Atmosphere

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid is an epic novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond; mission specialists John Griffin and Lydia Danes; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

This is a great book! Go get a copy today from your local bookstore or library.

Reid, Taylor Jenkins. (2025). Atmosphere. New York: Ballantine,

Daughter of the Merciful Deep

Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope is the author's second book that deals with a hard subject in our history beautifully. 

Jane Edwards lives in Awenasa, a Black town in the South. Awenasa is along a river that is to be dammed, which will cause the town to be underwater by winter. 

Government officials come to town and interview home owners, offering a small amount of money to relocate. Many in the town rent from the town's founder who set up the town as a haven for formerly enslaved folks and their families. 

Jane, who has not spoken since she was about ten years old,  spots a stranger - a man who looks exactly like her sister's former boyfriend who was lynched in their old town. 

Can he be the key to saving Awenasa? Or is he a ghost from the past come to collect what she owes him?

Leslye Penelope is a brilliant storyteller. She weaves magical realism into historically accurate portrayals Black American's lives in our history. If you live in the States, read her books.

Penelope, Leslye. (2024). Daughter of the Merciful Deep. New York: Redhook.

That Flag

That Flag by Tameka Fryer Brown, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith, is the story of two school friends whose parents feel very differently about the flag outside of one of their homes. 

While Bianca and Keira are best friends at school, Keira's parents will not allow her to go to Bianca's house because of the confederate flag in the front yard. 

When the school takes a field trip to the local museum for an exhibit called Stars and Bars, Keira's father follows her through the exhibit while she absorbs the meaning and history of that flag. 

Brown has created an age-appropriate story of what the confederate flag stands for in our history and today.

Brown, Tameka Fryer. (2023). That Flag. New York: Harper.

The Taste of Sugar

The Taste of Sugar by Marisel Vera is the story of Puerto Rico and early American capitalism's effect on Puertorriqueños.

Following the saga of one Puerto Rican family through the Spanish - American war, colonialism by Spain and then the United States. After the hurricane of 1899, when Puerto Rico had already been hit hard by the high US tax, a group of sugarcane growers in Hawaii advertised what appeared to be a good job with housing for families.

The Vega family were coffee growers in the Utuado region of Puerto Rico. When the younger son, Vicente, went to the city for his cousin's wedding, he met Valentina Sanchez. Her family had a stationery and printing shop. 

Life on the coffee farm was very different for Valentina than life in the city. They were also in for more changes as the US and Spain fought and the hurricane loomed.

Vera has written an important story that is not taught in US History - one more of the many that is skipped - of Puerto Rico's introduction to US capitalism. More than 5,000 Puerto Ricans moved to Hawaii to face the horrible conditions on sugar plantations. 

Vera, Marisel. (2020). The Taste of Sugar. New York: Liveright Publishing.