Author: Tirzah Price

Amal is a 12-year-old girl living in a small town in Pakistan. She dreams of one day becoming a teacher, and she loves school more than anything. She’s hopeful that she can continue her education for as long as possible, and her family, though poor, are supportive. But then one day, Amal inadvertently offends a member of the most powerful family in the region while at the market, the Khans, and they decide to call in her father’s debt early. Amal’s parents can’t pay, so they are forced to send Amal into indentured servitude to the Khans.

Amal is alone and far from home, and she’s heartbroken to be missing out on school. And life at the Khan household is not easy. Some of the members of the family are cruel and capricious, although others show kindness. As Amal begins to make friends and learn what’s expected of her, she realizes how hopeless her situation is–it’ll be years before her debt can be paid. But she also begins to learn the Khan family’s secrets…and if she can be brave enough to expose them, then maybe she can find her way home.

Aisha Saeed takes a situation that would be unimaginable for many, and she tells a brilliant and sensitive story of a young girl who has a dream and won’t be easily deterred. The stakes are real, and dangerous, which makes this a hard book to put down, and it borders on a thriller in some ways when Amal’s situation goes from bad to dangerous, but it’s not too dark for middle grade readers to handle. I loved that education–both the love of learning and the burning desire to learn–are central to Amal’s character and her motivation, and her gift for teaching comes across in everything she does and how she thinks. This is a great contemporary novel that explores issues of social justice, unfair labor, sexism, and more in a well-written and engaging story that might be intended for kids, but is great for older readers, too!

Back in 2013, Ariel Levy wrote an essay for The New Yorker called “Thanksgiving in Mongolia,” a devastating piece of writing that described how she went to Mongolia on assignment over Thanksgiving, while pregnant, and while she was there went into premature labor and lost her baby. It’s an essay I highly recommend, and it captivated me when it first published. This memoir is an extension of that essay, giving you more details about her life and context to her trip.

The Rules Do Not Apply is a relatively short memoir, but it starts with Ariel’s childhood and describes in beautiful detail her upbringing, the unconventional relationships her parents held, and how she first got her start in journalism. She covers how she learned to love travel and relished in being the type of woman who would go off on a moment’s notice to a new country and dive into exciting new opportunities. This mindset informs her decisions later on in life, as she met her wife and they were married before marriage equality passed, so they made up a lot of the rules as they went.

Levy is also painfully honest about the troubles in her marriage, how she and wife fell apart after their son’s death, and her infidelity. The honesty isn’t always pretty or easy to read, but it’s painfully raw and real, and that’s what makes this book so memorable to me. Levy writes about exhilarating happiness and success, but also about the miserable lows and grief she experienced, and how she had to rebuild her life after loss. This memoir may not be for the faint of heart, but it’ll certainly stick with you!

Bonus: I listened to the audiobook, which Levy narrates herself! It’s a great way to experience this memoir.

Madeleine L’Engle is best known for her groundbreaking children’s novel, A Wrinkle in Time, which was the Newbery Medal winner in 1963. Unlike other biographies and accounts of the famous writer, this biography is lovingly told by her granddaughters, the keepers of her literary estate.

They begin the story before Madeleine is born, setting the scene of her birth by revealing interesting details about her family life. They have the advantage of access to family history, photographs, and never-before-seen letters and documents that add wonderful depth and dimension to their book. The authors don’t shy away from aspects about their grandmother’s life that might reflect poorly on her, telling how Madeleine was a part of a group that bullied another girl in school, and the regret she felt following the event. They also tell of her loneliness, her friendships that came and went, and of her early romance with her husband. They follow Madeleine’s life up until the publication and success of her most famous novel, which was hardly her last, but saw Madeleine’s vision come to fruition after a very tough period in her life, and succeed beyond her wildest dreams.

The best thing about this biography, in my opinion, is that the authors are able to show their grandmother’s emotional journey alongside her growth as a person and an artist. They draw clear connections between her work in theater and experiences as a young woman, wife, and mother with her later works, making this a great read for fans of L’Engle’s books and for writers looking for inspiration. The intended audience is L’Engle’s young readers, but any adult will enjoy this too.

Bonus: This book is great on audio, which both authors narrate!

Content warning: Natural disaster, death, racism

Mercy Wong is a Chinese-American girl living in Chinatown, San Francisco in 1906. She’s got big ambitions, which isn’t always easy for a girl whose sex and race bar her from opportunities. But she wants to be a successful businesswoman and take care of her family, and she isn’t about to let anyone stand in her way. To that end, Mercy knows she needs a good education and connections, which is how she ends up bargaining her way into St. Clare’s School for Girls, a prestigious finishing school for wealthy young society ladies. Although attending means leaving her family behind to live across town and enduring racism from the other girls, Mercy is optimistic that attending the school will change her life—and it does, but not in the way she expects.

I first picked this book up because I was looking for a title that would satisfy the 2020 Read Harder challenge of reading a book about a natural disaster, and I found myself falling head over heels for Mercy and Stacey Lee’s expressive, vibrant writing. Lee makes history come alive, including so many tantalizing details about her time and place that I know she must have done a load of research, but that research never feels packed into the narrative. In my opinion, the best historical fiction uses historical details to help build place and character, and Lee does this brilliantly.

Like many readers, I went into this novel knowing that it would be about the 1906 earthquake, but Lee takes a good amount of time setting up the story, so the earthquake doesn’t occur until nearly halfway through. Reading about the destruction, fear, and ingenuity that followed was utterly fascinating, especially considering that the world is going through its own (albeit very different) catastrophe. Lee writes about not only what the survivors endured in the immediate aftermath, but about how disaster can bring out the best and worst in people. Sometimes people lash out due to fear, but sometimes shared hardship allows people to reach across social, racial, and economical barriers. Lee has a talent for writing about the stark realities of historical discrimination and injustice with hope, reality, and a bit of optimism, and if you like this book I highly recommend that you reach for The Downstairs Girl next! I’m also excited for her new 2021 release, Luck of the Titanic!

Bonus: I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by the talented Emily Woo Zeller, and I highly recommend that listening experience!

Happy reading!
Tirzah