The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano
*Starred Review* Starting with the title, this wry, moving debut novel does a great job of blending the personal and the political without denigrating either. Growing up in the Puerto Rican East Harlem barrio in 1969, Rosa, 14, changes her name to Evelyn and tries to be more mainstream. Then her activist abuela arrives from Puerto Rico and moves in, and Evelyn feels as if she’s found “an older overdone version of me.” Abuela inspires Evelyn to join the Young Lords, the political activists who are working closely with the Black Panthers and fighting for Puerto Rican rights. But Evelyn’s mama does not approve, especially when the activists occupy the neighborhood church to demand food and shelter for the poor. Evelyn’s first-person narrative is filled with irreverent one-liners, but it never denies the realism of daily struggle: the “heat and stink of our neighborhood.” Rooted in the author’s own experience, the teen’s intense narrative is set against real-life political events (reports from the New York Times are documented in an appendix), while the family drama and revelations continue right up to the end. Grades 6-9. --Hazel Rochman