How can you stay connected to a loved one when they are locked away in prison?  

Jay Jay Patton lives in a suburban household with her mother and baby sibling.  She is an earnest student whom we see writing a letter to her dad, thriving in math class, and enjoying her after school dance program.  Then over dinner one night her mother shares the news that her dad is finally coming home.   

The subsequent chapter flashes back to Jay Jay’s budding awareness at age five that her dad is not around.  Then the  story flashes forward to the present and Jay Jay’s reunification with her father and the changes the family must make now that he’s home.  

Markia Jenai’s serviceable illustrations  convey Jay Jay’s diverse emotions which any middle school  child of an incarcerated parent might feel.  There is an element of surprise at the end of the story and rich evidence provided in the back matter to illustrate and substantiate the happy ending.  

Middle school readers with an incarcerated parent may find heretofore unavailable emotional comfort from a story like their own represented in a  graphic format.  All readers can gain something from Jay Jay’s beautiful story and learning from her memoir.  Highly recommended for all school libraries serving middle-school aged youth, this book was recently highlighted by the In the Margins Book Award.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Patton, Jay Jay.  Dear Dad: Growing Up With A Parent In Prison and How We Stayed Connected.  New York: Scholastic Graphix, 2024.

Who Was Selena? by Kate and Max Bisantz

Who Was Selena,  part of the Who Was? biography series,  provides a cogent overview and empathetic perspective of the life of Selena Quintanilla,  the beloved Texas-born  singer of Latin music,  known as the Queen of Tejano.  Students will be interested to learn how she skyrocketed to fame at an early age, had to  learn Spanish as a second language, and tragically died young.  

Significantly, the first chapter outlines the discrimination faced by Texans with Mexican ancestry like Selena.  In keeping with the series, this volume includes sidebars on schema-building topics like the Corpus Christi City Directory, Tejano Music, Laura Canales, and Gloria Estefan.  Black and white illustrations and white space make this an especially attractive choice for newly independent readers.  Backmatter includes Selena’s discography, a timeline of her life, and what was happening in the world during those years including the opening of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida,  and the presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the US congress.  --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Bisantz, Kate and Max.  Who Was Selena?  New York City: Penguin Wrrkshop, 2018.  Print.