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A review by abigailbat
My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi
Ebony Grace would much rather be spending the summer at home with her granddaddy, one of the first black engineers to integrate NASA, but instead she's been sent to another planet - Harlem - to stay with her dad. Obsessed with all things space and especially Star Trek and Star Wars, E-Grace uses her imagination location to turn her summer trip into a mission for the starship Uhura, but the other kids in her neighborhood do NOT want to play along. Even Bianca, the girl who lives in her daddy's building and who has spent many hours playing space missions with her on previous visits, has changed. No longer interested in visiting the junkyard and building rockets, Bianca is jumping double dutch and breakdancing with other girls on their block and it's all definitely alien to E-Grace.
This is quite a book... Ebony-Grace is unforgettable and the feeling of other-ness is pervasive. Like, there were times when I wanted to shake her, but I think that just illustrates how real she felt. This is a book for all the kids who are weird and don't fit in or don't want to do what everyone else is doing. It's for the kids who are strange and just fine that way. And it's a great portrait of a kid who's even outside of her family - she's kept in the dark about what's going on with her grandpa, sent away when all she wants to do is cling closer to the one person who understands her.
This book reminded me so much of Sunny by Jason Reynolds - another book about an oddball who doesn't do things the way everyone else does but is fine with that. And readers who enjoy tales with strong historical settings and strong female characters like One Crazy Summer by Rita Garcia-Williams will enjoy this one, too.
This is quite a book... Ebony-Grace is unforgettable and the feeling of other-ness is pervasive. Like, there were times when I wanted to shake her, but I think that just illustrates how real she felt. This is a book for all the kids who are weird and don't fit in or don't want to do what everyone else is doing. It's for the kids who are strange and just fine that way. And it's a great portrait of a kid who's even outside of her family - she's kept in the dark about what's going on with her grandpa, sent away when all she wants to do is cling closer to the one person who understands her.
This book reminded me so much of Sunny by Jason Reynolds - another book about an oddball who doesn't do things the way everyone else does but is fine with that. And readers who enjoy tales with strong historical settings and strong female characters like One Crazy Summer by Rita Garcia-Williams will enjoy this one, too.