Tag Archives: COVID-19

YA – Pandemic Report Card: Successes and Failures

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Stefan, Jennifer. Pandemic Report Card: Successes and Failures. Reference Point Press, 2023. 978-1-6782-0346-7 $35.95 64 p. Grades 7-12.

This title covers the early days–from March 2020 to February 2022–of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., and the disorganized responses by the U.S. government.  Drawing from media reports, data, and surveys, the book has largely negative facts to share about the unpreparedness of response, the unequal distribution of aid, and the politicalization of the efforts of masking, unemployment aid, and more. The swiftness of the creation of an effective vaccine is an indisputable accomplishment, but positive aspects of any side of the societal changes due to medical or employment issues are overwhelmed by the negatives.  This decidedly gloomy tone is both realistic but off-putting, considering the ongoing nature of the pandemic and its related challenges and the increased concern with mental health. Various massive governmental aid packages are described as both necessary and insufficient. The effects of remote schooling and remote employment, as well as supply shortages, stay-at-home mandates, mobilization of supplies and vaccines, and vaccine resisters are topics covered in chapters divided into “public health,” “economic,” and “vaccine” successes and failures. The final chapter “Preparing for the Next Pandemic” is helpfully divided into six lessons learned from COVID-19, regarding public trust, need for ongoing research, and the damage of politics and misinformation.

THOUGHTS: An early, negative look at the U.S. response to COVID-19 holds evidence that could bolster our national pride and trust in future public health efforts, but this reporting maligns nearly every outcome save the creation of the vaccine. A useful overview.

614.5 Public Health

YA – Invisible Son

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Johnson, Kim. Invisible Son. Random House, 2023. 978-0-593-48210-0. 394 p. $18.99. Grades 7-12.

Andre Jackson has just returned from his time at a juvenile detention center for a crime he didn’t commit, but one he copped to in order to save a friend. Matched with an eager, well-intentioned probation officer, Marcus Smith, Andre’s re-entry to his grandparents’ home, one of the only African American families left in a gentrified neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, is made even more difficult with the rumors of a new kind of virus people are catching. The well-to-do Whitakers across the street have two biological children, Brian and Kate, and three adopted ones, Sierra, Eric, and Luis. When the police fingered Andre for possession of stolen items, the imposing and politically ambitious Mr. Whitaker offered his own lawyer for Andre’s defense. Now, two months later, Andre views the seemingly perfect Whitaker family with suspicion. Sierra, his former girlfriend, never visited him in prison. Her brother Eric has run away without a word to anyone, including Sierra. Mr. Whitaker’s superficially kind gestures may hide some ugly secrets while his wife’s aloofness may mask her real feelings about Andre and her adopted African American and Mexican children. In addition, Andre has to grapple with the biased former probation officer, Cowboy Jim Adkins, following him and threatening him. Andre knows he was set up for the crime, but doesn’t know how to prove it. When Andre comes across information that indicates that Eric may not be a runaway, Andre believes finding Eric is the key to his real freedom. If working out why he was framed while still keeping on the straight and narrow wasn’t stressful enough, Andre tackles the world of COVID with its casualties and the protests following George Floyd’s killing. Author Kim Johnson finds an authentic voice in the character of Andre Jackson and develops an intricate plot of a young Black teen searching for justice during the beginning stages of the pandemic. An added bonus is that each chapter has a musical score, and Andre’s playlist is included.

THOUGHTS: This novel unearths several current issues: gentrification, racism, transracial adoption, and the recent pandemic. There are many layers at work, too: the shame Andre’s family feels about this good son being imprisoned; the facade of the white Whitaker family as the do-gooders; the contrast between the two different probation officers; and Andre’s own conflict in his inability to defend himself properly despite his innocence. Setting the story during the pandemic also brings up recent memories of being confined, lack of resources, and, of course, the strain on the health system and the deaths of many. I believe this book is a good title for class reading in a literature circle or summer reading assignment. Much to discuss here, especially as we go into another election cycle, perhaps with the candidate that denied the existence of the virus at the start.

Realistic Fiction

YA – Gone Wolf

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McBride, Amber. Gone Wolf. Fiewel and Friends, 2023. 978-1-250-85049-2. 348 p. $17.99. Grades 6-10.

Inmate Eleven has never seen the sun. She is a Blue living in post-pandemic 2111. She is held alongside her wolf-dog, Ira, in a small room within the tall walls of Elite, the capital of Bible Boot—a future, isolationist portion of the United States post-Second Civil War. Inmate Eleven is given tests and bloodwork with frequency. She has been told through a series of Bible Boot-issued flashcards that Blues are racially inferior, hate is illegal, and Clones are irrefutably kind. Larkin, a white Clone, begins to meet with Inmate Eleven, and Inmate Eleven feels empowered to choose a new name for herself: Imogen. Unfortunately, Larkin’s father also happens to be the powerful, racist leader of Elite. Soon, Larkin and Imogen realize they must escape the walls of Elite where slavery has been fully re-instituted, and both Black and Blue people are enduring torturous treatment. But…who is Imogen, really, and what year is it…truly? Imogen is living two disjointed realities, and she’s fighting to go wolf in both.

THOUGHTS: Many aspects of this book are heartbreaking. The way McBride weaves this story together is poignant and unique. Without giving too many spoilers, this is a book that brings to light concepts of generational and racial trauma in the United States. The book’s underlying commentary regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, racial violence, and political polarization will also be highly relatable to middle school students. Big twists and turns, compounded by sad events, caused myself as reader to question where the story was going at first, but not in a negative way. Then, pieces clicked masterfully into place. Because the story is told from a first person limited perspective, McBride uses ends of each chapter to offer clarifying bits of information that will help all readers access the underlying themes and nuance of the story. The powerful messaging of Black resilience and a new lens of trauma will stick with readers for a long time. As an adult reader, I found myself thinking of Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison’s stories. An essential addition to middle school and even high school fiction collections.

Science Fiction

MG – The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine

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Marsh, Katherine. The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine. Roaring Brook Press, 2023. 978-1-250-31360-7. 368 p. Grades 6-8.

Flipping between the days of the pandemic in 2020 and the Holodomor in the Ukraine in 1933, this eye-opening historical fiction work tells the story of Matthew, a young man barely tolerating the conditions brought on by COVID days and three cousins from the Ukraine. Matthew’s mother has moved GG, Matthew’s 100-year-old great-grandmother, to their home to protect her health. As a diversion from video games, she encourages her son to help GG sort through the many boxes from storage that GG brings with her. At first reluctantly, then gradually eagerly, Matthew gets to know his immigrant grandmother in a new way, learn about this atrocity that was suppressed in even prestigious newspapers like the New York Times, and form a tighter bond with his journalist father who is seconded to Paris for his work. In each compelling chapter, the reader uncovers the struggles, beliefs, and failures of the girls: Helen, the cousin who lives in a cramped apartment in Brooklyn and is trying to shed light on the Ukrainian famine; Mila, the spoiled daughter of a staunch Stalinist who has grown up believing the doctrine of the Communist Party; and Nadiya, the poor peasant whose family resists the collective farms and suffers terrible consequences. Author Katherine Marsh, whether deliberately or inadvertently, draws similarities between the disinformation prevalent during COVID in contemporary times and the near silence on the Ukrainians’ years of starvation in the early thirties. With the current war in the Ukraine continuing, the reader cannot help but feel sympathetic toward this country that has endured so much.

THOUGHTS: Students having Ukrainian or Russian ancestry will gain the most from this book, but everyone who reads it will know of the Holodomor. (I asked a student whose family came from the Ukraine if she knew about the Holodomor and she immediately said yes, though I just learned about it from this book.) It provokes discussion of perpetuating true information and encourages a stronger discernment of governments and the news they pass on. This title is a springboard for preserving family stories. Matthew’s search for information is contagious, and the action keeps building, but more prolific readers may predict the plot twist before it happens.

Historical Fiction                                          

MG – Wrecker

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Hiaasen, Carl. Wrecker. Alfred A. Knopf, 2023. 978-0-593-37629-4. 323 p. $21.99. Grades 6-9.

Fifteen-year-old Valdez Jones VIII, who goes by the nickname Wrecker, takes pride in his family’s legacy as shipwreck salvagers. The salt water and sea air are in his blood, and he spends as much time as possible fishing on his skiff in the waters surrounding Key West. Luckily for him, online schooling due to the COVID-19 pandemic means he has much more free time on the boat. During one such fishing outing in his boat, Wrecker helps a speedboat stuck in the shoal. He does not think too much about it until he bumps into the silver-mustached boat owner at the cemetery where Wrecker works as a part-time headstone cleaner. Silver Mustache wants Wrecker to keep an eye on a newly built mausoleum but soon tasks Wrecker with other jobs that are sneaky and illegal. Unknowingly, Wrecker becomes involved in a dangerous smuggling ring, and he must outsmart the smugglers to protect himself and his family.

THOUGHTS: Hiaasen’s Wrecker is an action-packed novel that will delight middle grade students. Intertwined with Wrecker’s adventures are topical situations involving COVID-19 vaccinations, ocean life preservation, and the history of racism on Key West.

Adventure

MG/YA – Pandemic Aftereffects: The Surge in Teen Eating Disorders

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Sharp, Katie. Pandemic Aftereffects: The Surge in Teen Eating Disorders. ReferencePoint Press, 2023. 64 p. $33.05. Grades 6-12.
Teenagers have a lot to say about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their lives. In Pandemic Aftereffects: The Surge in Teen Eating Disorders, an introduction and four short chapters provide researchers and readers with a wealth of information about the rise in teen eating disorders as a result of the pandemic. In the introduction four teens  – two with preexisting eating disorders and two who develop eating disorders during the pandemic – are briefly profiled. Four chapters follow, covering What are eating disorders, Why the pandemic triggered eating disorders, getting treatment, and coping with an eating disorder during a pandemic. The chapter on what are eating disorders provides general information as well as sections on anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder. Each disorder includes specific anecdotal situations to help readers better understand from the point of view of someone who has experienced it. This chapter also includes a section on Black people and eating disorders, other underdiagnosed groups, how eating disorders affect the body, an explanation of how complex disordered eating is, and a section on risk factors. The chapter on getting treatment provides hope for those who may be personally impacted by disordered eating or those who are trying to help a friend or loved one. Color photos and text boxes enhance the heavy information presented throughout the book. This title concludes with additional source notes, organizations and websites, for further research, and an index.
THOUGHTS: ReferencePoint Press’s single titles series will enhance secondary library collections looking to update their current issues collections for student research. Depending on student research needs, this title is appropriate for middle and high school collections.
616.85 Eating Disorders

MG – Mixed Up

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Korman, Gordon. Mixed Up. Scholastic Press, 2023. 978-1-338-82672-2. 256 p. $17.99. Grades 4-8.

Reef Moody has a lot to deal with. Not only is he still grieving the death of his mother, but he is also adjusting to a new house and a new family. Jen, his mother’s best friend, took him in after his mom’s death since he had nowhere else to go. Unfortunately, Jen’s son Declan is making his life a living nightmare. On top of that, Reef has been forgetting important memories of his mother which is particularly devastating. In their place are different memories, memories he doesn’t remember making. Across town, Theo Metzinger is having the same problem. His memory has been failing him lately. Theo cannot remember how to take care of the plants in his beloved garden. Some days, he has trouble finding his way home from school. Instead of his own memories, Theo keeps seeing memories of someone’s mother in a hospital bed. Reef and Theo meet each other one day after Reef sees the cupola of Theo’s school on TV. Reef has never been to that school, but he recognizes the cupola from his memories. They quickly realize they have been swapping memories with each other. The boys discover they were born on the same day at the same hospital, and that could be the key to why this phenomena is happening to them. Together they embark on a scientific adventure to regain their memories and stop the swap.

THOUGHTS: This is the first book I’ve read where a main character is grieving the loss of a parent to COVID-19, making it timely and relatable as many students are still reeling from the pandemic. The characters are likable and realistic; readers will be rooting for them. Like many of Korman’s books, the chapters are told in alternating points of view between Reef and Theo. This is a must-buy for middle grade libraries.

Fantasy

YA – Ain’t Burned All the Bright

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Reynolds, Jason, and Jason Griffin, illustrator. Ain’t Burned All the Bright. A Caitlin Dlouhy Book, 2022. 978-1-534-43946-7. unpaged. $19.99. Grades 7-12.

In a three-part poem using breath as a metaphor, Jason Reynolds depicts what it’s like to be a young Black person in America, in the present moment. Breath One addresses the protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd, as the speaker’s mother watches a repetitive news cycle that “won’t change into something new.” Breath Two relates his father’s struggles to breathe without coughing, a clear reference to COVID-19; the cough is a “blues trumpet in his throat.” Breath Three alludes to climate change, pollution, wildfires, and rising sea levels through a futile search for an oxygen mask. In a pivot, seeing a hint of a smile on his mother’s face, he looks for oxygen not in a box but in his family’s lovable idiosyncrasies, “seeing each other’s mess as a breath of fresh air.” Jason Griffin’s illustrations are as essential to this book as the text. Rendered on moleskine notebook pages with paint markers, sharpies, spray paint, and various kinds of tape, the images are intermittently abstract, suggestive, and realistic. All are thematically linked to Reynolds’ poems, which are cut into lines, words, and letters and incorporated into each page’s collage.

THOUGHTS: Ain’t Burned All the Bright is a work of art that readers will want to pick up again and again to fully engage with its meaning.

Novel in Verse          Amy V. Pickett, Ridley SD
Graphic Novel

Through three metaphorical breaths, readers are taken on a journey through one of the most difficult times in recent history. In Breath One, readers are introduced to a narrator who wonders “why the story won’t / change into something new” as he describes how his mother won’t change the television channel and his brother won’t look away from a video game. Stunning artwork depicts cities burning as smoke billows out of windows, a NYPD van in flames, and blacked out images. The story transitions to protests over the murder of George Floyd and the back and forth fight to breathe – to have “freedom to walk / and shout / and cry / and scream / and scroll / and post / and pray.” In Breath Two, the speaker still wonders why his mom is glued to the same channel as his father “keeps coughing / from the other room.” Artwork depicts masks and isolation as COVID ravages around the world much like a tornado destroying a town. In Breath Three, the speaker searches relentlessly for an oxygen mask “but couldn’t find / a saving grace.” Clearly painted, taped, drawn, and written on the pages of a moleskine notebook, these two powerhouse creators give readers a lot to digest. The “is anyone still here?” that follows the poem describes their process in an interview style that is not to be missed.

THOUGHTS: Ain’t Burned All the Bright is a beautiful combination of poetry and art that is best enjoyed in one sitting then returned to again and again.

Poetry          Maryalice Bond, South Middleton SD

Elem. – Outbreak (Series NF)

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Outbreak! Abdo Zoom, 2021. $20.00 ea. $120.00 set of 6. 24 p. Grades 3-6. 

Aids Crisis. 978-1-098-22325-0.
Black Death. 978-1-098-22326-7.
Covid-19 Pandemic. 978-1-098-22327-4.
Ebola Outbreak. 978-1-098-22328-1.
Spanish Flu. 978-1-098-22329-8.
Typhoid Epidemic. 978-1-098-22330-4.

Covid – 19 Pandemic is a nonfiction book about the Covid 19 pandemic and features information about the beginning of the virus as well as some of the more recent information. There is nothing found within this nonfiction book about the vaccines; however, it does mention that the scientists are continuing to work on something for Covid-19. There is a glossary found in the back of the book, as well as an index. There is a QR code found in the back of the book that can be scanned to find more information about Covid-19. There are links from this QR code that go to the CDC Covid-19 website, the World Covid Case meter, and the WHO COVID timeline.

THOUGHTS: Overall, this is a great introduction to Covid-19, and is a great book to start learning about Covid-19. As the information changed, the book might become outdated quickly however, it is a good book to start with.

614.49 Diseases          Mary Hyson, Lehigh Valley Regional Charter Academy

Elem. – Outside, Inside

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Pham, LeUyen. Outside, Inside. Roaring Books Press, 2021. 978-1-250-79835-0. 48 p. $18.99. Grades Pre-K-2. 

Capturing community, perseverance, and hope, Outside, Inside by Caldecott Honor winner LeUyen Pham is a moving testimony that depicts the global Covid-19 pandemic. With encouraging words, poetic language, and gorgeous illustrations, this picture book will help young children make sense of the virus that altered their daily lives. The story begins on an unremarkable day just before the season changes. All races and ethnicities are bustling around outside when suddenly everything changes, and everyone goes inside. The outside is quieter, different, even wilder, and the inside holds laughter, tears, and growth. While the world changed outside, the people on the inside become resilient and hopeful. As the story moves forward, the author does not shy away from heartbreaking loss or skip over the unexpected good. Instead, she gently explains that we moved from the outside to the inside to protect the ones we love. Pham never downplays the seriousness of the pandemic and illustrates vivid scenes that represent upended routines, hospital stays, job loss, and even death. Yet, she also lovingly depicts loved ones on the outside protecting those that are inside. Finally, the picture book ends with a season change as hope and love blooms in the air.

THOUGHTS: Outside, Inside’s dedication is to all essential workers, first responders, and communities across the globe. It is true that author LeUyen Pham masterfully captures how all of us felt on the outside and inside as we navigated Covid-19. I believe her author’s note at the end of the picture book is just as important as the story itself. Nearly every face painted in the book is inspired by a REAL person- people who survived or succumbed to the awful virus. She also shares that the most challenging spread to illustrate was the one that explained why we sacrificed what we did because each character shown on the page gave her “both joy and pain.” In her final words, Pham notes that Outside, Inside is “a time capsule of our moment in history when the world came together as one to do the right thing.”

Picture Book          Marie Mengel, Reading SD