The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash by Candace Ganger

THE INEVITABLE COLLISION OF BIRDIE & BASH by Candace Ganger:

To be honest, I did not care for this book very much at the beginning and THEN I became totally hooked. Birdie and Bash (Sebastian) are high school seniors who end up working together at a roller skating rink, but their lives are so much more entangled than that.  There’s romance – an attraction first felt at a party that Birdie sneakily attends.   There’s tragedy – with the possibility of death shadowing both of their families. There’s the angst of teenage friendships being tested – with Bash in particular making poor (and sometimes almost inexplicable) choices in regards to his “buddy,” entitled and manipulative Kyle.  And there’s suspense … debut author Ganger uses alternating narration from Birdie and Bash so readers know their thoughts and secrets while wondering when each will see the other differently. There's a few too many cliches and some rather clever writing - particularly in regards to a recurring chemistry motif. Plus there’s loyalty – from grandparents, caring adults, friends and each other.  Full of emotion, THE INEVITABLE COLLISION OF BIRDIE & BASH is a relatively quick and easy read with greatest appeal for later middle and early high school readers.  

Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo

READING WITH PATRICK by Michelle Kuo is subtitled “A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship.” Even before this book was published, I was mentioning it to teachers who are looking for an alternative read to possibly pair with The Other Wes Moore. Michelle Kuo was a Teach for America participant in Arkansas in 2004 where she met Patrick Browning, a young man who learned to love reading, literature and writing.  Sadly, Patrick later is incarcerated on a murder charge; as a result, Kuo returns from Harvard Law School to spend more time with him.  READING WITH PATRICK is eye-opening in terms of the poor quality of education available, the attitudes towards corporal punishment and the level of poverty, much like Teacher by Michael Copperman (written about his time in Teach for America) or Pat Conroy's classic, The Water is Wide. Although also reminiscent of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, Kuo expands her focus to include the redeeming benefits of literacy, plus race relations and the legal process.  

Christian Science Monitor said READING WITH PATRICK “could be the most affecting book you’ll read this year,” and we plan to consider it for our faculty book group discussion. Starred review from Library Journal, with a forward by Wes Moore.

Live from Cairo by Ian Bassingthwaighte

LIVE FROM CAIRO by Ian Bassingthwaighte received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. Although this is a debut, Bassingthwaighte has won awards for short fiction and was a finalist for the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative. He also knows of what he writes, having worked at an Egyptian legal aid office in 2009 as a Fulbright Fellow and subsequently composing this tale of Iraqi refugee Dalia’s efforts to be granted a visa to join her translator husband in the US, along with the efforts by Charlie (her attorney), Hana (a resettlement caseworker), and Aos (a translator).  LIVE FROM CAIRO dealt with difficult ethical questions and deserves praise as a literary novel. Although the frustration with the bureaucracy was so pervasive that the book felt slow to me and I worried about Hana’s ability to make strong decisions, I know there are English and History faculty who would appreciate the complexity and nuances which Bassingthwaighte raises.

If asked, I would be more likely to hand students Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist) instead. Hamid’s title is much shorter (240 pages versus 336) and involves young people, Nadia and Saeed, who are trying to define themselves and begin their lives despite the disruption of war. Even though Hamid employs a type of “magical realism” in his exploration of the refugee crisis, I do think students could follow Exit West and would be interested.  It, too, received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal and another from Booklist.