Tag Archives: 1970s

Review: Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian

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Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian

Only This Beautiful Moment
Abdi Nazemian
HarperCollins
Published May 9, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Only This Beautiful Moment

From the Stonewall Honor–winning author of Like a Love Story comes a sweeping story of three generations of boys in the same Iranian family. Perfect for fans of Last Night at the Telegraph Club and Darius the Great Is Not Okay.

2019. Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself.

1978. Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country’s burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse—he’s forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed.

1939. Bobby, the son of a calculating Hollywood stage mother, lands a coveted MGM studio contract. But the fairy-tale world of glamour he’s thrust into has a dark side.

Set against the backdrop of Tehran and Los Angeles, this tale of intergenerational trauma and love is an ode to the fragile bonds of family, the hidden secrets of history, and all the beautiful moments that make us who we are today.

My Review

I read this book as part of a kidlit book club. I’d read Desert Echoes by Abdi Nazemian before and have Like a Love Story on my reading list. As I’m writing this review, his next book, Exquisite Things comes out shortly. I have to say that so far, I’m really loving all the selections we’ve read for our book club.

One of the powerful things about this book is that it follows three generations of young Iranian/Iranian-American men from three different time periods. How often do we really get to know a teen character and then see their parent and grandparent’s experiences up close in this way? I thought that was really cool.

The story opens with Moud in 2019. We meet his dad in this opening chapter, and I know I made some assumptions about him. To then zip back through time to witness Saeed as a teenager in Tehran challenged a few of the preconceptions I’d made about who he was and why he was that way. The extra time periods added a lot of layers to his and Bobby’s characters.

This is a heavily male-dominated story, but I think this is one of the instances in which that’s necessary to make the point the author is making here about generational relationships between men. Each time period shows strong women who defy gender expectations in their own ways, too, though those relationships are not the focus of the book.

All in all, Only This Beautiful Moment is a powerful story that sets a tall goal for itself and delivers on every promise.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used fairly infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. A couple of short scenes show a couple touching each other. One character walks into a bathroom where a stall door gets kicked open, briefly revealing two men having sex. The description is very brief and startling to the character.

Spiritual Content
References to prayer in a life-and-death situation along with an acknowledgement that the person praying isn’t sure they believe in the God they pray to in that moment. A couple of characters repeat religion-based homophobic claims.

Violent Content
Soldiers break up a political protest, shooting into the crowd and hitting people. Bobby encounters homophobic beliefs prevalent in the 1930s. A couple of characters react with anger after discovering that people close to them are gay. One scene shows someone arrested for being gay. Moud learns of friends arrested for being gay.

Drug Content
Saeed reluctantly drinks alcohol at a party. A doctor gives Bobby a prescription medication and tells him it will help with performance nerves. (The doctor also tries to pass the pill off as a decongestant.) Another character warns Bobby about taking the pills or drinking alcohol.

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

MMGM Review: North of Tomboy by Julie A. Swanson

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

North of Tomboy
Julie A. Swanson
SparkPress
Published September 2, 2025

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About North of Tomboy

For fans of Kacen Callender, Lin Thompson, and Kyle Lukoff, comes a middle grade novel set in 1973 about a child who feels more boy than girl and is frustrated that people act blind to that when—aside for her stupid hair and clothes—it should be obvious!

Shy fourth grader Jess Jezowski turns the tables on her mom when she’s given yet another girly baby doll for Christmas. This time, instead of ignoring or destroying it, she transforms it into the boy she’s always wanted to be—a brave, funny little guy named Mickey. Making him talk, Jess finally lets the boy in her express himself.

But when Mickey evolves to become something more like an alter ego whose voice drowns out her own and the secret of him escapes the safety of her family, Jess realizes Mickey’s too limited and doesn’t allow the boy part of her a big enough presence in the world. She must find a way to blend him into her—so she can be that side of herself anywhere, around anyone.

Jess tries to wean herself from the crutch of Mickey’s loud, comical persona, and to get her family to forget about him, but she struggles to do both. What will it take for her to stop hiding behind Mickey and get people to see her for who she truly is? Based on the author’s experience growing up on Michigan’s rural Leelanau Peninsula in the ’70s, North of Tomboy includes artwork throughout.

My Review

I read a review of North of Tomboy a few weeks ago on Always in the Middle. I think he made a lot of good points about the book. He noted the length being a little bit long for the type of story this is, and I’d agree. It’s the kind of book that makes you laugh, but makes you think right along with the main character. Some elements of the book feel more like a coming of age story than a middle grade novel, but the voice is solidly middle grade. Jess really feels like a nine-year-old kid. Lots of times her ideas about what’s happening are imperfect, or she accidentally stumbles onto a solution that works. For example, she realizes the family listens to Mickey differently than they listen to her. That kind of thinking reminded me a lot of myself as a kid.

I also appreciated how nuanced the family members are. Jess is one of four kids in a closeknit family. She’s closest to her youngest sister, Lucy, but often wants to do the things her older brothers are doing. Her mom navigates difficult situations with Jess’s dad in a way that Jess struggles to understand. She also constructs a lot of rules about Jess’s appearance, requiring her to dress and act “like a girl.” Though those things are hurtful and make Jess feel unheard and unseen, Jess appreciates her mom’s emotional honesty about family matters.

The 1970s setting is interesting, too. Politics and historical events don’t intrude into the story too much. The references to the Nixon administration and the Vietnam war help anchor the story in the time period.

Throughout the story, Jess expresses her frustration about the expectations she faces as a child assigned female at birth. The story doesn’t center around her labeling herself, but simply her resourcefulness at finding ways to express who she is. Her quest to be comfortable in her own skin really resonates.

Conclusion

Kids who don’t identify with gender conventions, whether they identify as LGBTQIA+ or simply don’t fit gender stereotypes, will find a kindred spirit in Jess. Readers interested in historical fiction set in 20th century America will find the Michigan setting and 1970s timeline engaging.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
References to attending church and prayer. Jess worries that she’ll go to Hell if she dies before finishing her prayers and asking forgiveness for her sins each night.

Violent Content
Jess takes risks a couple of times. She winds up seriously injured once.

Drug Content
Jess’s dad drinks a beer after work sometimes. His father was an alcoholic, something the family doesn’t talk about.

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: Boy vs. Shark by Paul Gilligan

Book Review and Content, Graphic Novel or Adaptation, Historical, Memoir, Middle Grade 8-12, Nonfiction, , , , ,

Boy vs. Shark
Paul Gilligan
Tundra Books
Published October 15, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Boy vs. Shark

A hilarious middle-grade graphic memoir about boyhood, toxic masculinity and a shark named Jaws. For fans of Guts and New Kid.

In the summer of 1975, 10-year-old Paul Gilligan doesn’t have a whole lot to worry about other than keeping his comic books untarnished, getting tennis balls off roofs and keeping up with the increasingly bold stunts of his best friend, David.

And then Jaws comes to town.

Suddenly everyone is obsessing over this movie about a shark ripping people to pieces. And if you haven’t seen it, not only are you missing out, you’re also kind of a wimp.

Needless to say, Jaws leaves young Paul a cowering mess, and underlines the growing gap between him and David as well as the distance between where he stands and the world’s expectations of a boy’s “manliness.”

And when Jaws himself becomes a kind of macho Jiminy Cricket for Paul, what is a scared and overwhelmed boy to do?

My Review

I really like the way that the author handled references to the movie Jaws in the text. Some of the characters verbally reference different scenes. After Paul watches the movie, he relates what happens in some of the scenes with balloon animals as characters. The absurdity of the images helps keep the content from being scary and overwhelming. I thought that was a really nice touch.

I also appreciated the complexity of the relationships in the novel, especially Paul’s relationship with his dad. Paul’s dad embraces some toxic ideas about who Paul should be as a young man, which causes Paul a lot of stress. At the same time, though, his dad imparts a strong ethic of personal responsibility, which helps guide Paul through a difficult situation.

It’s always great to see three-dimensional parent characters in Kidlit, and in this instance, the fact that the ideals Paul’s dad holds up as masculine are not all good or all bad makes it easier to understand Paul’s feelings of confusion and hurt when he doesn’t perfectly fit his father’s ideals.

I really enjoyed this graphic memoir. The use of the movie worked really well to illustrate the theme, and Gilligan creates a compelling balance of humor and heart in his exploration of masculine values and growing up.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 to 12.

Representation
Paul’s best friends are an Asian American boy and a Black boy.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
References to plot points from the movie Jaws. Some bullying in which an older boy makes comments about a younger kid. A boy manipulates others into stealing something from a store.

Drug Content
In one scene, a boy has a bottle of wine under his shirt, which he drops.

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: A Song for the Cosmos by Jan Lower and Gary Kelley

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A Song for the Cosmos
Jan Lower
Illustrated by Gary Kelley
Creative Editions
Published August 9, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About A Song for the Cosmos

Blues guitarist Blind Willie Johnson led a hardscrabble life, but in 1977, NASA’s Voyager spacecrafts were launched, each carrying a golden record to introduce planet Earth to the cosmos, and his song “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” became the defining anthem.

Weaving together elements of Johnson’s biography with an account of how a team of astrophysicists, writers, and artists created the golden record for the Voyager mission, Jan Lower and Gary Kelley craft a tale that is itself A SONG FOR THE COSMOS.

Gary Kelley’s compelling, graphic-style art shares the poignancy of Johnson’s life and music. Kelley is an award-winning illustrator. His books include NEXT YEAR, HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS, and VIRGINIA WAS A SPY published by Creative Editions.

My Review

I like the way this book tells these two stories– the story of the Voyager mission, and the biography of Blind Willie Johnson’s life– together. At first I wasn’t sure how well they’d fit together, but I think both the writing style, which I loved, and the artwork pull the stories together to create echoes from one to the other.

The illustrations are striking, at times feeling a little but otherworldly or haunting as they show scenes from Johnson’s life or representations of other records included in the Voyager mission. By the end of the book, I was such a fan of the artwork and the idea of juxtaposing two stories together as one that I had to look up the other books by Gary Kelley. I really want to check out BACH AND THE BLUES: PABLO CASALS AND ROBERT JOHNSON, since it looks a bit similar.

In the back of the book, there’s a more detailed account of Johnson’s life as well as more information about the Voyager’s journeys. You can also find out where to listen to the sounds and music included on the record.

I think this would make a really great addition to a science or music curriculum. Readers who love biographies or music or space history definitely want to check this one out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 9 to 12.

Representation
Offers biographical information about Black singer/songwriter Blind Willie Johnson. Briefly references that greetings in many other languages and music from a variety of cultures are included in the golden record, as it’s purpose was to represent the whole world.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Mentions that Johnson married.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of A SONG FOR THE COSMOS in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Prince of Steel Pier by Stacy Nockowitz

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The Prince of Steel Pier
Stacy Nockowitz
Kar-Ben Publishing
Published September 1, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Prince of Steel Pier

A young teen falls in with the Mob and learns a lesson about what kind of person he wants to be.

In THE PRINCE OF STEEL PIER, Joey Goodman is spending the summer at his grandparents’ struggling hotel in Atlantic City, a tourist destination on the decline. Nobody in Joey’s big Jewish family takes him seriously, so when Joey’s Skee-Ball skills land him an unusual job offer from a local mobster, he’s thrilled to be treated like “one of the guys,” and develops a major crush on an older girl in the process.

Eventually disillusioned by the mob’s bravado, and ashamed of his own dishonesty, he recalls words of wisdom from his grandfather that finally resonate. Joey realizes where he really belongs: with his family, who drive him crazy, but where no one fights a battle alone. All it takes to get by is one’s wits…and a little help from one’s brothers.

My Review

I feel like every time I read historical fiction, I find myself thinking I should read more of it, and THE PRINCE OF STEEL PIER definitely made me think that again. I really enjoyed the setting and time period. At one point, Joey talks about going to see the diving horses, and that made me want to watch WILD HEARTS CAN’T BE BROKEN again, which I haven’t seen in years.

I loved the scenes that showed Joey’s big Jewish family. His relationships with his brothers felt so real. Sometimes I couldn’t help laughing at the banter between them. At other times it was sad to see them growing apart.

Joey’s character totally drew me in. He chafed against the opinion he thought his family had of him as a weak or oversensitive person. But as he struck out on his own and tried to build a new reputation with Artie and his gang, Joey found that while they treated him like an independent person, they also expected things of him that he wasn’t sure he could give or even should give.

I thought the story balanced Joey’s character growth with the fast-paced plot pretty well. I felt like there was always just enough time to pause and explore Joey’s feelings before something new before the next conflict emerged.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading this book. Joey is a layered character who expertly guides us through his journey in a fascinating 1970s Atlantic City landscape.

Content Notes

Content warning for Antisemitic comments.

Recommended for Ages 9 to 13.

Representation
Joey and his family are Jewish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Joey encounters people who make Antisemitic comments about him and his family.

Romance/Sexual Content
Joey has a crush on a girl.

Spiritual Content
Joey worries about his faith. He doesn’t believe in God and worries that his family would be disappointed in him.

Violent Content
Joey witnesses some men trying to intimidate another man. Joey overhears some implied threats, too. In one scene, two men pull out knives, threatening another man.

Drug Content
A man at a bar drinks liquor. Joey talks about a time someone in his family gave him a shot of whiskey.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE PRINCE OF STEEL PIER in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Malcolm and Me by Robin Farmer

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Malcolm and Me
Robin Farmer
SparkPress
Published November 17, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Malcolm and Me

Philly native Roberta Forest is a precocious rebel with the soul of a poet. The thirteen-year-old is young, gifted, black, and Catholic—although she’s uncertain about the Catholic part after she calls Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite for enslaving people and her nun responds with a racist insult. Their ensuing fight makes Roberta question God and the important adults in her life, all of whom seem to see truth as gray when Roberta believes it’s black or white.

An upcoming essay contest, writing poetry, and reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X all help Roberta cope with the various difficulties she’s experiencing in her life, including her parent’s troubled marriage. But when she’s told she’s ineligible to compete in the school’s essay contest, her explosive reaction to the news leads to a confrontation with her mother, who shares some family truths Roberta isn’t ready for.

Set against the backdrop of Watergate and the post-civil rights movement era, Angel Dressed in Black is a gritty yet graceful examination of the anguish teens experience when their growing awareness of themselves and the world around them unravels their sense of security—a coming-of-age tale of truth-telling, faith, family, forgiveness, and social activism.

My Review

I keep writing sentences that start with, “My favorite thing about this book…” and then I remember something else equally as awesome as the thing I was originally going to call my favorite.

I loved a LOT about this book. The characters are complex. Roberta, at fourteen, is just beginning to discover that she can admire and despise things about the same person. I loved that that lesson was repeated in her relationships with multiple characters in the story.

MALCOLM AND ME definitely challenged me. I feel like, at the beginning of the story, I wanted to doubt Roberta’s perceptions of things sometimes. Or offer more benefit of the doubt than she was comfortable offering. A couple of times I paused in my reading to think that through and made a conscious decision to listen to her story and see where it all went before making any judgments.

I feel like I grew as a reader, but I also think Roberta’s story was so rich and compelling that she would have pulled me along with her no matter what. But I know I really deeply loved the way MALCOLM AND ME explored relationships, particularly her relationship with the nun who used racist insults to humiliate her and with her father, who she learns has some troubling secrets.

Through all this, she continues to evaluate her faith in God– sometimes rejecting belief out of anger, other times being swallowed by her guilt, and still other times leaning into prayer and faith as a means of bringing her through dark moments.

She also connects things that happen to her to the life of Malcolm X, whose autobiography she has been reading. I thought it was really cool the way the story showed a progression in her thinking there, too. Sometimes she was drawn to the hardness of some of this words. At other times, she was drawn to the things he said later in his life, more about peace and treating white people as brothers.

Roberta’s confidence can’t help but be inspiring. Her commitment to think deeply and explore issues and her leadership definitely moved me. I loved this book. I want to see it in classrooms and community libraries, and I hope it inspires many conversations about race and history and faith. I absolutely recommend MALCOLM AND ME.

If you missed it yesterday, please check out my Q&A with author Robin Farmer for lots more insight on this fantastic book.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Roberta is Black and attends a mostly white Catholic school.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently. Some racial slurs, including use of the N-word.

Romance/Sexual Content
Some vague references to men having affairs. Several times Roberta comments on curvy women and the men around them eyeballing those curves.

Spiritual Content
Roberta attends Mass and confession. She and other characters pray sometimes. Sometimes she doubts her faith.

Violent Content
A woman slaps a girl multiple times. The girl hits her back in the chest. A woman punches a wall in the midst of an argument. Two boys get into a fistfight.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of MALCOLM AND ME in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog.