I really liked this- while Melody also has a loving family and happy life like Maryellen, there's realistic historical strife, like facing discrimination in a department store or being shocked to her core by the bombing of a church in Birmingham. A grounded and necessary addition to the American Girl historical canon (though, as mentioned on twitter, I do think it's limiting to confine Black historical characters to civil war slavery and the civil rights movement- BIPOC have existed in all eras and it's not like they pop out of the ground for those two topics specifically?)

But yeah- as a non-black person of color who grew up in a predominantly white environment, I didn't learn about Lift Every Voice and Sing as the "Black national anthem" until the Beychella performance in 2018, so I'm happy to see its inclusion here. Advisory board, and an #ownvoices author were good decisions here, which really makes me question why Kirby Larson was picked for authoring the Nanea books (sure, she writes about WWII dogs but like... eeeeh). ( )