Another relatively-short Spotlight this week! I’ve got 12 new titles for you this week. I especially love the middle grade titles on this list!
The downloadable Google presentation of the new books is back!
My top picks:
- The Narrow by Kate Alice Marshall (YA)
- Mexikid by Pedro Martín (MG)
- The Baddies by Julia Donaldson (picture book)
This week’s Spotlight titles are #3452-#3463 on The Ginormous book list.
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True True by Don P. Hooper
This is not how seventeen-year-old Gil imagined beginning his senior year–on the subway dressed in a tie and khakis headed towards Manhattan instead of his old public school in Brooklyn. Augustin Prep may only be a borough away, but the exclusive private school feels like it’s a different world entirely compared to Gil’s predominately Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn.
If it weren’t for the partial scholarship, the school’s robotic program and the chance for a better future, Gil wouldn’t have even considered going. Then after a racist run-in with the school’s golden boy on the first day ends in a fight that leaves only Gil suspended, Gil understands the truth about his new school–Augustin may pay lip service to diversity, but that isn’t the same as truly accepting him and the other Black students as equal. But Gil intends to leave his mark on Augustin anyway.
If the school isn’t going to carve out a space for him, he will carve it out for himself. Using Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as his guide, Gil wages his own clandestine war against the racist administration, parents and students, and works with the other Black students to ensure their voices are finally heard.
But the more enmeshed Gil becomes in school politics, the more difficult it becomes to balance not only his life at home with his friends and family, but a possible new romance with a girl he’d move mountains for. In the end, his war could cost him everything he wants the most.
Publishers Weekly starred.
- Genre(s): realistic fiction
- Setting: New York City, New York, USA
- Recommended for: Grades 7+
- Themes: prep school, private school, scholarship students, new kid in school, racism, The Art of War, systemic racism, , high school, racist school administration
- Protagonist description: male, age 17, Black, HS senior, Jamaican descent
Stars in Their Eyes by Jessica Walton (Creator) and Aska (Creator)
Maisie is on her way to Fancon! She’s looking forward to meeting her idol, Kara Bufano, the action hero from her favorite TV show, who has a lower-leg amputation, just like Maisie.
But when Maisie and her mom arrive at the convention center, she is stopped in her tracks by Ollie, a cute volunteer working the show. They are kind, charming, and geek out about nerd culture just as much as Maisie does. And as the day wears on, Maisie notices feelings for Ollie that she’s never had before. Is this what it feels like to fall in love?
Publishers Weekly starred.
- Genre(s): graphic novel, romance
- Setting: Australia, Fancon (a Comic Con-style comic convention)
- Recommended for: Grades 7+
- Themes: comics conventions (like Comic Con), leg amputees, nerd culture, cancer remission, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, artists, mothers and daughters, healthy mother-daughter relationships, disabilities
- Protagonist description: female, age 14, Australian, tan skin, amputee (lower leg), bisexual; love interest is age 15, white, and nonbinary
A Little Like Waking by Adam Rex
Zelda is stuck in a dream. A very strange dream, where people can fly, bears sneeze money, and her childhood cat, Patches, is somehow alive–despite being run over years ago.
Things only get stranger when Zelda meets Langston, a sweet if overly timid guy who feels more real to her than anyone she’s ever met.
As Zelda and Langston explore the far reaches of the dreamscape together, they find themselves growing closer and closer. But what they uncover along the way pushes them towards a truth neither of them wants to face. Will it turn out that he’s the guy of her dreams, or is she the girl of his?
Booklist starred. Includes black and white illustrations.
- Genre(s): romance, magical realism
- Setting: small, idyllic town
- Recommended for: Grades 7+
- Themes: talking cats, dream worlds, stuck in a dream, stream-of-conscious
- Protagonist description: teen female, white; teen male, Black
The Narrow by Kate Alice Marshall
Everyone has heard the story of the Narrow. The river that runs behind the Atwood School is only a few feet across and seemingly placid, but beneath the surface, the waters are deep and vicious. It’s said that no one who has fallen in has ever survived.
Eden White knows that isn’t true. Six years ago, she saw Delphine Fournier fall into the Narrow–and live.
Delphine now lives in careful isolation, sealed off from the world. Even a single drop of unpurified water could be deadly to her, and no one but Eden has any idea why. Eden has never told anyone what she saw or spoken to Delphine since, but now, unable to cover her tuition, she has to make a deal: her expenses will be paid in return for serving as a live-in companion to Delphine.
Eden finds herself drawn to the strange and mysterious girl, and the two of them begin to unravel each other’s secrets. Then Eden discovers what happened to the last girl who lived with Delphine: she was found half-drowned on dry land. Suddenly Eden is waking up to wet footprints tracking to the end of her bed, the sound of rain on the windows when the skies are clear, and a ghostly silhouette in her doorway. Something is haunting Delphine–and now it’s coming for Eden, too.
Kirkus starred.
- Genre(s): gothic horror, thriller, mystery
- Setting: Atwood, a private boarding school
- Recommended for: Grades 7+
- Themes: boarding school, ghosts, lies, secrets, neglectful parents, allergy to water, abuse
- Protagonist description: female, age 17, white, HS senior, wealthy family
*We Still Belong by Christine Day
Wesley is proud of the poem she wrote for Indigenous Peoples’ Day–but the reaction from a teacher makes her wonder if expressing herself is important enough.
And due to the specific tribal laws of her family’s Nation, Wesley is unable to enroll in the Upper Skagit tribe and is left feeling “not Native enough.”
Through the course of the novel, with the help of her family and friends, she comes to embrace her own place within the Native community.
THREE starred reviews!
- Genre(s): realistic fiction
- Setting: Upper Skagit Nation, Washington state, Pacific Northwest, USA
- Recommended for: Grades 3-7
- Themes: Native American community, tribal laws, problems at school, Indigenous People’s Day, identity, discrimination, ignorance, middle school, new kid at school
- Protagonist description: female, age 12, 7th grader, Native American (Upper Skagit)
*Mexikid by Pedro Martín
Pedro Martin has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito–his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution!
But that doesn’t mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough!
Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache. Along the way, Pedro finally connects with his abuelito and learns what it means to grow up and find his grito.
THREE starred reviews!
- Genre(s): graphic novel, memoir
- Setting: 1977, road trip from Watsonville, California, USA to Jalisco, Mexico
- Recommended for: Grades 4-8
- Themes: large families, grandparents, crowded homes, road trips, webcomics, Spanish language, immigrants
- Protagonist description: young male, Mexican American, child of immigrants
The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet by Jake Maia Arlow
Twelve-year-old Al Schneider is too scared to talk about the two biggest things in her life:
1. Her stomach hurts all the time and she has no idea why.
2. She’s almost definitely 100% sure she likes girls.
So she holds it in…until she can’t. After nearly having an accident of the lavatorial variety in gym class, Al finds herself getting a colonoscopy and an answer–she has Crohn’s disease.
But rather than solving all her problems, Al’s diagnosis just makes everything worse. It’s scary and embarrassing. And worst of all, everyone wants her to talk about it–her overprotective mom, her best friend, and most annoyingly her gastroenterologist, who keeps trying to get her to go to a support group for kids with similar chronic illnesses. But, who wants to talk about what you do in the bathroom?
Publishers Weekly starred.
- Genre(s): realistic fiction, humor
- Recommended for: Grades 3-8
- Themes: chronic medical conditions, Crohn’s disease, colonoscopy, anxiety, support groups, LGBT+, inflammatory bowel disease
- Protagonist description: female, age 12, 7th grader, Ashkenazi Jewish, queer, chronically-ill
Team Trash: A Time Traveler’s Guide to Sustainability by Kate Wheeler and Trent Huntington
Studious environmentalist Charlie is stuck with a science fair partner who seems like her complete opposite: Charlie wants to save the planet, and all Oliver wants is to doodle in his notebook. But when a mechanical mishap sends the two traveling back through time, they’ll have to work as a team to return to the present day.
In order for the time machine to send them back, the unlikely duo must gather data on recycling throughout the ages–from sustainable marketplaces in Edo Japan to garbage-gobbling pigs in 19th-century NYC. Yet the closer the team gets to the present day, the more that plastic presents a problem: they’re running out of time.
Harnessing their frustration over the daunting ecological future they’ve inherited, Charlie and Oliver discover the ways in which they can use their sustainability knowledge to return home and build a better earth.
SLJ starred.
- Genre(s): ecofiction, science fiction, graphic novel
- Setting: various times and places throughout history, including ancient Pompeii, Edo-period Japan (1600s-1800s), and 18th Century Philadelphia
- Recommended for: Grades 3-8
- Themes: time travel, school science fair, reluctant partners, time machines, recycling, plastic pollution, ecological future
- Protagonist description: male and female middle schoolers; all characters are diverse
Gallowgate by K. R. Alexander
Sebastian Wight is cursed.
He sees things other kids don’t see. Things he shouldn’t see.
Ghosts. Monsters. Ghouls. And now, they want him dead.
Sebastian’s home is no longer safe…and the only place that will take him in is Gallowgate Academy, where students are taught to hunt the things that haunt them.
There are some lessons, though, that the school doesn’t want to teach Sebastian. Secrets about his deadly family history that refuse to stay in the shadows.
For Sebastian, fighting the dead might be hard…but it’s the living who may destroy him.
- Genre(s): horror, ghost stories
- Setting: Gallowgate Academy for the Ætheric Arts
- Recommended for: Grades 4-8
- Themes: curses, ghosts, fear, hauntings, family secrets, special schools, boarding schools, middle school, murdered parents, orphans
- Protagonist description: male, age 12, white with white hair
Window Fishing by DK Dyson (Author) and Rudy Gutierrez (Illustrator)
Rudeday dreams of creating art that brings people joy but instead, he paints to pay the bills.
His days and nights are long, until one day he hears a Tap! Tap! Tap! at his window. What could it be?
Rudeday sees a piece of string with a paper clip tied to the end of it, coming from the apartment upstairs. Rudeday has a brilliant idea.
Rudeday carefully paints a fish and attaches it to the paper clip, starting a window-fishing exchange with a little boy upstairs.
The pair swap paper fishes back and forth every day. Rudeday is finally painting for fun but he wonders if he will ever meet his window-fishing friend.
Publishers Weekly starred.
- Genre(s): picture book
- Setting: fourth floor apartment in a city
- Recommended for: PreS-Grade 3
- Themes: friendship, artists, painting, fishing, neighbors, creativity
- Protagonist description: male artist, adult, Latino, grumpy; child has brown skin and Afro hairstyle
Mine! by Candace Fleming (Author) and Eric Rohmann (Illustrator)
In a tall, tall tree, at the tip-tippy top, hangs a single red apple…
Along skirts Mouse. “An apple!” she squeaks, “How divine! When it tumbles to the ground, it’ll all be mine!”
And so it goes, for Hare, Fox, Deer, and Bear, who each can’t wait to get their hands on the apple.
Soon the wind huffs and puffs, the branch snips and snaps, and down the apple falls. Only one shiny red apple for five furry creatures? What are they to do?!
Booklist starred.
- Genre(s): picture book
- Setting: outdoors, near an apple tree
- Recommended for: PreS-Grade 1
- Themes: sharing, woodland animals, apples, friendship
- Protagonist description: various woodland animals – mouse, rabbit, fox, deer, bear, etc.
The Baddies by Julia Donaldson (Author) and Axel Scheffler (Illustrator)
Oh no! The Baddies are coming! They’re the meanest and nastiest ghost, witch, and troll in all the land, and they just love being bad.
When a little girl moves into a nearby cottage, the Baddies can’t wait to scare her out of her wits. But little girls are much braver than they thought, and baddies don’t always win…
Originally published in the UK in 2022.
- Genre(s): picture book, humor, fantasy
- Recommended for: PreS-Grade 3
- Themes: rhyming books, fables, witches, trolls, ghosts, being bad, courage, Halloween reads
- Protagonist description: young girl (brown-skinned), a witch (light-skinned), a ghost, and a turquoise troll
THIS WEEK’S SEQUELS (YA):
THIS WEEK’S SEQUELS (MIDDLE GRADES):
THIS WEEK’S SEQUELS & FAVORITE CHARACTERS (ELEMENTARY):
ABOUT THE SPOTLIGHT
The New Release Spotlight began in May 2016 as a way to help librarians keep up with the many new children’s and YA books that are released each week. Every Tuesday, school librarian Leigh Collazo compiles the New Release Spotlight using a combination of Follett’s Titlewave, Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble. Titles with a * by them received two or more starred professional reviews. Recommended grade levels represent the range of grade levels recommended by professional book reviewers.