A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott

Be careful what you wish for, it just might come true.

Fifteen-year-old Genna shares a tiny, cramped apartment in Brooklyn, New York with her mother and three siblings. Her family has been steadily falling apart ever since her father left and returned to his native Panama. Genna especially has a hard time since she has a sense she doesn’t belong. She feels like an outsider at school and she has a hard time connecting with her teenage brother and sister. She is also sad that her mother has to work so hard to support the family. Genna does her best to ease her mother’s burden by not giving her anything to worry about. She gets good grades in school and cares for her infant brother. When Genna wants to escape her worries and problems she visits a neighborhood park where there is a fountain. While there, Genna always makes it a point to toss coins into the fountain and make wishes. One night, after an uncharacteristic fight with her mother, Genna is desperate to find solace at the fountain. While there, she finds a coin, tosses it in and makes a wish to leave Brooklyn and her miserable home life. To her surprise she wakes up in Civil War era Brooklyn. Genna has no choice but to adapt to her new environment and soon finds herself working for a doctor and his wife as a nanny. You cannot help but to be enthralled by this story. Elliott does a fine job of intermingling speculative with historical fiction. I highly recommend this one to teens and adults alike.

The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon

“As the river flows, it wonders what it would be like to be so still, to take a breath, to rest. But the rock will always wonder what lies around the bend in the stream.”

A compelling coming of age novel set in 1968 Chicago about thirteen-year-old Sam Childs, the son of a prominent Civil Rights leader. Sam was raised with the lesson that you can effect change without using violence. He and his older brother, Stick, have grown up making signs and marching in protest demonstrations with their parents and count the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. as a close family friend. As time goes on and Sam witnesses the injustice inflicted upon African Americans, he begins to question all that he has been taught. After finding literature from the Black Panther Party among Stick’s belongings, Sam becomes intrigued by their philosophies. He is especially impressed with the way they help the community by serving free breakfast to needy children and policing their own neighborhoods and documenting police harassment. Like many others, Sam is impatient for change and is growing weary with what he perceives as slow progress by the Civil Rights Movement. He finds himself faced with a dilemma: Will he continue to follow his father’s non-violent teachings or will he become a member of the Black Panther Party, the one group he feels is making strides towards equal rights for African American people.

This explosive debut novel by Kekla Magoon effectively captures the mood and sentiment of the time as well as the tension between the Black Panthers and the Civil Rights Movement. I highly recommend this important work to teens and adults alike, for it is not often that you find a fiction title that focuses on the Black Panthers. The author’s note at the conclusion gives additional historical facts on both groups.

2010 Coretta Scott King /John Steptoe New Talent Author Award winner.