Can't Wait Wednesday: Hope and Other Punchlines & Other Words for Home

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I can't wait for:

Hope and Other Punchlines
Julie Buxbaum
Age/Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: May 7, 2019
Goodreads

Sometimes looking to the past helps you find your future.

Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: in the picture, Abbi (aka "Baby Hope") wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.

Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at Knights Day Camp two towns away. She's psyched for eight weeks in the company of four-year-olds, none of whom have ever heard of Baby Hope.

Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on that terrible day, has a similar summer plan. Noah believes his meeting Baby Hope is fate. Abbi is sure it's a disaster. Soon, though, the two team up to ask difficult questions about the history behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either of them ready to hear the answers?

Why I want to read this book

I am going to tell you right now, 9/11 books are really tough for me. My dad was FDNY for 25 years, and we lost 43 family friends in the attack. Also, because of my proximity to NYC, my area was impacted immediately following the attacks, and I was able to see the smoke for weeks from my main street. With that said, I am still interested in how Buxbaum uses the event in this story. I have loved her previous adult and YA titles, and anticipate this one being a hit for me.

Other Words for Home
Jasmine Warga
Age/Genre: Middle Grades, Contemporary
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: May 7, 2019
Goodreads

I am learning how to be sad
and happy
at the same time.

Jude never thought she’d be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives.

At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. The American movies that Jude has always loved haven’t quite prepared her for starting school in the US—and her new label of “Middle Eastern,” an identity she’s never known before. But this life also brings unexpected surprises—there are new friends, a whole new family, and a school musical that Jude might just try out for. Maybe America, too, is a place where Jude can be seen as she really is.

Why I want to read this book

I have read and enjoyed other books by Warga, and this one sounds like a really sweet and touching portrait of the immigrant experience. I am very eager to meet Jude, and be there with her as she learns to reconcile her new home with her old home.

What are you waiting on?

Let us know in the comments!