Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork, $17.99. “Cognitive disorder is not an accurate description of what happens inside Marcelo’s head,” Marcelo explains to a new acquaintance. “Excessive attempt at cognitive order is closer to what actually takes place.”
Marcelo’s father, determined to mold his son into something more closely resembling a precollegiate he-man, employs Marcelo at his law firm’s mail room. Marcelo’s dad hopes the experience will make him more like the confident son of his law partner.
Instead, this lyrical, grounded story discovers in Marcelo a moral sensibility that ultimately thwarts a bully (or worse) and connects with his father in a way neither of them imagined. Ages 12 and up.
The Devil’s Paintbox, by Victoria McKernan, $16.99. This epic begins in April 1865, with two starving siblings in Kansas, and follows them through an arduous wagon-train journey west.
Details of the period emerge piecemeal from wagon-train passengers and others — a doctor addicted to laudanum, soldiers unaware they’re infected with smallpox (the disease referenced in the title), opportunistic loggers, a traveling band of prostitutes.
Aiden’s friendship with a Nez Perce boy brings up the Indians’ vulnerability to smallpox, the disastrous Sand Creek attack on Cheyenne women, children and elders in November 1864 and the cycle of revenge that followed. It’s a terrific way to get young readers interested in history — tossing out tidbits intriguing enough to beg for more research. Ages 12 and up.
Hard Face Moon, by Nancy Oswald, $15.95. The Sand Creek Massacre is a cruel slice of history from nearly any vantage, but Colorado author Oswald tells it from the viewpoint of Cheyenne boy Hides Inside. The bulk of the story is about events and life preceding Col. John M. Chivington’s dawn attack.
There’s a treasure trove of detail on Cheyenne life and the uneasy relationship between the tribes, the soldiers and the settlers. Ages 10 and up.
Ten Things I Hate About Me, by Randa Abdel-Fattah, $16.99. At home, she’s Jamilah, a good Muslim girl who covers her head, studies at a madrassa and plays the darabuka (drum) in a youth band. At her public school in Australia, she sometimes wears blue contact lenses to disguise her brown eyes and has bleached her dark hair blond so she can pass for a “skip,” an Anglo- Saxon kid.
“Ever since seventh grade (I’m in 10th grade now), I’ve hidden the fact that I’m of Lebanese-Muslim heritage from everybody at school to avoid people assuming I drive planes into buildings as a hobby,” Jamie/Jamilah says. But maintaining the separate personas becomes increasingly complicated as her public and private lives twine. Smart, funny and insightful. Ages 12 and up.
Joseph, by Shelia P. Moses, $16.99. At age 15, Joseph lives in a homeless shelter with his mother. Their relationship reverses the roles of parent and child. His mom is a crackhead reliable only for making invariably bad choices. His dad is in Iraq.
Joseph’s ambition is to get his mom clean, out of the shelter, away from her enabling best friend and her deadbeat boyfriends, and into a house. Can his sheer determination succeed in saving her? Or himself? Ages 12 and up.
