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Dedicated to all readers who “stagger beneath the weight of expectations and emotions, The Third Daughter by Adrienne Tooley tells two parallel stories. One reveals the ambitions of the Warnou family; the other shares the reality of the Anders family. As much as this is a story about those who are born into wealth versus those who are not, it is also about the impact of power and privilege. It reveals the consequences of knowing and embracing one’s identity. Born the eldest in the royal family, Princess Elodie Warnou has been raised to be strong, calculating, and regal. Her mother taught her not only toRead More →

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Because Ronnie Riley believes that no one should feel alone for who they like or who they are, this nonbinary, neurodivergent author writes a book for tweens who might also need a safe place to discover themselves. Riley’s novel, Jude Saves the World features Dallas Knight, who is gay, and Jude Winters, who is nonbinary and lives with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The two twelve-year-olds share a “ride or die” friendship. When they welcome Stevie Morgan into their circle, challenges ensue. Another challenge for Jude—whose pronouns are they/them—is whether to share their identity with their grandparents. Jude’s mom says they’re not ready for thatRead More →

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Set in New Mexico, The Storyteller by Brandon Hobson features Ziggy Echota whose mother is a missing indigenous woman. Both of Cherokee descent, sixth grade Ziggy and his older sister Moon long to know what happened to their mother, so they begin a search in the desert with “Weird Alice” as their guide. On their journey, the two learn especially valuable lessons while the reader gains details of the Cherokee culture and its lore. As he searches, Ziggy encounters several Nunnehi, who are protectors and shape shifters. Among them are a fiddle-playing buzzard named Gus, a horse named Lampwick, and an armadillo named Andrew Jackson.Read More →

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In writing Hamra and the Jungle of Memories, Hanna Alkaf begins in the fashion of a traditional fairy tale. In her reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood, Alkaf borrows heavily from the Malaysian Muslim culture and weaves her magical retelling with Malay customs and cuisine. The star of this tale is thirteen-year-old Hamra, who is stubborn, sad, rebellious, and angry. She is tired of wiping up messes and cooking and listening to her grandmother say things that don’t’ make sense now that she is living with dementia. Hamra is tired of always having to be nice and good and polite and responsible. And she isRead More →

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Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter have collaborated to create a graphic novel for middle grade readers. Squished features eleven-year-old Avery Annie Lee who lives in Hickory Valley, Maryland, with her six other siblings. Squished for time, space, and a little peace and quiet to perform her artwork, Avery decides to raise the money needed to build a bedroom in the basement. After trying dog walking and a lemonade stand, Avery realizes that money-making carries its own challenges. Soon, Avery earns that her family might be moving to Oregon. Distressed by all of the change in her life, she pitches a fit and threatensRead More →

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Although The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz by Jeremy Dronfield is “another Holocaust book,” this nonfiction account retold for young readers reminds us all how vitally important it is to remember what happened “in those terrible years” (301). So as to brand their minds and inspire young readers to do whatever they can to ensure that nothing like the Holocaust ever occurs again, Dronfield captures the story of the Kleinmann family with a focus on Fritz, who is fourteen years old when the novel opens, and on Kurt, who is eight. By personalizing the tale so that readers can form connections, Dronfield buildsRead More →

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Prickly, unhappy, and bruised by the tragic deaths of her parents, Maria Latif is bustled off from Pakistan to Long Island, New York. After being bounced from relative to unfortunate relative, she is now going to stay with family friends. Still, the orphaned Maria knows this is just another temporary landing place. When she arrives, Maria is prepared to hate New York, but there is a secret about the Clayborne House on Long Island that she doesn’t understand. Something about the way an unloved, untouched, and unclaimed garden hums and thrums makes Maria think that this bit of earth can be hers. With a gardenRead More →

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A talented seamstress and crafter, Sonia Patil loves creating and consuming cosplay and the comics that inspire it. She also has a crush on James Cooper. While faint and staggering from a medical condition, James stumbles into a western New York canal. Dressed in a super-hero inspired costume she has sewn herself, Sonia jumps in and drags James to safety, then runs before the cops arrive because she fears drawing attention to her family who are undocumented immigrants from India. Although Sonia is a U.S. citizen, her mother has already been deported, and her sister Kareena needs the state provided healthcare to treat her currentlyRead More →

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Readers of I Kick and I Fly by Ruchira Gupta will be inspired by the strong female characters as well as horrified by the novel’s sex trafficking theme. Set in northern India in a town called Forbesganj located in the state of Bihar, Gupta’s book reveals the story of fourteen-year-old Heera who intimately knows both hunger and homelessness. A member of the nomadic Nat tribe, Heera and her family are members of an oppressed caste. Her people used to be wrestlers and performers, but “overnight [they] were told [they] couldn’t do those things anymore, that [their] entire way of life was illegal” (283). Seeking toRead More →