Iveliz Explains It All by Andrea Beatriz Arango

 Iveliz is excited to have a new start in seventh grade.  The last few years have been difficult as she has dealt with PTSD and other mental health issues.  She makes goals to listen to her mother, do well in class and not be sent to detention.  She also wants to help her grandmother, who is suffering with Alzheimer's disease and recently moved from Puerto Rico, feel comfortable in America.  All her plans fall apart when kids at school make fun of her and she looses control.  From there things spiral until she finally has to face the fact that she needs real help. 

This is one of the Newbery Honor books for this year.  It is written in free verse, but listening to it on audio, I wouldn't have been able to tell you it was written in verse.  It it really just very sparse prose. It has a lot of Spanish in it, and usually I can follow Spanglish in books, but on the recording it was spoken with a Puerto Rican accent and I had a hard time following.  This is one of the social issues books where there are multiple trials the girl is going through.  Unfortunately life for some kids are like that, and perhaps reading a book like this will give some kids hope.  Iveliz has an authentic voice, and the other characters in the story--the mother, her friends, her therapist and her grandmother--are all multidimensional and sympathetic.  It is impressive how much Arango fits into so few words.  I can see why this book won the Newbery Honor, but sometimes I feel sad that all the Newbery winners these days are RX books.  None of them are just fun books that are a delight to read.  I know it is important to have books that help children deal with complicated lives, but it is also important to have books that allow kids to escape and have fun.  I guess those kinds of books are out there.  They just don't win prizes.  (272 p. 2022)