Name: Some Places More Than Others
ISBN: 9781681191089

Renée Watson

Amara visits her father's family in Harlem for her twelfth birthday, hoping to better understand her family and herself, but New York City is not what she expected.

Some Places More Than Others

Sarah Sammis

Amara lives in Beaverton, Oregon with her mother and father. It's the HQ city of Nike (something I learned reading this book). Amara loves where she lives but she's desperate to meet her grandfather, aunt, and cousins in person. She also wants to play tourist.

Amara's time in Harlem can best be described as a mixture of Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2003) and One Way or Another by Kara McDowell (2020). Her family isn't what she expected and her cousins bluntly call her out for her privileged life. She also finds native New Yorkers aren't really into playing tourist. This bit resonates with me in that I never want to play tourist in San Francisco even though I live nearby.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2021/comm...

Family	City	Offroad	330066

Stefie 

Okay, why did I cry reading this book?!
Not a sad book but it’s so touching.
If I can describe it, this book is like a blanket in cold days. I love it so much!

Some Places More Than Others… my gosh. I just didn’t expect that it would really touch me so much.
Amara, our MC got a project from her school to collect information about her family history and getting to know her roots basically. Then it brought her to a trip with her dad from Oregon to NY, visiting her grandpa, Grandpa Earl (I love Grandpa Earl) and her Aunt and cousins.

It discuss difficult situation of the black people in America, while it is a painful topic, Renée’s writing is so gentle and simple that made me absorb all of the information and the story well. It also portrays a family struggle, friendship, love and a glimpse of how life looks like in America as black people. 

I adore this book so much. Sometimes, I feel like I want to hug a book and never want to let go. But this time, I feel like the book hugged me so tightly.

Please pick this one up. Just please read it if you haven’t!

Elizabeth Garza

From New York Times bestselling and multi award-winning author Renée Watson comes a heartwarming and inspiring middle grade novel about finding deep roots and exploring the past, the present, and the places that make us who we are. 'Some of the places I am still getting to know, some of these places I have known all my life. All of these places made me, are making me.' All Amara wants for her birthday is to visit her father's family in New York City – Harlem. She can't wait to finally meet her Grandpa Earl and cousins in person, and to stay in the brownstone where her father grew up. Maybe this will help her understand her family – and herself – in a new way. But New York City is not exactly what Amara thought it would be. It's noisy, crowded, confusing, and her cousins can be mean. Plus her father is too busy working to spend time with her and too angry to fix his relationship with Grandpa Earl. Amara can't help wondering, even if she does discover more about where she came from, will it help her know where she belongs?