Phew! A pretty big Spotlight this week, with middle grades coming out very strong! I’ve got 19 titles this week. about half of which are middle grade titles!
My top picks:
- Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker (YA)
- Tiger Daughter by Rebecca Lim (MG)
- The Story of Gumluck the Wizard by Adam Rex (chapter book)
- Stranded!: A Mostly True Story from Iceland by Ævar Þór Benediktsson
This week’s Spotlight titles are #3476-#3494 on The Ginormous book list.
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Disappearing Act: A True Story by Jiordan Castle
Jiordan’s family was never quite like everyone else’s, with her father’s mood swings, her mother’s attempts at normalcy, and her two older sisters with a different last name. But on the surface, they fit in.
Until the day the FBI came knocking on the door.
After that, her father’s mood plunged to a dangerous new low. After that, there was an investigation into his business and a sentencing in court. Soon Jiordan’s father would have to leave home, and her family would change forever.
Reckoning with the aftershocks of her father’s incarceration, Jiordan had to navigate friends who couldn’t quite understand what she was going through, along with the highs and lows of first love. Under it all was the question: If Jiordan’s father was gone, why did she feel like the one who was disappearing?
Recounting her own experiences as a teenager, poet Jiordan Castle has created a searing and evocative young adult true-story-in-verse about the challenge to be free when a parent is behind bars.
Booklist starred.
- Genre(s): memoir, novel in verse
- Setting: Long Island, New York, USA
- Recommended for: Grades 7+
- Themes: parental mental health, parent in prison, US prison system, fear for parent’s safety in prison, fathers and daughters, mothers and daughters, family problems
- Protagonist description: female, age 13-adult, white, Jewish
Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker
Debut author! All it took was one night and one bad decision for fifteen-year-old Violetta Chen-Samuels’ life to go off the rails. After driving drunk and causing the accident that kills her little sister, Violetta is incarcerated. Under the juvenile justice system, her fate lies in the hands of those she’s wronged–her family. With their forgiveness, she could go home. But without it? Well…
Denied their forgiveness, Violetta is now left with two options, neither good–remain in juvenile detention for an uncertain sentence or participate in the Trials. The Trials are no easy feat, but if she succeeds, she could regain both her freedom and what she wants most of all: her family’s love.
In her quest to prove her remorse, Violetta is forced to confront not only her family’s grief, but her own–and the question of whether their forgiveness is more important than forgiving herself.
Booklist starred.
- Genre(s): realistic fiction
- Setting: alternate Queens, New York (near future?)
- Recommended for: Grades 7+
- Themes: drunk driving accidents, death of a sibling, teen in prison, juvenile justice system, forgiveness, grief, remorse, guilt, self-forgiveness, alternating perspectives, drug addiction, power, privilege, corrupt justice system
- Protagonist description: perspectives alternate between female, age 15, Chinese American and Black; her brother, male, Chinese American and Black, queer
Look No Further by Rioghnach Robinson (Author) and Siofra Robinson (Author)
When 17-year-old Niko and 15-year-old Ali meet at Ogilvy Summer Art Institute, a selective camp for art students in New York City, they seem like complete opposites. Ali comes across as standoffish to laid-back Niko, who feels like a fish out of water surrounded by so many type-A peers.
So when a teacher assigns them as pairs for a genealogy project, Ali and Niko are shocked to find they have a lot more in common than they bargained for.
As the pair embark on a quest to uncover their shared history, Ali finds herself falling for her roommate–who may have already fallen for another girl at Ogilvy–and surfer-bro Niko struggles to find his footing in the glamorous NYC art scene.
Soon they’re both questioning their preconceptions about the world and each other. But only when they face real heartbreak can they accept the most transformative revelation of all: the best art is what you make, not just what you see.
Publishers Weekly starred.
- Genre(s): realistic fiction
- Setting: summer art institute in Manhattan, New York, USA
- Recommended for: Grades 7+
- Themes: summer art programs, half-siblings, discovering a sibling, LGBT+, cultural identity, absent fathers
- Protagonist description: female, age 15, biracial (white and Chinese American); male (her half-brother), age 17, biracial (white and Chinese American)
The Last Girls Standing by Jennifer Dugan
Sloan and Cherry. Cherry and Sloan. They met only a few days before masked men with machetes attacked the summer camp where they worked, a massacre that left the rest of their fellow counselors dead. Now, months later, the two are inseparable, their traumatic experience bonding them in ways no one else can understand.
But as new evidence comes to light and Sloan learns more about the motives behind the ritual killing that brought them together, she begins to suspect that her girlfriend may be more than just a survivor–she may actually have been a part of it. Cherry tries to reassure her, but Sloan only becomes more distraught.
Is this gaslighting or reality? Is Cherry a victim or a perpetrator? Is Sloan confused, or is she seeing things clearly for the very first time? Against all odds, Sloan survived that hot summer night. But will she survive what comes next?
- Genre(s): psychological thriller, mystery
- Recommended for: Grades 9-12
- Themes: summer camp, murder, massacres, camp counselors, trauma, gaslighting, memory loss, survivors, adoption, unreliable narrator, LGBT+
- Protagonist description: female, age 18, white
Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings
Tilly Twomley is desperate for change. White-knuckling her way through high school with flawed executive functioning has left her burnt out and ready to start fresh.
Working as an intern for her perfect older sister’s start up isn’t exactly how Tilly wants to spend her summer, but the required travel around Europe promises a much-needed change of scenery as she plans for her future. The problem is, Tilly has no idea what she wants.
Oliver Clark knows exactly what he wants. His autism has often made it hard for him to form relationships with others, but his love of color theory and design allows him to feel deeply connected to the world around him. Plus, he has everything he needs: a best friend that gets him, placement into a prestigious design program, and a summer internship to build his resume.
Everything is going as planned. That is, of course, until he suffers through the most disastrous international flight of his life, all turmoil stemming from lively and exasperating Tilly. Oliver is forced to spend the summer with a girl that couldn’t be more his opposite–feeling things for her he can’t quite name–and starts to wonder if maybe he doesn’t have everything figured out after all.
As the duo’s neurodiverse connection grows, they learn that some of the best parts of life can’t be planned, and are forced to figure out what that means as their disastrously wonderful summer comes to an end.
- Genre(s): romance
- Setting: summer in Europe
- Recommended for: Grades 9-12
- Themes: neurodivergence, ADHD, autism, international travel, internships, hyperfocus, color theory, #ownvoices
- Protagonist description: male and female, both 18, both white; male is autistic; female has ADHD
*Tiger Daughter by Rebecca Lim
Wen Zhou is a first-generation daughter of Chinese migrant parents. She has high expectations from her parents to succeed in school, especially her father whose strict rules leave her feeling trapped. She dreams of creating a future for herself more satisfying than the one her parents expect her to lead.
Then she befriends a boy named Henry who is also a first generation immigrant. He is the smartest boy at school despite struggling with his English and understands her in a way nobody has lately. Both of them dream of escaping and together they come up with a plan to take an entrance exam for a selective school far from home.
But when tragedy strikes, it will take all of Wen’s resilience and tiger strength to get herself and Henry through the storm that follows.
FOUR starred reviews!
- Genre(s): realistic fiction
- Setting: Australia
- Recommended for: Grades 5-10
- Themes: immigrant families, domestic abuse, fear, poverty, suicide (friend’s mother), community involvement
- Protagonist description: female, age 13, Chinese
*This Boy: The Early Lives of John Lennon & Paul McCartney by Ilene Cooper
Beginning with their births during World War II England and ending with their famous performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, this book is action packed from beginning to end. Whether you are a lifelong Beatles fan or new to their music, this book is an excellent source of Beatles lore that is relatively unknown.
With expert research from Ilene Cooper and rarely seen photographs of the Beatles in their early days, this book will serve as not only an interesting biography of two significant historical figures, but also a fun read about rock and roll and how the lives of two people can change the world.
THREE starred reviews!
- Genre(s): collective biography, nonfiction
- Setting: Liverpool, England
- Recommended for: Grades 4-10
- Themes: The Beatles, music, rock and roll legends, songwriters, WWII
- Protagonist description: John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Confessions of a Candy Snatcher by Phoebe Sinclair (Author) and Theodore Taylor III (Illustrator)
Debut author! For the past few years, twelve-year-old Jonas and his friends have competed to see how many bags of candy they can grab from unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. No one’s supposed to get hurt, just lose their treats.
So Jonas is taken by surprise when one of his smaller targets fights back against his snatching attempt. He’s even more surprised when he starts to receive anonymous notes from someone who knows what happened that night.
Jonas already has enough on his plate, between his parents’ ill-defined separation and his own guilt–guilt his friend Concepción challenges him to confront in a zine she’s creating around the prompt “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”
SLJ starred. Includes black and white illustrations.
- Genre(s): realistic fiction
- Setting: middle school and surrounding neighborhood
- Recommended for: Grades 5-9
- Themes: Halloween, trick-or-treating, bullying, parental separation, guilt, remorse, threats, stalking, friendship, falling in with the wrong crowd, middle school, fighting at school
- Protagonist description: male, age 12, Black, 7th grader
Rising Seas: Flooding, Climate Change and Our New World by Keltie Thomas (Author), Belle Wuthrich (Illustrator), and Kath Boake W. (Illustrator)
The Earth’s oceans are on the rise. Since 1900, global sea levels have risen steadily each year to a global average of about 8 inches (20cm) today, and they’re still rising By 2100, the sea could climb as much as 14 feet (4 3m) to 32 feet (9 75m).
Rising Seas: Flooding, Climate Change and Our New World gives youth an eye-popping view of what the Earth might look like under the rising and falling water levels of climate change. Photographs juxtapose the present-day with that same area’s projected future. The shocking images will help them understand the urgency for action.
Key issues in today’s news will be better understood, such as the 2015 Paris Protocol in which the world agreed to limit temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (ideally 1 5 degree)
- Genre(s): nonfiction
- Setting: worldwide locations where flooding seas are iminent; includes Miami Beach, Greenland, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Kiribati, and the Nile Delta
- Recommended for: Grades 4-8
- Themes: climate, maps, earth, ocean, earth sciences, climate change, STEM, recycling, global challenges
Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen
Mia is still getting used to living with her mom and stepfather, and to the new role their Jewish identity plays in their home. Feeling out of place at home and at her Jewish day school, Mia finds herself thinking more and more about her Muscogee father, who lives with his new family in Oklahoma. Her mother doesn’t want to talk about him, but Mia can’t help but feel like she’s missing a part of herself without him in her life.
Soon, Mia makes a plan to use the gifts from her bat mitzvah to take a bus to Oklahoma–without telling her mom–to visit her dad and find the connection to her Muscogee side she knows is just as important as her Jewish side.
SLJ starred.
- Genre(s): realistic fiction, graphic novel
- Setting: Los Angeles, California; Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Recommended for: Grades 3-8
- Themes: stepfamilies, estranged fathers, bat mitzvahs, road trips, indigenous heritage, bullying, divorced parents
- Protagonist description: female, Jewish, Muscogee
West of the Sea by Stephanie Willing
Debut author! When her mom disappears from their small Texas town, paleontology-loving Haven is determined to find her.
But as she uncovers truths about her mom’s identity, Haven also uncovers a monstrous family secret. Her mom can take the shape of a human and, in the right environment, also turn into an amphibious creature known as a kitskara. And now that she’s growing up, Haven is discovering she has this ability, too. This newfound identity is her only clue to help her track her mother and bring her back home.
And so she, her older sister Margie, and her new friend Rye set off on a road trip across Texas’s Gulf Coast to her late grandparents’ abandoned home, where they’re sure her mom has disappeared to…along with plenty of family secrets.
Publishers Weekly starred.
- Genre(s): fantasy, supernatural, adventure
- Setting: Texas Gulf Coast
- Recommended for: Grades 3-8
- Themes: family secrets, missing parent, shapeshifters, inherited abilities, magic, road trips, sisters, Gulf of Mexico, Celtic mythology, palentology, ancient creatures
- Protagonist description: female, age 11, white, Scottish heritage
*A Place Called America: A Story of the Land and People by Jennifer Thermes
A Place Called America takes the long view of the land’s history, from its earliest formation and inhabitants up through today, and challenges its readers to think critically about the stories we tend to take for granted about our own history.
Meet those indigenous to the deserts, prairies, forests, and shores of the land called Turtle Island and their relatives whose ideas formed the basis of the Constitution and who contributed in unique ways to World War II and more. Meet immigrant communities who came to the land from all around the world—at different times and against all odds, even with staunch United States immigration policies. And meet enslaved ancestors who were brought to the land against their will and whose labor and experience changed the story forever.
Kirkus and Booklist starred.
- Genre(s): nonfiction, history
- Setting: multiple USA locations and regions
- Recommended for: Grades 3-8
- Themes: US history, indigenous peoples, colonization, immigration, migration, slavery, Gold Rush, Mexican–American War
*Ghost Book by Remy Lai
July Chen sees ghosts. But her dad insists ghosts aren’t real. So she pretends they don’t exist.
Which is incredibly difficult now as it’s Hungry Ghost month, when the Gates of the Underworld open and dangerous ghosts run amok in the living world.
When July saves a boy ghost from being devoured by a Hungry Ghost, he becomes her first ever friend. Except William is not a ghost. He’s a wandering soul wavering between life and death.
As the new friends embark on an adventure to return William to his body, they unearth a ghastly truth―for William to live, July must die.
Booklist and Publishers Weekly starred.
- Genre(s): supernatural, humor, graphic novel
- Setting: Hungry Ghost month (Chinese)
- Recommended for: Grades 3-7
- Themes: ghosts, Chinese mythology, friendship, souls, death, Underworld, feeling invisible, making a bad deal with the Underworld, Hungry Ghost month
- Protagonist description: female, age 12, Chinese
Make a Move, Sunny Park! by Jessica Kim
This is the story of Sunny Park, a seventh-grade student at Ranchito Mesa Middle who loves the K-pop band Supreme Beat, hanging out with her cool grandma, dancing when no one is watching, snacking on shrimp chips, and being there for Bailey, her best friend since third grade.
When Bailey decides that she and Sunny should audition for the school dance team in a ploy to parent-trap Bailey’s divorced mom and dad, Sunny agrees even though the thought of performing in public makes her pits sweat. After all, she’d do anything for Bailey.
In a twist of fate, Sunny makes the team and Bailey doesn’t, and when Sunny reluctantly joins, it’s the start of a painful and drawn-out parting of ways for the two girls. As Sunny takes her first steps out from behind her friend’s shadow, she’ll have to figure out who she wants to be when she’s in the spotlight–and who she wants dancing alongside her.
Kirkus starred.
- Genre(s): realistic fiction
- Recommended for: Grades 3-7
- Themes: K-pop, friendship, breaking up with a friend, being in a friend’s shadow, grandmothers, parental divorce, school dance teams, performing in public, stage fright, social anxiety, mean girls, healthy and unhealthy friendships
- Protagonist description: female, Korean American , 7th grader
The Story of Gumluck the Wizard by Adam Rex
This is a story about magic, if you like that kind of thing. It is also a story about a ghost with amnesia, an unpopular fairy, an ungrateful little town, and an extremely wise and helpful raven (who happens to be a pretty talented storyteller).
But mostly, it is about a friendly little wizard who lives inside a big hill and really, really, really wants to be a hero. His name is Gumluck, and he is a bumbling noodlehead.
In this tall tale about a short wizard, celebrated author Adam Rex proves once and for all that the biggest heroes often come in the smallest nightgowns.
THREE starred reviews!
- Genre(s): fantasy, tall tale, early chapter book
- Setting: harvest suggests it’s autumn
- Recommended for: Grades 1-5
- Themes: ghosts, fairies, wizards, ravens, memory loss, heroes, friendship, harvest festivals, being ungrateful
- Protagonist description: short, stocky wizard, white, unruly black hair
Follow the Flyway by Sarah Nelson (Author) and Maya Hanisch (Illustrator)
In this lyrical STEM gem, nests full of baby birds hatch, grow feathers, learn to fly, and then finally follow the autumn winds south along the majestic flyway for their first big migration.
Rhyming, poetic text and detailed, nostalgic illustrations make for an enthralling read-aloud, carrying readers along on the birds’ sensory journey of sights and sounds.
Illustrated endnotes provide factual information about bird migration, the four flyways of North America, the species of birds found in the book and sources for further reading.
SLJ starred.
- Genre(s): informational picture book
- Setting: Mississippi flyway route for North American bird migration (there are four flyway routes in North America)
- Recommended for: PreS-Grade 4
- Themes: STEM, birds, waterfowl, bird life cycles, growing up, migration, autumn, seasonal changes, passage of time, journeys, onomatopoeia, rhyming books, rhythm
- Protagonist description: various migratory birds on the North American Mississippi flyway migration route
Stranded!: A Mostly True Story from Iceland by Ævar Þór Benediktsson (Author) and Anne Wilson (Illustrator)
Based on a true story, the author humorously recounts the time his grandfather got stranded with a friend on Surtsey, a brand new volcanic island in Iceland.
The adventurers face epic challenges like molten lava, melted eyeglasses and scant supplies before finally getting rescued.
Graphic novel-like layouts and spirited text invite readers to search for the one thing that’s not actually true in this thrilling yet light-hearted tale of adventure. Endnotes include information about volcanoes, Icelandic culture and Norse mythology.
Kirkus starred.
- Genre(s): adventure, picture book for older readers
- Setting: volcanic island in Iceland
- Recommended for: Grades 1-5
- Themes: volcanoes, landforms, Iceland, based on a true story, Norse mythology, storytelling, survival
- Protagonist description: two men, white
*Together We Swim by Valerie Bolling (Author) and Kaylani Juanita (Illustrator)
Jumping into the water can be more than a little scary! But with Mom’s steady arms there’s no fear of sinking. With a kick, a splash, and his family’s cheers of encouragement, one determined boy finds his groove, making waves in this fun-filled day at the pool.
Embrace the feeling of accomplishment in this joyous, reassuring story about perseverance and new experiences. With lyrical rhyming text and vibrant illustrations, Together We Swim is destined to become a family read-aloud favorite!
Kirkus and Booklist starred.
- Genre(s): picture book
- Setting: community swimming pool
- Recommended for: PreS-Grade 3
- Themes: swimming, mothers and sons, learning to swim, swimming pools, perseverance, new experiences
- Protagonist description: Black family
Doris by Sarah Jacoby
Doris has always revelled in the warmth of a spotlight.
Her whole life, she’s danced the nights away,
With friends from the only home she’s ever known.
But one day, Doris twirls…
Out
Of
Step
…Until she stumbles across a whole new kind of spotlight.
Kirkus starred.
- Genre(s): picture book
- Setting: circus tent
- Recommended for: PreS-Grade 2
- Themes: performance arts, horses, dancing, show ponies, circuses, getting out of one’s comfort zone, onomatopoeia
- Protagonist description: dappled-gray circus horse
THIS WEEK’S SEQUELS (YA):
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.