Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

Gender identity is the focus of Freakboy, Kristin Elizabeth Clark's debut YA novel. It's a fat book told in verse format, in a style much like that of Ellen Hopkins. Powerful words are carefully placed on the page to accentuate emotional states like fear and disconnection. Sometimes a concrete image is formed, as in the case where a poem in the shape of a T contains an important conversation about feeling transgender. There are three voices in Freakboy, each in their own font and headed with their names.

Brendan is in his final year of high school. He's on the wrestling team, struggles with depression, and dreams at night of being a princess.

Vanessa, the only girl on the school's wrestling team, gets called a dyke. She is Brendan's girlfriend and their mutual attraction feels real.

My favourite character is Angel, a transwoman who works at a drop-in centre for queer youth. Because of her interactions with Brendan, she finds herself struggling with ethical dilemmas that give additional complexity to this story.

This is from Angel:

Some girls
think pumping
is trashy-
judge those who go
to pumping parties,
strip down in apartments
or hotel rooms,
let someone with
no medical connection
inject that silicone
right into their
chests, hips, lips.

[...] 

My opinion? 

It's judging that's trashy.

"Everyone feels like a freak until they make up their mind they're not." Angel's words to Brendan could equally apply to so many other teenagers.

Freakboy is a thoughtful exploration of gender fluidity.

Readalikes: Tricks and other verse novels by Ellen Hopkins

Kuessipan by Naomi Fontaine

Naomi Fontaine, an Innu from the Uashat and Mani-utenam reserve in eastern Quebec, writes about her community in Kuessipan. It's a novel written in vignettes that are rather like scenes in a documentary film, with images created from words.

The English translation by David Homel captures the succinct poetry of Fontaine's words.

"Of course I lied. I threw a white veil over the dirt."

Stark beauty coexists with substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and men who die far too young. Traditional culture offers solid ground for lost souls.

"The Innu language is like music that you sing, with slow intonations that you stretch out further with your breath. There are no vowels, and that makes the language impenetrable, like a return to nature: harsh, all bark and antlers."

The narrator does not try to be anyone other than her true self. She has come through difficulties and faces reality with a clear eye: "grass doesn't naturally grow on sand." She looks with confidence to the future.

A quietly triumphant gem.

Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel by David Rakoff

David Rakoff's Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die; Cherish, Perish juggles an impressive cast of characters while sweeping across the history and landscape of the USA. It is playfully -- and concisely -- written in rhyming couplets.

On top of all that, the book design is striking. It's a collectible artifact designed by Chip Kidd. Diecut holes in a thick board cover reveal the title printed on the page underneath. The text is illustrated with full-page art by Seth. It's an inspired match. Seth's portraits have a double edge -- cartoonish, yet sombre -- that works perfectly with Rakoff's campy style and his luckless characters.

Here's a sample from one of the sections about Susan/Sloan/Shulamit, who keeps reinventing herself over time:

A maximal, turbo-charged, top-drawer milieu --
Appealed to a moneyed crowd of locals who
Insisted on only the toppest of drawers,
Weddings befitting of Louis Quatorze.

Clifford is also followed across the years, from childhood through to his death on the vanguard of the AIDS epidemic. Knowing that Rakoff was dying of cancer when he wrote this book added poignancy as I read his words:

A new fierce attachment to all of this world
Now pierced him, it stabbed like a deity-hurled
Lightning bolt lancing him, sent from above,
Left him giddy and tearful. It felt like young love.

LDMDCP was published posthumously. (I reviewed Half Empty when Rakoff died last year.) Rakoff was a warm and funny writer and I am sad that he is gone.

Readalikes: The Wild Party (Joseph Moncure March and Art Spiegelman); George Sprott (Seth); Building Stories (Chris Ware); and maybe Tales of the City (Armistead Maupin) as well.

My Book of Life by Angel (by Martine Leavitt)

Martine Leavitt's My Book of Life by Angel is inspired by true crime and set in Vancouver's seedy Downtown Eastside before the infamous serial killer Robert Pickton was captured and convicted, but Leavitt's characters are purely fictional. They know that women have been disappearing and that the police appear to be doing little about it.

Angel is a 16-year-old prostitute and this is her journal, written in verse. She has a regular john who pays her to read to him from Milton's Paradise Lost. Lines from Milton are interspersed throughout: "Innocence, that as a veil had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone..."

I had high expectations because I have enjoyed Leavitt's earlier work, especially Keturah and Lord Death. I also love verse novels and gritty YA. For a book about prostitution, drug addiction, family dysfunction and a serial killer, My Book of Life by Angel is surprisingly tame. Gritty enough for a 12- or 13-year-old reader, I suppose, but not for anyone who has read Ellen Hopkins' Crank.

A pimp, Call, first befriends Angel at a shopping mall, then gets her hooked on some kind of illegal drugs, which are only ever referred to as candy or sugar.

"And then Call said,
you wanna fly, Angel?
He said, you want candy for that sweet tooth of yours?

At first it was so fun, Call's candy,
and all the missing of Mom went away
and I was all
I'm so baby uptown
I'm so baby bless my soul
I'm so baby high heels
I'm so baby rock and roll."

Later, Angel quits cold turkey, refusing the drugs Call offers, even though it makes sex work harder to face. Her withdrawal symptoms over several days include vomiting "bits of stomach," a "bit of spleen," a "bit of liver," and finally, a "chunk of heart." I found this all a bit too precious. The scariest parts of the story are the johns, including one who viciously attacks Angel's neighbour on the stroll; a creepy baby dentist; and a corrupt "call me Daddy Dave" police officer.

My enthusiasm for this book is only lukewarm, but I do think that Angel is a great character. My Book of Life by Angel recently received the CLA Young Adult Book Award. It will be appreciated by teens (and adults) who prefer the safer end of gritty realism.

October Mourning by Leslea Newman

Leslea Newman has chosen verse novel format and a chorus of voices to record the events surrounding a tragedy in October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard. In her introduction, Newman writes: "While the poems in this book are inspired by actual events, they do not in any way represent the statements, thoughts, feelings, opinions, or attitudes of any actual person. [...] The poems are not an objective reporting of Matthew Shepard's murder and its aftermath; rather they are my own personal interpretation of them."

Inanimate objects like a fence, a road and memorial armbands have their say, as well as a wide spectrum of people. It is very effective, very moving. I cried.

I had known that anti-gay protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church picketed Shepard's funeral. I hadn't known that people dressed as angels used their seven-foot wings to block out the same protesters at the trials of Shepard's murderers.

I also hadn't known that Newman had given a keynote speech at the University of Wyoming's Gay Awareness Week on the very weekend that Shepard died. I can understand how a writer might be compelled to respond in such a deeply personal way as October Mourning.

In Newman's afterward, she explores her reaction at the time. "Why was I feeling so emotional? Why did I care so much about Matthew Shepard? I had never met him or even heard his name until a few days before my arrival. I subscribe to many gay newspapers and unfortunately I read about gay bashings all the time. And while I always get terribly upset to read about such horrific events, being at Matthew's school, meeting his friends and teachers, and knowing that he had planned on attending my lecture, filled me with an unspeakable sadness. And a touch of fear."

Shepard's shockingly violent death in 1998 received a lot of media attention and directed a spotlight on the issue of GLBTQ hate crimes. That was 15 years ago. Sadly, the hate continues.

Newman will be giving a human rights lecture in Edmonton at the University of Alberta on Wednesday, March 27. Details are available here. I look forward to hearing her talk.

Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge

Ronald Koertge unleashes wicked humour in Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses, a collection of fairytales retold in verse. Nontraditional voices and occasional contemporary settings add fresh perspectives. Forget Disney schmaltz; these versions are bawdy and bloody.

The first tale is told jointly by Cinderella's bitter stepsisters, after birds have plucked out their eyes:

"Even in tatters Ella was desirable -- a little thigh showing here, some soot at her cleavage. And what a tease -- dashing away at midnight, leaving the heir to the throne groaning in his purple tights." [...]
"And then, insult to injury, we have to go to the wedding. Mother insisted. There will be men there. Other princes or earls or rich merchants or anybody, really, with a penis and a pulse."

There are no happy endings. The newly-handsome beast misses his fangs. The princes are in rehab and Rapunzel's mother sees a therapist three times a week. Thumbelina leaves a trail of dead bodies behind her. The final voice is that of the wolf:

"Let's get a few things straight. Only a few of us like to dress up like grandmas and trick little girls."

Andrea Dezso's cut paper illustrations are a perfect match for Koertge's dark satire. Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses is a treat for teens and adults alike.

Readalikes: The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith); Kissing the Witch (Emma Donoghue); Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (Roald Dahl); and Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People (Douglas Coupland).

Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

In Under the Mesquite, Guadalupe Garcia McCall uses verse to tell a coming of age story from the point of view of Lupita, the eldest of eight siblings in a Mexican indigenous family living on the American side of the border. As a result of their mother's serious illness, Lupita must step in to take charge of the rest even though she is still in high school. McCall's lyrical style is both gentle and moving.

"In the squint of morning / before anyone else is awake, / when the roaring sounds / of unbridled verses / rush furiously through my head, / the mesquite is my confidant."

Readalikes: Seeing Emily (Joyce Lee Wong) and Make Lemonade (Virginia Euwer Wolff) are other coming of age stories told in verse.

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

In 1975, the year she turned 10, Ha and her family were forced to flee Vietnam and take refuge in the U.S.A. Author Thanhha Lai drew on her own immigration experiences to craft this moving tale. Lai's free verse format is like looking through snapshots over the course of a year. The focus on Ha's emotions is particularly effective.

Ha is a child who loves to eat. She planted a papaya tree in her yard in Saigon and watches closely for fruit: "Two green thumbs / that will grow into / orange-yellow delights / smelling of summer." Later, at the refugee camp: "Someone / should be kissed / for having the heart / to send cases of fish sauce / to Guam." Ha's family is sponsored by a man in Alabama, who brings them a paper bucket of chicken one day. They find it almost inedible, because they are used to "fresh-killed chicken / that roamed the yard / snacking on / grains and worms. / Such meat grows / tight in texture, / smelling of meadows / and tasting sweet. / I bite down on a thigh; / might as well bite down on / bread soaked in water. / Still, / I force yum-yum sounds."

The hardships are many in this National Book Award-winning story of total upheaval.

Readalike: Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is another verse novel immigration story for children and tweens.

The Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones

I'm back from Belgium with lots of good memories, a head cold that started after I landed in Edmonton and a laptop that refuses to connect to the internet. On a borrowed machine, doped up on medication and probably jetlagged too, here is a review of one of the books I read on the trip.

Author Lloyd Jones is probably best known in North America for his novel Mister Pip. The Book of Fame is also a New Zealand award-winner. It's a fictionalized account of the true story of the original All Black team of young rugby players who travelled to the UK in 1905 where they astounded sports fans with their skill. I know next to nothing about rugby but I was swept up in this amazing tale.

Over the course of a year, the New Zealand team lost only one match out of 35 games. "For the record, we scored 830 points and conceded 39." You don't have to know anything about the scoring system to recognize what a feat this was. Final scores give a good indication of their prowess: Oxford (47-nil); Bedford (41-nil); Munster (33-nil); Yorkshire (40-nil). Their crushing itinerary had them sometimes playing two or more games per week. They suffered broken ribs and collar bones among other injuries and illness and continued to win against the top British teams. The men came from humble backgrounds - farmers, miners, civil servants - and their first impressions of England exemplify this: "There appeared to be little in the way of landscaping left to do."

The choice of first person plural narration is an inspired and perfect choice because the men worked so well as a team they were like one individual with many bodies. The only other time I've read a novel in this viewpoint is in Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters. The format Jones used could be loosely described as verse. Vignettes, fragments of newspaper accounts, personal journal entries and list poems are all part of the mix. There are accounts of game details too, of course, but I never felt overwhelmed by too much sports talk.

When I finished the book, I immediately felt the need to watch an All Blacks haka on YouTube. I could imagine the impression it would make on the opposing team!

I highly recommend The Book of Fame to readers who enjoy travel writing or historical fiction with a focus on people and everyday-life details. It's a must for rugby fans.

Karma by Cathy Ostlere

Happy Canada Day! In the Canadian literature book club that I host at the Woodcroft library, one of the members commented that a lot of the books we were reading are set outside of Canada (Waiting for Columbus, The End of the Alphabet, Three Views of Crystal Water) even though the authors are Canadian. Other folks have noticed the same thing - I think a Giller judge commented on it in the recent past. Is the use of a foreign setting a reflection of Canadian social values as identified by analyst Michael Adams (Sex in the Snow; Fire and Ice)? Adams found that a typical Canadian who won $100,000 would spend it on a trip, whereas an American would be more likely to buy a car with the same windfall. Or maybe it's because the themes of identity and belonging that are prevalent in our literature, as well as explorations of the meaning of 'home,' lend themselves to stories placed outside of our native land.

And then there are stories of immigrants, like the Sikh-Hindu couple in Cathy Ostlere's verse novel, Karma, who left India to escape their families' disapproval over their mixed marriage. Their daughter grows up in small-town Saskatchewan in a blend of three cultures. Her father named her Jiva, but her mother always called her Maya, for the goddess of illusion. Maya's father doesn't approve. He quotes Sikh philosophy: "The world is a dream, / Any moment it may pass away [...] All this is Maya."

Maya's mother never adjusted to the isolation of her life in Canada. She commits suicide in 1984, which is why 15-year-old Maya and her father travel to New Delhi with an urn of ashes. The day they arrive, prime minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. Father and daughter are separated during the ensuing violence, while marauding gangs search the city streets for turbaned men. Maya finds herself alone, traumatized and still grief-stricken from the death of her mother.

The extraordinary circumstances make for a very compelling story and I found myself unwilling to put this down until I'd finished. At 517 pages, it is substantial, even though it is written in verse. Maya's search for herself amid multiple identities will resonate with both teen and adult readers in Canada and beyond.

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

Not a dictionary, but a novel written in a series of vignettes documenting the feelings and day-to-day negotiations of a romantic adult relationship. Each diary-like entry is a prose poem titled alphabetically with a noun, verb or adjective: aberrant, abstain, abstraction, abyss, acronym, adamant, etc.

The tale is shaped around the consequences of an infidelity. It is told in first person without names, nor very many clues about the gender of either partner, an ambiguity which reinforces the universal nature of the subject. Levithan even references Jeanette Winterson's famously non-gender-specific novel, Written on the Body in the poem 'blemish, n.' In my interpretation of the text, however, I kept seeing two men. This may be because I know the author is gay and his previous books have had gay central characters. (This is also his first clearly adult novel after a string of successful YA titles.)

Here's an excerpt from the poem 'woo, v': "I told you that it was ridiculous to pay thirty dollars for a dozen roses on Valentine's Day. I forbade you to do it. So that day, when I went to pay for lunch, what did I find? In my wallet, thirty singles, each with roses printed on it."

Not every scene is so sweet, of course. It's a candid examination of the nature of human partnerships. It is absolutely charming.

Readalikes on the subject of love with a similarly unusual format (albeit different tones): The Incident Report by Martha Baillie; The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson; Watercolor Women, Opaque Men by Ana Castillo; Anthropology by Dan Rhodes; The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson.

Burn by Alma Fullerton

Casey and her mom, Libby, used to travel around the world together; they were like two peas in a pod. Libby McCall is still famous, but it's been six years since she's recorded anything new. Six years ago, Casey's grandmother died and it was time for Casey to start school anyway and Libby met John, who runs a restaurant not  too far from Toronto, and then Casey's little sister Ginny was born. Ginny has autism, so she needs everything to be routine. Between the restaurant business and Ginny's special needs, travelling is out of the question... until Libby takes off on her own. Casey starts sending up smoke signal prayers to her mother, hoping that she will come back, and the fires get bigger and bigger...

As with her previous novels, Alma Fullerton has written Burn in a series of poems, a format which makes Casey's shifting emotional states immediately present. The child hardly gets a break, so be prepared with kleenex.

Readalikes: The Same Stuff as Stars by Katherine Paterson (for another girl taking charge after being dumped by her mother); Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (for another sibling with autism); Hold Me Tight by Lorie Ann Grover (for another girl's hard luck story in verse).

The Office Tower Tales by Alice Major

Aphrodite, Pandora and Sheherazad are three white-collar workers in downtown Edmonton, evoking their namesakes as they share stories of their lives during their coffee breaks in the food court of Commerce Place. From April 1999 to January 2000, their talk ranges from the external (the implementation of new smoking bylaws; Y2K worries) to the personal (fear of getting old; Pandora's daughter's pregnancy). Their tale unfolds in a series of narrative verse.

Alice Major plays confidently with words. Her poems are rich with assonance, half-rhyme and alliteration, as in this example (when the women join the summertime crowds outdoors in small green spaces):
"Vegetation has toughened up.
The park's square of grass has matted
to a rough, tufted tan,
hunkered beneath the hustling, rapid
repeat of feet."

Lovely imagery is found in the commonplace: "Aphrodite / takes up her cup again, holds it to her chest / like a portable heart."

My heart was especially won over by Sheherazad - Sherry - the storyteller. She transports and amuses her friends while adding an expansive element to the book. It ends with a hopeful tone, as the women gather with gifts for Pandora's granddaughter.

Find out more about this award-winning book at Alice Major's website.

Snook Alone by Marilyn Nelson and Timothy Basil Ering

Timothy Basil Ering (Finn Throws a Fit) has painted lovely illustrations for this long, free verse picture book about a dog who is separated from his master, a solitary monk named Abba Jacob. The setting is the tropical Mascarene islands, off the southeast coast of Africa. Snook, an adorable rat terrier, must survive alone on the tiny island of Avocaire while waiting for Abba Jacob to return.

I enjoyed Marilyn Nelson's poetic descriptions of the astounding variety of wildlife on Avocaire, especially the seabirds: "fluffy chicks / sitting dumbfounded, / like a field of white teddy bears." The fairy terns "with little fishes dangling from their beaks / like handlebar mustaches." Too often, however, the prose seemed leaden when I wanted it to sing.

The story has four parts, or chapter breaks, indicated with the starting letter decorated something like those in an ancient illustrated manuscript. The third chapter, however, seems to be broken in the wrong place, two page-spreads too late.

In picture books, the illustrations should not contradict the prose unless it is for a special effect. I didn't like that the door to the chapel is open in the image of Abba Jacob praying, when in the text he closed the door. Abba Jacob is wearing a swathed tunic in all of the images, giving a timeless feel to his existence, but the text tells us that he wears a shirt and trousers, pulling a tunic over them when he goes to town. I love the illustrations so much that I resent Nelson's prose for contradicting them, although I recognize that this is unreasonable on my part, since the text was most likely created first. I would like to know more about the collaboration between this author and artist, because I'm puzzled by these flaws.

Preschool to Grade 3.

Fishtailing by Wendy Phillips

Four teens in a Vancouver high school. Miguel is a refugee, survivor of a massacre in Central America. Kyle's passions are music and motorcycles. Tricia is struggling to feel included in her family, where her Japanese half doesn't match her new stepfather - nor her mother nor baby half-sister. Natalie's background of abuse has twisted her in an evil way; she likes to toy with people's lives. Their English teacher, Mrs. Farr, and the school counsellor, Ms. Nishi, watch over them all - but not successfully.

Poems from shifting viewpoints tell this tragic tale. On the first day that Natalie is transferred into the school, she can tell her machinations will be "like shooting fish in a barrel." The plot is gripping. It's like watching a train wreck.

I liked that the teacher was neither good nor bad, just a flawed human making mistakes like the rest of us. She brings a note of humour to the story when she criticizes Kyle's motorcycle dream poem: "you need to be careful of innuendo. You might tone down the more overt sexual references in order to make it suitable for the poetry display board." Kyle's response is a puzzled "sexual references ?"

Verse novels are my special love, which allows me to overlook flaws... but not entirely. I wish the individual teen voices were not so similar to each other - this is always a danger with multiple points of view - although it is easy to tell who is who because of the name at the top (or bottom, if it's an assignment poem) and the font changes. The fish imagery gets a little heavy-handed (and fishtailing a stretch); my taste is for more subtlety. All in all, it's a good book and I think teens who like dark and gritty realism will enjoy it. I wouldn't have picked it as the winner of the Canadian GG Children's Literature award, but I'm glad to see the verse novel format getting recognition.

Readalikes: Any of Ellen Hopkins' verse novels are a natural match, even though they are much longer - Impulse is about a trio of troubled teens; Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James (for the poisonous friendship); and Split Image by Mel Glenn (for a verse novel tragedy in multiple voices exploring the differences between public and private personas).

Becoming Billie Holiday by Carole Boston Weatherford

Carole Boston Weatherford used first person and free verse to narrate the life of an unwanted child named Eleanora Fagan who grew up to become a Harlem jazz legend. Art by Floyd Cooper suits this tale of bittersweet triumphs; his grainy images are predominantly in rich shades of brown.

Almost all of the poems borrow their titles from Billie Holiday's songs. In "Our Love is Different" there is mention of the double standard commonly experienced by young bisexuals, even today: "Mom wouldn't hear / of my boyfriends sleeping over / but never said a word when I brought / girls home: prostitutes, socialites / and stars. I won't drop names / but I had them call me 'Bill.' " When I finished this book, I immediately had to listen to some of Billie's music. (Grade 7 - adult)

The Given by Daphne Marlatt

In a story that begins in present day Vancouver, a mother's death leads a daughter to go back in memory to her teenage years, the 1950s, examining her mother's life from that viewpoint. The narrators' parents were British immigrants from Malaysia and her mother had difficulties adjusting to life as a homemaker with three daughters in North Van. The hopefulness and prosperity of that era are evoked - along with the major concerns of the time, like the Cuban missile crisis. Daphne Marlatt contrasts these scenes with present-day life for a lesbian in the same "world-class city." Slogans and newspaper headlines are incorporated into the text, along with brief excerpts from writers like Virginia Woolf and Marguerite Duras.

When I was about 1/3 of the way into the narrative, I still could not say what exactly it was that I was reading. Was it fiction? Autobiography? Was it poetry or not? I examined the back cover, where it is called a "haunting and multi-layered long poem which reads with all the urgency and depth of a novel." So there you go. I loved it and I'm very pleased to start 2010 with such a fine book.

Inward to the Bones: Georgia O'Keeffe's Journey with Emily Carr by Kate Braid

In 1930, Emily Carr and Georgia O'Keeffe met at an O'Keeffe exhibition in New York. Canadian poet Kate Braid wonders what would have happened if these women had become friends and visited each other in New Mexico and Vancouver Island. The result is a fictional account of a dynamic friendship between two iconoclasts in the male-dominated world of fine art, told in a series of original poems by Braid and brief excerpts from O'Keeffe's writings.

I found the first part, Solo, a bit slow - it is the background of O'Keeffe's life up to 1930 - but the momentum picked up once the friendship - the fictional part - began. At Ghost Ranch, O'Keeffe complains that Carr can see no other colour but green: "Her eyes drip curtains of tree colour." O'Keeffe, on the other hand, sees "the bones of hills / They shimmer in the heat - / amethyst, ivory and flame." When O'Keeffe goes with Carr to paint in Tofino, the rain almost drives her mad: "In this country, by day I sip the air / and by night I float." Yet she admires the visceral drive to create that fuels Carr's emotional work: "I am brittle and thin, starving / for what feeds her."

The afterword is a quote from O'Keeffe: "Art is a wicked thing. It is what we are." A perfect end for this verse novel and an excellent summation of why art is so important to all of us.

Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas

Anke is fourteen, the youngest in her family. Her father is violently abusive to her older brother and sister and to her mother, but he ignores her. Anke feels like a powerless bystander, even while defying her father behind his back, playing volleyball against his wishes. Anke's confidence and courage grow along with her ability on the volleyball court. Is she strong enough to take action against her father?

This story is told in poems, so it is a very quick read. Read-alikes: Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin; Burned by Ellen Hopkins; When She Hollers by Cynthia Voight and Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Weiss. Grade 7 - up.

Bird by Zetta Elliott

Mehkai is a young African American who loves to draw. He says that with art "you can fix stuff that's messed up / just by using your imagination / or rubbing your eraser / over the page." What he can't fix are the troubles in his family, like his older brother's drug addiction. His granddad tells him, "Some broken things can't be fixed."

Shadra Strickland's delicate artwork has a lightness to it that adds to the ultimate hopefulness of Elliott's free verse. This is an excellent book for adults to initiate discussion with children in Grades 1 through 6.

Note added May 8, 2011: Zetta Elliott wrote about representations of Blackness in Canadian youth literature in her blog recently. See Navigating the Great White North.