The month is wrapping up. I want to get in as many reviews as I can before the new year. So I can focus on new things at the start of January. I started reading Mascot back in November. But it took me a while to finish up due to other real life commitments. This story is done in verse. I love novels in verse so it quickly became one of my favorites from 2024.
Synopsis
Mascot tells the story of a class of Honors English students at a middle school near DC. The book is about the school’s racist mascot and its removal and the conflict behind that. The story is told through the perspective of different students in the English class as well as the teacher. The narrators come from different backgrounds. They have their own ideas about the issues with the mascot.
The book challenges you to to see the perspective of each of the narrators. While I understandably related with the perspectives of those who were anti-mascot. The author made the opposing viewpoint compelling enough and understandable that you could see where the characters were coming from.
Review
I really enjoyed this book. It was a fairly quick read, and I think it would be perfect for middle schoolers or early high school. The mascot issue is still one that is present in my home state. A team just down the road is called the Indians. I found this book to be particularly sensitive while still addressing what was wrong with Native Mascots. I loved the multiple narrators and particularly enjoyed the different friendships that formed between the students in this English class.
This book is timely and important and I’d give it five stars. Great for theme, writing and characterization. I’d love to read more from the authors.
Amazon: Mascot
About the Authors
Best-selling author Traci Sorell writes inclusive, award-winning historical and contemporary fiction and nonfiction in a variety of formats for young people. She is a two-time Sibert Medal and Orbis Pictus honoree as well as an award-winning audiobook narrator and producer. Her first five books have received awards from the American Indian Library Association. Other accolades include Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, International Literacy Association’s Social Justice Literature Award Winner, Reading The West’s Picture Book Winner, and many Best-of and Notables lists.
Charles Waters is a Children’s Poet, Actor and Educator.He is the co-author (with Irene Latham) of AFRICAN TOWN, winner of the 2023 Scott O’Dell Award For Historical Fiction, CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR? Poems of Race, Mistakes and Friendship, which was named a Charlotte Huck Honor Book, BE A BRIDGE and DICTIONARY FOR A BETTER WORLD: Poems, Quotes and Anecdotes from A – Z.
He is also the co-author (with Traci Sorell) of MASCOT which received a starred review from Kirkus and was named a Junior Library Guild Selection.His poems have appeared in various anthologies including: THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOK OF ANIMAL POETRY, AMAZING PLACES and ONE MINUTE TILL BEDTIME. http://www.charleswaterspoetry.com
I hope the end of everyone’s year is going well. Do you have any New Years plans? Let me know in the comments!
Rose's Book Garden 