Book Review: My Mother’s Eyes by Jeremy Ray

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Title: My Mother’s Eyes

Author: Jeremy Ray

Publication Date: December 17, 2021

Number of Pages: 39

Format: E-book

Publisher: Ray Publishing

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Synopsis:

“You’re wrong, Jordie. You’ll see. Draw me just one more time.”

No one knows if his mother will come out of her coma, so fourteen-year-old Jordie memorializes her in the only way he knows how: by drawing her. His older brother doesn’t approve of these sketches, but Jordie’s determined to capture the person she used to be.

Unfortunately, Jordie must draw her from memory because his mom didn’t keep pictures, and her body in the hospital no longer looks like her. But the images of her are quickly fading, and if he doesn’t get a drawing right soon, the mother he remembers may slip away forever. No matter how close Jordie gets to completing a drawing, his mom’s most vital feature always evades him.

Will Jordie capture his mother’s eyes? Or are they and his mother gone forever?
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Book Review: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

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Title: The Poet X

Author: Elizabeth Acevedo

Publication Date: March 6, 2018

Number of Pages: 368

Format: Audiobook

Publisher: HarperTeen

Genre: Poetry, Contemporary, Young Adult

Synopsis:

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about.

With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent. Continue reading