5-STAR REVIEW: BERTA’S BOUNCEBACK by Nadine C. Keels REVIEWER’S CHOICE! 🏆

Malt Shop Milestones: Book 2
Publication Date: May 30, 2025

Malt Shop Milestones, Book Two

Young lives. First loves. And a classic American period enlivened by jukeboxes and chocolate malts.

Sixteen-year-old Berta is usually an upbeat girl, matching the energy of her thriving Black community of West Hill. But this year is proving not to be Berta’s easiest. She’s had to say goodbye to one of her best friends, who’s moved almost halfway across the country. Classes at school are getting harder, making Berta fear that her grades might slip below average.

What’s more, she’s having niggling doubts about her romantic life. There’s a newly arrived family drawing everyone’s curiosity in West Hill, and it looks like the pretty, talented teenage girl from that family has drawn the interest of one person in particular: Howard. Berta’s boyfriend.

Given how worrisome all of this is, what might it take to lift Berta’s morale back to its normal height?

Enjoy this nostalgic nod to the bygone era of “malt shop” books-from an angle featuring more of America’s color.

Nadine C. Keels has enlightened me yet again with book two in her Malt Shop Milestones series. This book, titled Berta’s Bounceback, has the high schooler considering how she fits in amongst those surrounding her.  As she contemplates her own place, she takes note of how others in the Black Diamond District handle the struggle for respect.

Berta is the oldest of three daughters in the Benson family. Her mother is a seamstress and her father a barber. It is through the ordinary family events that Keels reveals historical, subtle imbalances of respect for people of color. Through Berta’s perspective, we feel the excitement as she falls for the clumsy Howard and discovers that they both love to dance the Lindy Hop, participate in the Christmas Promenade, and befriend the new Mexican-American girl.

This young adult novel is set around 1950, as identified by Berta’s family being the second in their community to own a television set. She gathers with her friends at Bro Brown’s Burgers and Malts to discuss the latest school gossip, compare notes on boys, and listen to jukebox music.

What brings depth to this series is the author’s notes on the norms at the time. Book Two weaves into Berta’s high school and community experiences, including the usage of a name for respect and interracial marriage.

Nadine Keels distinctively writes for both teens and adults to highlight historical norms, particularly in the Black community of the early 1950s, through her Malt Shop Milestones.

Nadine. A French name, meaning, “hope.”