Radiant

October 21, 2024
Cooper Dale, who has brown skin (“My skin is brown/ but people say/ I’m black”) and lives in a majority white community outside of Pittsburgh, is dreading her upcoming fifth grade year with no-nonsense teacher Mrs. Keating. Though Cooper’s family informs her that she must work twice as hard as her white peers, she struggles to understand why her skin color matters to those around her. Life-changing historical events—including the JFK assassination, the church bombing in Birmingham, and the increased presence of the KKK—add intensity to the narrative, which is rendered in introspective verse. Cooper’s older brother adopts Malcolm X’s attitudes, her father conveys life lessons via Langston Hughes’s poetry, and her mother, who does domestic labor for white families, encourages her to embrace Dr. King’s teachings. When Cooper’s mother is hired by her white school bully Wade’s family to help care for his terminally ill mother, she tries to impart her parents’ wisdom to befriend Wade; “he could benefit/ from a little kindness,” Mrs. Keating entreats. Nelson (Small Shoes, Great Strides) presents an emotive glimpse into the civil rights era via Cooper’s careful internal monologue and nuanced characterization. Ages 10–14.

November 1, 2024
In 1963 Pennsylvania, a Black girl negotiates the impact of race on her journey to thrive. For precocious fifth grader Cooper Dale, life is good. Mostly. She has a loving family and lots of hobbies, but she also has a secret: Sometimes, she wishes she were white. Not that she's ashamed to be Black--"At church / I'm proud to be brown ... / ... I breathe, breathe, breathe in / the church feeling. / I store it inside me / and carry it / to school." But if she wasn't the only Black student in her class, maybe her racist bully would leave her alone and she could really shine, like her mama says she should. As she navigates life's ups and downs--the assassination of JFK, the rise of Beatlemania, her conflicted feelings about her mother's being a cleaner--Cooper reflects on the impact of skin color in the world around her and wonders how she can let meanness and unfairness roll off her back. The era's more pernicious racist aspects are handled obliquely. This verse novel examines complex themes of identity, forgiveness, self-love, and self-actualization through writing that's accessible to young readers. Nelson intentionally and deftly uses details to situate the novel with history, and she's crafted an endearing, three-dimensional protagonist in Cooper, whose voice and authentic struggle to make sense of her experiences will resonate in a work that presents fertile ground for discussion. A complex yet accessible exploration of self-actualization, presented in full color.(Verse historical fiction. 10-14)

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2025
Grades 4-7 Charming and well-paced, Nelson's slice-of-life verse novel invites readers to find the ways they shine. It's 1963, and Cooper sometimes wishes that she were white, and, at others, that the world were colorblind. Even so, she's working really hard to be content in her mostly white Pennsylvania school. She has a teacher known for being mean and a bully of a classmate who keeps mocking her, but she also has a supportive and engaged family to wrap her in their arms. When her mom takes a job cleaning and caring for a white family whose matriarch has cancer, Cooper is forced to reckon with the concept of forgiveness as she navigates her own attempts at radiance. Sweet, soft, and moving, this is a novel that feels like a hug for Black readers and young girls who want to be their best self. The historical setting grounds the narrative, but it will still resonate loudly with readers of today. A natural choice for older fans of Carol Boston Weatherford and readers of Christopher Paul Curtis.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2025
In this historical novel in verse, fifth grader Cooper Dale is growing up near Pittsburgh in 1963 and grappling with issues concerning her identity as a Black child attending a predominantly white school. While her family encourages her to embrace who she is, Cooper doesn't always feel that way: "Sometimes / I don't want to be black." Mama tells her that she has to "study harder" and "shine brighter" in school due to racism. Wade Carter, a racist classroom bully, makes things even harder, calling Cooper "Mud Face" and "Tar Baby." Things get worse when Cooper's mom takes a job as the Carters' maid. At first, this is just another thing for Wade to lord over her, but it ends up being the impetus for Cooper to see her tormentor in a new light and for him to change his behavior. Wade's mom is seriously ill, and once she learns this, Cooper slowly begins to feel compassion for him and fully embraces Mama's call to "be radiant" along with their church's beliefs about mercy. Nelson has created a likable character in Cooper, and this quiet, introspective novel (with some moments of levity; e.g., Cooper's embrace of Beatlemania) effectively examines what it means to forgive along with the importance of family. Marva Anne Hinton

(Copyright 2025 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)