An ode to community activism and the East Village in New York City (NYC), The Umbrella House by Colleen Nelson is a middle grade novel that will have readers thinking about what they can do to protect their own communities.

Rory and Scout are middle schoolers living in the East Village. Their home, an apartment building affectionately called The Umbrella House, is a former squat that is being threatened by real estate moguls trying to gentrify the area. The friends are hoping to win a contest being hosted by Veracity News and are using the story of the Umbrella House as their submission. As they dig into the history of the Umbrella House, they uncover stories and mysteries that will hopefully help them to save their home.

I love NYC so I particularly loved the walk through the East Village in Colleen Nelson’s incredible story. She captured the rhythm and the heart of the city perfectly in this compact middle grade novel. At 218 pages, it’s the perfect length and a real gritty story that is relevant in more places than just NYC these days. 

Especially in big cities, housing has become more and more precarious and the lack of affordable housing is a topic that readers will be hearing about on a daily basis. This story is an eye opener to the real problems that exist in cities, where low income tenants are being pushed out of their homes in order for real estate developers to maximize their profits. In the case in this story, the developer wants to buy the Umbrella House, raze it and build a newer shinier building in its place and with new shiny things come bigger price tags.

I love the melding of artivism in this story. It became increasingly apparent, especially through the lock downs, the importance of the arts to connect people and entertain. In this story, it is through art that the community is able to come together to fight a common enemy. Readers will be inspired by the activism in this story to create their own projects that will benefit their communities.

I love that both Roxy and Scout both had hard decisions to make. Scout’s, big decision would also affect Roxy making it so much harder. It’s hard to disappoint our friends! I appreciated how Colleen Nelson included this struggle in the novel and showed a positive and supportive outcome while also acknowledging that we will all have big feelings about big changes.

There are so many different types of families represented in this story, much like the composition of many homes in a big city. Readers have an opportunity to see their own living situations reflected back as well as understand that there are many different ways to define a family.

It is a beautiful story that will engage readers and leave them yearning for a trip to NYC to see the Umbrella House for themselves.

Also, a huge shout out to the incredible Peggy Collins for her BEAUTIFUL cover illustrations. The book simply pops because of her work!