth of his soul.

Come in and Check Out a Graphic Novel

New Shakespeare Graphic Novels are In!

A Silent Voice 1 by Yoshitoki Oima

Cover Design by Phil Balsman

Copyright 2013, English Translation Copyright 2015

ALA Top 10 Graphic Novels Sets

ISBN 978-1-63236-056-4

Ages 13 and above

Book Trailer by Mrs. Flores

Good Reads Review:

Shoya is a bully. When Shoko, a girl who can’t hear, enters his elementary school class, she becomes their favorite target, and Shoya and his friends goad each other into devising new tortures for her. But the children’s cruelty goes too far. Shoko is forced to leave the school, and Shoya ends up shouldering all the blame. Six years later, the two meet again. Can Shoya make up for his past mistakes, or is it too late?

Kindness for Weakness by Shawn Goodman

Cover Art by Alexander Shahmiri

Copyright 2013

CYRM Nominee 2016-2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-74325-9

Ages 14 and above

Sometimes good kids, make poor choices.

Book List Review:

Grades 8-12. When 15-year-old James dutifully attempts to deliver drugs for his older brother, whom he idolizes, he is caught by police, convicted, and sentenced to a year in juvenile prison. In the novel that follows, Goodman offers a searing indictment of the so-called juvenile justice system, in which any attempt at kindness is perceived as weakness. Goodman is notably successful at stirring up a visceral reaction from the reader at the flagrant injustices that James encounters, and he does an interesting thing by contrasting James’ experiences with those of Humphrey Van Weyden, the protagonist of Jack London’s classic novel The Sea Wolf (1904). Will James, who perceives himself as “a skinny, friendless loser,” be able to transform himself, or will his bête noire, the system itself, prove to be his undoing? 

Radioactive! How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World
by Winifred Conkling

Jacket Design by Studio Gearbox

Copyright 2016

ISBN 978-161620-415-0

Grades 5-9

Book Briefs Episode 04 (Podcast--audio only--by Mrs. Flores)

The fascinating, little-known story of how two brilliant female physicists’ groundbreaking discoveries led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

Review by Good Reads

In 1934, Irène Curie, working with her husband and fellow scientist, Frederic Joliot, made a discovery that would change the world: artificial radioactivity. This breakthrough allowed scientists to modify elements and create new ones by altering the structure of atoms. Curie shared a Nobel Prize with her husband for their work. But when she was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences, the academy denied her admission and voted to disqualify all women from membership. Four years later, Curie’s breakthrough led physicist Lise Meitner to a brilliant leap of understanding that unlocked the secret of nuclear fission. Meitner’s unique insight was critical to the revolution in science that led to nuclear energy and the race to build the atom bomb, yet her achievement was left unrecognized by the Nobel committee in favor of that of her male colleague.

Radioactive! presents the story of two women breaking ground in a male-dominated field, scientists still largely unknown despite their crucial contributions to cutting-edge research, in a nonfiction narrative that reads with the suspense of a thriller. Photographs and sidebars illuminate and clarify the science in the book.

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle

Winner of the Walter Dean Myer and Pure Belpre Author Awards (2016)

Jacket Art by Debra Sfetsios-Conover

Copyright 2015

ISBN 978-1-4818-3522-2

Ages 12 +

Book Briefs Episode 03:  (Podcast--audio only--by Mrs. Flores)

Teaching Resources

Review by GoodReads

In this poetic memoir, Margarita Engle, the first Latina woman to receive a Newbery Honor, tells of growing up as a child of two cultures during the Cold War.

Margarita is a girl from two worlds. Her heart lies in Cuba, her mother's tropical island country, a place so lush with vibrant life that it seems like a fairy tale kingdom. But most of the time she lives in Los Angeles, lonely in the noisy city and dreaming of the summers when she can take a plane through the enchanted air to her beloved island. Words and images are her constant companions, friendly and comforting when the children at school are not.

Then a revolution breaks out in Cuba. Margarita fears for her far-away family. When the hostility between Cuba and the United States erupts at the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Margarita's worlds collide in the worst way possible. How can the two countries she loves hate each other so much? And will she ever get to visit her beautiful island again?

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Jacket Design by Anna Gorovoy
Copyright 2013
ISBN 978-1250012579
Ages 14 +

Book Trailer 01:

New York Times Best Seller

Book Trailer 02:

GoodReads Choice Winner 2013

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Illustrations by Sarah Watts
Copyright 2015
ISBN 978-0-385-75589-4

Book Brief 02: Book Review by Mrs. Flores

Book Trailer 01:

Eleanor and Park meets Fault in Our Stars.  

Book Trailer 02:

New York Times book review:

An exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death. Every day he thinks of ways he might die, but every day he also searches for—and manages to find—something to keep him here, and alive, and awake.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her small Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister's death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school—six stories above the ground—it's unclear who saves whom. And when the unlikely pair teams up on a class project to discover the "natural wonders" of their state, they go, as Finch says, where the road takes them: the grand, the small, the bizarre, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising—just like life.

Soon it's only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a bold, funny, live-out-loud guy, who's not such a freak after all. And it's only with Finch that Violet forgets to count away the days and starts living them. But as Violet's world grows, Finch's begins to shrink.

This is a heart-wrenching, unflinching story of love shared, life lived, and two teens who find one another while standing on the edge.

 I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson 

Copyright 2014

ISBN 978-1-101-59384-4
Ages 14 +

Review by Good Reads

 4.15  ·  Rating Details  ·  66,516 Ratings  ·  9,217 Reviews

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell 

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author ofThe Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

Mrs. Flores's Book Trailer