Publishers Weekly - October 30, 2017

After a beating, Betty moves in with Mrs.

Malloy, an inspiring leader in the Housewives League. In response to her growing awareness of racism, Betty ponders Malloy’s philosophy (“Have faith in the Lord and find the good and praise it”) and develops an affinity for community organizing. History comes alive in this illuminating portrayal of the early life of this civil rights activist, which is bolstered by substantial endnotes. Ages 10–14. Agent: Jason Anthony, Massie & McQuilkin. (Jan.)

It Should Have Been You

Lynn Slaughter. Page Street, $16.99 (320p)

ISBN 978-1-62414-535-3

This solid mystery from Slaughter (While I Danced) opens with the murder of Clara Seibert’s twin sister, Moura, a piano prodigy. Plenty of people think Clara did it—including the girls’ mother—since the sisters were heard arguing before the murder, and Clara was the only one home at the time of the killing. As Clara’s family falls apart and her reputation suffers, the only thing keeping the high school senior sane is her work as an advice columnist for her school newspaper. After Clara starts receiving anonymous threats at school from someone who thinks that she was responsible for Moura’s murder, she reaches out to her sister’s friends and music rivals, hoping that she can figure out who could have wanted the talented Moura dead—before they come for Clara, too. Clara’s voice and internal conflict feel authentic, and the contentious relationship between the sisters is equally believable. Although the novel doesn’t push the envelope much, Slaughter successfully highlights the dangers of abusive relationships; fans of the genre will find much to enjoy in this thriller. Ages 12–up.

Agent: Katie Shea Boutillier, Donald Maass Literary. (Jan.)

Reign of the Fallen

Sarah Glenn Marsh. Razorbill, $17.99 (384p)

ISBN 978-0-448-49439-5

Marsh (Fear the Drowning Deep) takes readers on a journey through a grim world where magic is commonplace, the dead are regularly resurrected, and change has been outlawed by an undead king.

Necromancers such as Odessa are beloved
for their ability to reunite the living with
alone—takes place in the town of
Stillwater, Miss., in 1955, during the
charged months following the death of
Emmett Till and the acquittal of his
killers. Thirteen-year-old Rose Lee Carter
struggles with questions of race relations
and political activism in her family and
community. Rose and her brother are
being raised by their grandparents—
mean-spirited Ma Pearl and gentle
Papa—who tend to a white family’s house
and cotton plantation; the siblings’ par-
ents are married to others and are absent
from their lives. Jackson presents the lin-
gering racist perspectives of white
Southerners (“I wish the coloreds up
north would realize how happy the col-
oreds are down here”) and, a little less
smoothly, includes a lot of black history
under the guise of conversation. The
relentless killing of black men by whites
is uncomfortably timely, as are the con-
flicts between Rose’s friend Hallelujah,
who advocates peaceful demonstrations,
and her cousin Shorty, who believes vio-
lence should be responded to in kind.

Readers will be left with much to consider and discuss. Ages 10–12. (Jan.)

★ Betty Before X

Ilyasah Shabazz, with Renée Watson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-

374-30610-6

The daughter of Betty Shabazz and
Malcolm X, Shabazz (X: A Novel) joins
with Watson (Piecing Me Together) to tell
this absorbing fictionalized account of her
mother’s forma-
tive years. In a
straightforward
but engaging
narrative voice,
Betty describes
living with
three maternal
figures, who
offer different
strategies for
coping with
life’s difficulties. When Betty sees the vic-
tims of a lynching as a child in Georgia,
Aunt Fannie Mae tells her, “Baby, some
things we just have to take to the Lord.”
In Detroit, her stern biological mother,
Ollie Mae, tries to shield her from knowl-
edge of race riots (“You have enough years
ahead of you to know pain, Betty Dean”).

tion that prevents “horrible things from happening.” Their assignment: protect a senator’s son from being kidnapped by Rusty Flumptrunk, a cereal mascot turned criminal. Wesson’s high-energy cartoons make the most of the toys-gone-wild premise (in one funny sequence, Dan, Arabella, and Flax test their skills against a trio of out-of-control toddlers), and the unlikely allies’ near-constant bickering keeps the pace quick and the laughs coming. It’s an entertaining riff on the idea that supposed faults can actually be assets, as well as the rewards of finding friends in surprising places. Ages 8–12. (Jan.)

★ The Journey of Little Charlie Christopher Paul Curtis. Scholastic Press, $16.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-545-15666-0

Echoing themes found in Curtis’s Newbery Honor–winning Elijah of Buxton, this exceedingly tense novel set in 1858 provides a very different perspective on the business of catching runaway slaves. Eking out a living as South Carolina sharecroppers, the Bobo family knows hard luck. After 12-year-old Charlie’s father is killed in a freak accident, Charlie reluctantly agrees to pay off his father’s debt by accompanying a plantation overseer, the despicable Captain Buck, on a hunt for three runaways. Charlie’s journey takes him north to Detroit and Canada where black people and white people work and live peaceably together. Sickened by the dirty business of rounding up former enslaved men and women, Charlie hatches a risky scheme to steer them to safety. Curtis portrays Charlie as a product of his white Southern upbringing and values, skillfully conveying how his widening view of the world leads to a change in his thinking. Written in persuasive dialect and piloted by a hero who finds the courage to do what he knows is right, Curtis’s unsparing novel pulls no punches as it illuminates an ugly chapter of American history. Ages 9–12. (Jan.)