The final installment of the trilogy (beginning with Merci Suárez Changes Gears, rev. 9/18) opens at the start of eighth grade, with Merci disappointed not to be assigned any classes with her close friends. She does have homeroom with some soccer teammates, but will these popular girls want to be friends with her off the field?
The author and illustrator of the hugely popular Tacky the Penguin series team up again for a book about Tacky’s opposite: painfully shy Mousetta, who “never squoke a squeak.” She is so shy that she walks backward to avoid meeting anyone. She scurries out of sight, she hides; she’s nothing like the three “really popular” mice in her class who are “cool,” “gorgeous,” and “awesome.”
When the United States entered World War II and Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated to various incarceration camps, the Takeshita family was sent first to Topaz, Utah, and then because they were deemed to be “disloyal” to Tule Lake, California.