Loving vs. Virginia

Patricia Hruby Powell

Chronicle Books, 260 pp., $21.99

Fifty years ago this June, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized marriage between races. The unassuming Virginia couple behind that landmark case - Richard and Mildred Loving - is the subject of Patricia Hruby Powell's newest nonfiction piece. Powell uses blank (non-rhyming) verse to tell their story, which makes the book a quick, easy read, appropriate for middle grades. Her spare, straightforward narrative makes the details all the more shocking: Richard, who was white, and Mildred, black, both grew up in the 1950s in Central Point, a rare integrated community in Virginia. When she got pregnant, the couple decided to marry - but had to travel to Washington, D.C., to do so, because marriage between the races was prohibited in Virginia. When they returned home, they were arrested and expelled. Five years after their wedding - desperate to return to their hometown and their families - the Lovings enlisted the help of the ACLU. It took four years for the case to get to the Supreme Court. The story is told in alternating first-person accounts, back and forth between Mildred and Richard; together, they tell a compelling, heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant tale. Grade: A

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Steve Sheinkin

Roaring Book Press, 280 pp., $19.99

Want to get a sports fan interested in history? Give them a copy of Steve Sheinkin's newest nonfiction book, which chronicles the remarkable early years of Jim Thorpe - the greatest athlete ever, according to some - against a backdrop of outrageous discrimination against American Indians at the turn of the 20th century. At age 15, Thorpe, born in current-day Oklahoma, was shipped to eastern Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian School, the country's flagship Indian boarding school, a place where Indians were expected to fully assimilate into white culture. Thorpe, a mediocre student, was an incredible athlete, and became an international star while at Carlisle. He learned football during the sport's infancy, and the book covers the early evolution of the game - including calls to ban it in the early 1900s because of fatalities and injuries. Sheinkin gives almost equal weight in the book to Pop Warner, the long-time football coach who helped form Thorpe, and then abandoned him after his 1912 Olympic records were stripped away. There are lots of lessons here - tales of perseverance, discrimination, loyalty. And there's plenty of football, too. Grade: B+

The Sun Is Also a Star

Nicola Yoon

Delacorte Press, 348 pp., $18.99

Even without the current political climate, this sophisticated, sexy love story would likely appeal to young-adult readers. But the ongoing debate over immigration in the United States gives this story real immediacy. Protagonists are two high school seniors in New York City: Daniel, the high-achieving son of Korean immigrants, and Natasha, whose parents moved to the United States illegally from Jamaica. The two meet by chance, at a record store - he is on his way to a Yale alumni interview, she is coming from a last-ditch meeting with immigration officials. They spend the next 12 hours together and... well, you don't need me to tell you what happens next. The story is told in alternating viewpoints, Natasha and Daniel (which seems to be the narrative device of choice for YA authors these days). Both characters are compelling and empathetic, facing real problems that can't be easily solved. Readers will be rooting for them both, but just like real life - there are no easy answers here. Grade: A-

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