Okay for Now is a sequel/spin-off of The Wednesday Wars, so it’s set during the Vietnam War. Doug’s (overbearing, verbally abusive, heavy-handed) father moves the family to a different town to find work. It’s not great, but it’s not all bad. And then it gets better. A little at a time, thanks to people who don’t look at Doug and see nothing but a skinny thug. In Emily Out of Focus, Emily and her parents travel to China in order to bring home a new baby sister. They’re in a large group with other adoptive families, and Emily meets Katherine, who was adopted herself and hopes to (secretly) find out something about her birth mother. The Printer’s Apprentice is a story based on real historical events. Gus is apprenticed to a printer in New York in 1735. Tidbits of life in pre-Revolutionary America, with plenty of name dropping. Sprinkled with adages from Poor Richard’s Almanac. Although my favorite part may be how Krensky deftly wove in examples of how printer’s jargon worked its way into the English language (eg. “out of sorts”).
C. J. Milbrandt 