Setting: Michigan

How to Talk to Your Succulent / Zoe Persico

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment 
How to Talk to Your Succulent
By: Zoe Persico
Genre: Graphic Novel, Middle Grade
Number of Pages: 224
Published: April 1, 2025
Publisher: Tundra Books
Dates Read: May 26, 2025
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

Eleven-year-old Adara has always had a hard time talking with her dad, but it’s been even harder now that her mom’s passed and they’re moving from sunny California to the cold flat lands of Michigan. What’s even stranger is that Dad brought so many of Mom’s house plants even though grandma will only allow them in the craft room. But when Adara meets a little succulent named Perle, she unlocks the same magical ability her mom had: she can talk to plants!

Taking care of Perle isn’t easy – the environment of Michigan winters isn’t suited for the succulent, and Adara isn’t sure how to meet her needs. If only Perle could ask Adara for help.. and Adara could speak with her dad.

Oh how I wish I could talk to my succulents – especially the ones I can’t ever seem to be able to keep alive no matter how many different ways I’ve tried to take care of them!

The art of this book is lovely and easy to see and digest.

The story itself is about grief, friendship, and supporting loved ones through change. It’s also about advocating for yourself while also still being there for others you care about.

Overall, this is a beautiful story that not only has a great message, but amazing artwork as well.

A Tiny Piece of Blue / Charlotte Whitney

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment 
A Tiny Piece of Blue
By: Charlotte Whitney
Genre: Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 336
Published: February 18, 2025
Publisher: She Writes Press
Dates Read: April 11, 2025 - April 16, 2025
Format: ARC / Paperback

In 1934 rural Michigan, the Great Depression was hitting everyone hard. After a house fire, Silstice Trayson finds herself homeless and abandoned by her parents. Nearby, aging farmers Edna and Vernon Goetz are pillars of the community, with Edna always up for helping and volunteering. But when Edna takes Silstice under her wing, Vernon digs his heels in – it’s the Great Depression, everyone is hurting.

With so many children leaving home to make it on their own, child trafficking has grown rampant as the kids are forced into labor and sometimes worse. Silstice worries about her two younger brothers, who disappeared from her grandparents house. Meanwhile, Vernon finds himself at risk of losing everything.

Narrated by Silstice, Vernon, and Edna, A Tiny Piece of Blue is a story about a community during the Great Depression with a backdrop of thievery, bribery, and child-trafficking.

This is a well researched novel with excellent characterization of multiple points of views. You definitely get immersed in this Great Depression, rural Michigan world that Charlotte Whitney writes about. Not only did I learn more about the ins and outs of farm life, but I also learned more about the roles of males and females and how this time changed a few things.

A big theme in this novel is also family, both blood and found, and the bonds that form and can be broken between them. I just knew Vernon, even with all his orneriness and bad temper, would still have a soft spot – well hidden of course, and only shown to those around those he chooses, but still.

Overall, this is an excellent historical fiction read about a small town during the Great Depression that is filled with page turning themes of hope, despair, family, secrets, survival, and community.

*Thank you She Writes Press and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Enemies in the Orchard / Dana VanderLugt

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Enemies in the Orchard
By: Dana VanderLugt
Genre: Middle Grade, Novel in Verse
Number of Pages: 288
Published: September 12, 2023
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Dates Read: September 14, 2023
Format: ARC / eBook

It’s October 1944 and Claire’s dad needs help with the orchard – especially since Danny’s off to fight in World War II. With no one responding to the help wanted ad in the paper, he hires a group of German POWs to help with the apple harvest. Claire wants absolutely nothing to do with the enemies, afterall, it’s men like them that are currently shooting at Danny’s overseas. But then she meets Karl, a soft-spoken, hardworking POW and her mind begins to change.

Meanwhile, Karl battles with the role he ended up playing within the lies of Hitler’s regime. After he begins working with Claire, it gives him hope that he can change and become a person he wants to be – not the one that’s been forced on him.

It still surprises me a bit when I read another novel set during WWII that showcases something I wasn’t aware had happened during that time. This one being that the United States had POW work camps on their own soil, and that the POWs would be “lent out” to local farmers.

Besides having a focus on WWII and the POWs in the United States, this also focuses a lot on Claire and her journey and fight for going against the norms for females during that time. Claire wants to continue school past an eighth grade education and her single room schoolhouse that she goes to and go on to become a nurse. Her father is very supportive of this plan, but not everyone else.

Though this book is aimed at Middle Grade readers, I can see everyone enjoying it. The writing provides readers with a compelling and easy to follow format that, even with the word count being low from it being a novel in verse, it still provides beautiful descriptions. I, myself, am going to be keeping an eye out for my own physical copy to purchase. 

*Thank you Zonderkidz and NetGalley for a digital advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review