Older Readers
Don’t Wait: Three Girls Who Fought for Change and Won.
By Sonali Kohli.
June 2024. 176p. Beacon, paper, $16.95 (9780807010952). Gr. 7–12. 305.42.
Kohli, an award-winning L.A. journalist covering all things social justice, focuses her first book on the journeys of three young women of color as they become activists. Each teenager jumps into the life of a social justice leader after being affected by major issues: Nalleli lived across the street from an active oil well and suffers from serious health issues. Kahlila fights for the right to feel safe at school and joins the Black Lives Matter movement to defund the school police in L.A. Sonia starts interning with the ACLU to demand arts education in schools. The book is a well of inspiration, pulling interviews and quotes from well-known leaders like Angela Davis and young activists like Kari Malkki, who brings restorative justice to the movement for prison abolition in Oakland. Each chapter also ends with discussion questions to help readers discover what issues are most important to them, serving as a guidebook and maintenance manual. An essential purchase for California libraries and for budding activists looking for inspiration and guidance. —Jenna Jay
The Evolution of an Idea.
By Joy Hakim.
Apr. 2024. 192p. Candlewick/MITeen, $22.99 (9781536222944). Gr. 9–12. 509.
The second volume of Hakim’s impressive Discovering Life’s Story series on the history of life sciences covers the developing understandings of science, especially evolution and natural selection, that arose in the eighteenth century. Beginning with a wide scope of the time period, as usual, Hakim covers a broad range of disciplines—history, sociology and cultural studies, biology, religion, and literature—and intricately weaves her sources together to create a narrative that is easy to understand and comprehensive. It has the depth of an academic work without the stuffy, difficult-to-follow narrative that often happens in college- or graduate-level texts. High-quality images with descriptions throughout accompany the well-laid-out discussion of the Age of Enlightenment and theories of evolution, focusing on such figures as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Lyell, Carl Linnaeus, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. She also covers discoveries about fossils, botany, and heredity. The quality of the book is not limited to just the explanation of the concepts; it’s also an unusually well-sourced volume, with robust back matter, end notes, and suggested further reading. Written in an engaging manner and with a wealth of helpful context, this extremely informative volume in an exceptionally well-executed series is highly recommended for high-school libraries and classrooms as well as public and community college libraries. —Jen Johnson
Grace Notes: Poems about Families.
By Naomi Shihab
