The next round of the Generations Book Club from the Brown Bookshelf is live!  I had already read the middle grade title and realized that I’d never reviewed it, so here you go!  With bonus, the next Sal and Gabi adventure from Carlos Hernandez.  I’m hoping for my order of the teen book from the Generations Book Club, A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow to come in soon, too. 

The Jumbie God’s Revenge by Tracey Baptiste. Algonquin, 2019. 9781616208912. Read from library copy. 

Corrine is still trying to make peace with her life on the island after the tumultuous events of the last few books – revealing that one is part jumbie is pretty much guaranteed not to improve one’s social life.  Then, storms come.  Bad storms that threaten to tear apart the entire island.  They turn out to be the actions of a jumbie that both Mama D’Leau and Papa Bois fear: Huracan.  It seems that some of Corrine’s past actions have angered him – can she find a way to calm him down and fix his past mistakes?  

This is another exciting adventure based on the legends of the author’s native Trinidad.  Though I’ve read and enjoyed the first two books in this series, The Jumbies and Rise of the Jumbies, I think I could have benefitted from a reread – while the adventure parts were appropriately exciting, I had trouble keeping her friends and their various personalities straight.  I’d definitely suggest reading or rereading the first two as necessary!  Though the stakes never seemed low in those books, they are definitely raised here – Corrine is pushed to discover depths of herself she never had to before. This is a fitting end to the trilogy, and one I’d definitely recommend to especially to kids looking for scary fantasy adventures.  

Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe by Carlos Hernandez. Read by Anthony Rey Perez. Disney/Rick Riordan Presents and Listening Library 2020. ISBN  978-1368022835 ASIN B085T8FBD7. Listened on Libby. 

Sal and Gabi are back!  Sal’s father is worried about the holes in the universe that Sal made in the first book, accidentally and on purpose pulling things like his mother from other universes.  Now his machine to repair the tears is almost ready.  But when he turns it on for the first time, Sal feels a brief but sharp pain.  Shortly thereafter, he meets a Gabi who is clearly not his Gabi, and this strange Gabi claims that Papi is evil and his machine will destroy the universe.  What’s a kid to do?  

This is as always a madcap journey featuring strong characters (including here multiple Gabis!), lots of snarky AIs including a new, intelligent toilet, delicious Cuban-American food and culture, and a kid trying to fix the universe while keeping his blood sugar stable.  There’s even more exploration into Gabi’s many dads and the life of former bully Yazmany.  Throw in an arts school throwing themselves into a full-scale Alice in Wonderland production and you have – well, one fun, crazy adventure.  Again, you’ll want to read Sal and Gabi Break the Universe first, but this is highly recommended.