Category Archives: Historical

MMGM Review: Eureka by Victoria Chang

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Eureka by Victoria Chang

Eureka
Victoria Chang
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
Published January 27, 2026

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About Eureka

A novel-in-verse by poet Victoria Chang that relates the tragic events surrounding the 1885 expulsion of Chinese Americans from Eureka, California.

Love illuminates the dark.

The year is 1885. San Francisco is dangerous for Chinese immigrants like twelve-year-old Mei Mei. She must venture on her own, without her family or friends, to Eureka, California, where it is supposedly safe.

But 300 miles from home, Mei Mei misses her Ma Ma’s kindness, helping out in her Ba Ba’s store, and playing hide-and-seek with her best friend, Hua Hua. Despite her fear and the increasing violence against her community, she finds hope in an unexpected friend, the giant Redwood trees, and a new learning how to read in English. As the world around her grows more scary, Mei Mei discovers her own power, as well the joy of found family, the importance of courage, and the nature of freedom.

My Review

This is the second historical novel-in-verse that I’ve read this month, and the second about a moment in history that I’m not as familiar with as I’d like to be. I love that authors are bringing these stories to the page.

Mei Mei faces some intense circumstances, but the descriptions and her understanding of what’s happening stays appropriate for a middle grade audience. She finds friends and builds community even when she moves far from her family. It’s easy to root for her and cheer her on as she faces difficulties.

While the story identifies some of the cruel and racist things that happened to Chinese immigrants in 1885, the novel also highlights the power of hope and the importance of taking care of one another. Mei Mei helps others when she can, and others look out for her at different points in the story, too.

If you enjoyed Lion of the Sky by Ritu Hemnani, a novel in verse set in the 1940s during the British Partition of India, add this book to your reading list.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 9 to 12.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A thief steals items from Mei Mei’s parents’ store. Dangerous people come to the shop looking for Mei Mei, planning to kidnap her in exchange for her parents’ debts. Mei Mei witnesses someone mistreating household staff. Someone locks her in a closet to punish her. Mei Mei worries about anti-Chinese sentiment that could lead to violence against her or others.

Mei Mei’s mother’s feet have been badly damaged due to the practice of foot binding that was common in her generation in China. Walking is painful for her, which limits what she’s able to do.

Drug Content
Mei Mei witnesses an adult who’s been drinking alcohol.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. Check out other blogs with posts about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle.

MMGM Review: A Year Without Home by V. T. Bidania

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A Year Without Home
V. T. Bidania
Nancy Paulsen Books
Published January 13, 2026

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About A Year Without Home

A poignant middle grade novel in verse about a Hmong girl losing and finding home in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. For fans of Jasmine Warga and Veera Hiranandani.

For eleven-year-old Gao Sheng, home is the lush, humid jungles and highlands of Laos. Home is where she can roll down the grassy hill with her younger siblings after her chores, walk to school, and pick ripe peaches from her family’s trees.

But home becomes impossible to hold onto when U.S. troops pull out of the Vietnam War. The communists will be searching for any American allies, like Gao Sheng’s father, a Hmong captain in the Royal Lao Army who fought alongside the Americans against the Vietnamese. If he’s caught, he’ll be killed.

As the adults frantically make plans – contacting family, preparing a route, and bundling up their silver and gold, Gao Sheng wonders if she will ever return to her beloved Laos and what’s to become of her family now. Gao Sheng only knows that a good daughter doesn’t ask questions or complain. A good daughter doesn’t let her family down. Even though sometimes, she wishes she could be just a kid rolling down a grassy hill again.

On foot, by taxi and finally in a canoe, Gao Sheng and her family make haste from the mountains to the capitol Vientiane and across the rushing Mekong River, to finally arrive at an overcrowded refugee camp in Thailand. As a year passes at the camp, Gao Sheng discovers how to rebuild home no matter where she is and finally find her voice.

Inspired by author V.T. Bidania’s family history, A Year Without a Home illuminates the long, difficult journey that many Hmong refugees faced after the Vietnam War.

My Review

My knowledge of the Vietnam War is pretty thin, so learning about the Hmong soldiers from Laos who helped the American forces was new to me. The story includes some of what happened in Laos in and around 1975, especially for the Hmong people, such as Gao Sheng and her family.

I love that the author showed Gao Sheng’s frustration with her family role. (As the oldest daughter, her job is to take care of the younger siblings and cousins, whereas her brother is allowed more unstructured play time. Her feelings were easy to understand, and I think they’ll resonate with young readers today as well. I also thought it was cool that she learned embroidery and felt a connection to her mom and aunties through that activity. It captured that in-between feeling of adolescence, where sometimes she wanted to be a kid and other times she wanted to do things considered more adult.

At the end of the book, the author shares her personal connection to the story. Her family had an experience similar to Gao Sheng’s when she was a baby. I liked how she incorporated her family’s history into the story.

A Year Without Home reminded me a little bit of Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. I think readers who enjoy realistic fiction in verse will like this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to cultural norms. A boy wants to speak with Gao Sheng, but it isn’t proper for them to speak directly, so his cousin passes the message to her.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Gao Sheng hears rumors that people have been arrested and possibly tortured. In the refugee camp, her family hears stories of people who died in the airport bombing. Some families were robbed as they tried to escape Laos.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. Check out other blogs with posts about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle.

Review: The Peach Thief by Linda Joan Smith

Book Review and Content, Historical, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , ,

The Peach Thief
Linda Joan Smith
Publisher
Published March 4, 2025

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About The Peach Thief

This shimmering middle-grade debut set in 1850s Lancashire, England, explores longing, belonging, and the courage it takes to find your place—and bloom.

The night that workhouse orphan Scilla Brown dares to climb the Earl of Havermore’s garden wall, she wants only to steal a peach—the best thing she’s ever tasted in her hard, hungry life. But when she’s caught by the earl’s head gardener and mistaken for a boy, she grabs on to something a temporary job scrubbing flowerpots. If she can just keep up her deception, she’ll have a soft bed and food beyond her wildest dreams . . . maybe even peaches.

She soon falls in with Phin, a garden apprentice who sneaks her into the steamy, fruit-filled greenhouses, calls her “Brownie,” and makes her skin prickle. At the same time, the gruff head gardener himself is teaching lowly Scilla to make things grow, and she’s cultivating hope with every seed she plants. But as the seasons unfurl, her loyalties become divided, and her secret grows harder to keep. How far will she go to have a home at last?

Beautifully crafted with classic middle-grade themes of fate and ambition, identity and personal responsibility, this stunning debut features brisk pacing, crackling dialogue, and deep insight into what makes a garden thrive—and a heart and mind flourish.

My Review

This book really got to me. From early on, I really didn’t like a certain character. It wasn’t clear to me until late in the book whether this dislike would be at odds with the story’s outcome. There’s a pretty intense scene very late in the book, and I couldn’t see how Scilla would come through it unscathed, so reading that scene was a pretty serious roller coaster ride for me. I was sweating for Scilla for sure.

I feel like the foreshadowing for the outcome of the book is really nicely done. Thinking back through the story, Scilla overlooked some things because she was so focused on keeping the secret of her identity and background. At the time, I think I was so focused on her experience that I didn’t often read the room, so to speak, and look at what was happening in the story beyond her experience.

While this is a completely different story, some elements– namely the gardening– reminded me a bit of The Secret Garden. I could see this story appealing to readers who are interested in a story like that one but perhaps want a book told in a more modern style.

All in all, The Peach Thief was a really engaging read.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content/Nudity
References to kissing (off-scene). Scilla has a crush on a boy who works in the garden. Other workers burst in on Scilla just after she has showered. She turns her back to them, trying to shield her body from view.

Spiritual Content
References to characters attending church.

Violent Content
References to racist, misogynist, and classist practices, rules, and beliefs of the time. Scilla breaks into the garden in search of food and accidentally destroys a tree. Two boys dump Scilla into a barrel filled with water and manure as part of an initiation into working in the garden. A woman treats a servant cruelly after it appears she made a mistake. Allusion to child abuse (confinement in a locked chest, withholding food) in the workhouses. Scilla breaks into a greenhouse looking for something she left behind. A character charms and manipulates others, including Scilla, using a secret to coerce her. Scilla and another character steal produce from the Earl’s garden. At one point, a character purposefully destroys produce in storage.

Drug Content
Scilla smells cigar smoke from another worker.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Connor

Graphic Novel or Adaptation, Historical, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

I Shall Never Fall in Love
Hari Conner
HarperAlley
Published November 19, 2024

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About I Shall Never Fall in Love

George has major problems: They’ve just inherited the failing family estate, and the feelings for their best friend, Eleanor, have become more complicated than ever. Not to mention, if anyone found out they were secretly dressing in men’s clothes, George is sure it would be ruination for the family name.

Eleanor has always wanted to do everything “right,” including falling in love—but she’s never met a boy she was interested in. She’d much rather spend time with her best friend, George, and beloved cousin Charlotte. However, when a new suitor comes to town, she finds her closest friendships threatened, forcing her to rethink what “right” means and confront feelings she never knew she had.

Inspired by Jane Austen and queer history, I Shall Never Fall in Love shines a light on what it means to be true to yourself and rewrites the rules for what makes a happily ever after.

My Review

Elisabeth at The Dirigible Plum recommended this book during a KidLit chat recently, and I immediately requested a hold on it through my library. After reading Renegade Girls: A Queer Tale of Romance and Rabble-rousing by Nora Neus, I craved more historical graphic novels, so this fit perfectly into that need for me.

I didn’t spot the connections to Pride & Prejudice and Emma by Jane Austen right away, but once I saw the parallels, I found them delightful. There are certain scenes that can’t help but call to mind moments from Austen’s novels. I love that.

I also loved the evolution of the characters, especially Ellie and George. At the start of the book, Ellie assumes that she simply doesn’t want to marry anyone. As the story progresses, she begins evaluating her feelings more closely and discovers that she has romantic feelings for someone unexpected.

George always seems to walk this tightrope line in which they know they’re unusual and make uncompromising choices regardless of societal norms. At the same time, they hide parts of themselves that they worry are “too much” or too far outside the expectations of others. As they find a supportive community, they grow more comfortable being their true self.

The romances develop in such a sweet way, too. I loved Charlotte’s romantic story, and especially the backstory about her family and their desires for her. Ellie’s romance really shows the giddiness that comes from finding your person, someone who truly sees you and being able to celebrate that wholeheartedly.

If you like regency-era fiction and graphic novels, don’t miss this fabulously fun story.

Content Notes for I Shall Never Fall in Love

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
mild profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
I think there’s a brief reference to drinking alcohol, but nothing on-scene, if I’m remembering right.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I borrowed this book from my library. All opinions are my own.

Review: Nothing But the Truth by Avi

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Nothing But the Truth
Avi
Scholastic
Published January 1, 2010 (Orig. 1991)

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About Nothing But the Truth

When Philip Malloy starts humming along to his school’s daily playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, his insistence on continuing to do so even after his teacher, Miss Margaret Narwin, asks him to stop sets in motion a chain of events that will soon ripple out beyond anything Phil or Miss Narwin could have imagined. Phil’s friends, his teachers, and the school administration are soon swept up in the controversy…and that’s just the beginning!

Distinctions and Praise For Nothing But the Truth: A Newbery Honor Book; A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book; An ALA Notable Book; An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

“The story of Philip Malloy, his family, friends, teachers and school, shouts to be shared.” — The New York Times

“It is clear that Avi is attuned to the modern high school scene. With frankness and remarkable insight, he conveys the flaws of the system while creating a story that is both entertaining and profound.” — Publishers Weekly

My Review

I had several holds that were all about to come in at the library, so I was looking for a short book that I could read in the meantime when I discovered this one.

This whole story is told through transcripts of conversations, memos, news stories, letters, and diary entries. The lack of cell phones and computers or social media as well as how the characters speak makes the story feel a bit dated. (It was written in 1991, after all.)

Despite that, the theme– the truth so easily getting lost in the telling of events that engage emotions– resonates deeply today.

Philip reports to his parents that his problems at school are because his teacher doesn’t like him. His parents assume the issue is personal. When they learn the school asked him to stop singing the national anthem, they encourage him to stand up for his rights.

Suddenly what began as Phil’s attempt to get kicked out of his English teacher’s class becomes this huge media firestorm. It paints him as this humble youth whose school is suppressing his patriotism.

It was weird reading a book that so clearly encapsulates this kind of situation. Yet it was written before the rise of social media and our current “fake news” media conspiracy-minded cultural moment.

At the back of the book, Avi shares how often educators would come up to him at school visits and ask if he wrote the book about their situation. At first I found this shocking. But as I started to think about it, I considered my experiences in which parents and schools operate in an adversarial relationship. So little trust exists between these parties. It doesn’t take much to unravel it.

Conclusion

Nothing But the Truth is a deeply thought-provoking read. The writing style may not appeal much to today’s readers, but the message resonates all the same.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Brief profanity used twice.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to a romantic crush.

Spiritual Content
Brief reference to prayer/church.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I borrowed a copy of this book from the public library. All opinions are my own.

Review of Sense and Sensibility and Happy Birthday Jane Austen

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Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen
Puffin Books
Published February 13, 2024 (Orig. 1811)

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Sense and Sensibility

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby, she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behavior leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her.

Through their parallel experience of love– and its threatened loss–the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

Today (December 16) is Jane Austen’s birthday. She was born 249 years ago on this day in 1775 and was the seventh of eight children in her family. Sense and Sensibility was Austen’s debut novel and was first published anonymously.

Her books have inspired many movies and reimagined stories, including Northranger by Rey Terciero, The Jane Austen Murder Mysteries by Tirzah Price, and For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund.

My Review

It took me far too long to read what is perhaps arguably Austen’s most sister-focused novel, which is only weird considering how much I love sister books. As I’m writing this, I’ve only ever read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, so I don’t know how her other four novels are structured. This one follows both Marianne and Elinor’s points of view in a narrative that often keeps both girls’ thoughts and actions close at hand. Pride and Prejudice, by contrast, focused almost exclusively on Elizabeth Bennet’s point of view.

What Happens to Those Wild Women

A few things about this book stand out to me as very interesting. One is in the way that Austen treats characters who behave differently than the roles the society of the day expects. For example, Marianne doesn’t hide her emotions or her affection for a particular man. For much of the story, her strong feelings about ideas and people determine how she behaves, even when that behavior departs from the norm.

Two very minor characters, who never appear on scene, have babies while unmarried. In one case, the woman lives a hard life and dies of an illness. Someone cares for her at the end of her life. The second person, a girl of fifteen, is abandoned by her lover, but cared for by a family member who does not appear to blame or shame her for her situation. Instead, the family member blames the lover who abandoned her. Even the lover’s family blames him for leaving her. I found this interesting since so often historical stories focus on women being shamed and “ruined” when they behave outside of the conventions of their society and often consequences seem to ignore the men involved.

The story still generally reflects the values of its time. For example, Marianne and Willoughby treat one another familiarly, which people take to mean they are secretly engaged. A man declaring his intention to marry a woman without social standing or fortune is cut off from his inheritance. Another man is cut off from his inheritance for not marrying a young woman who has had his child.

Subtle Storytelling

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve seen the movie version of Sense and Sensibility so many times, but I found the storytelling in the book to be a little more subtle than I expected. Sometimes, what constituted a pivotal moment would be related in a sentence or two. For example, Marianne becoming ill after her walk through wet grass to continue grieving over a lost love begins a pretty intense chain of events. But it’s kind of related in passing.

I found myself having to read closely in several passages because the specific words Austen used to convey emotional progression really mattered. I didn’t mind this, but it’s something that we’re not used to doing with modern fiction.

Conclusion

Pride and Prejudice is still a favorite of mine, but having read Sense and Sensibility convinces me that I need to read more Austen. I love the idea of publishing a review of one of her books to remember her birthday, so maybe I’ll keep that up until I’ve read all six of her novels.

Content Notes for Sense and Sensibility

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to love and marriage.

References to sex outside of marriage. Two young women have babies while unmarried. In one instance, the girl’s lover has abandoned her, even after promising to return. Neither of these women appear on scene.

Spiritual Content
One character becomes a clergyman at a small parish.

Violent Content
Very brief (like, one line) reference to a duel fought between two men who both survive.

Drug Content
References to social drinking.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. All opinions are my own.