We’ve only got four YA books on this week’s list, but WOW, do they look amazing! My top this week is definitely the new graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, Lunar New Year Love Story. More notes about this book below!
The Middle Grade and Picture Book Spotlights are linked at the bottom of this post. You’ll also find the Google Slides presentation of each list, the printable list, and The Ginormous Booklist linked at the bottom of this post.
Author: Gene Luen Yang
Illustrator: LeUyen Pham
Genre: graphic novel, romance
Setting: San Francisco, California and Rome, Italy
Recommended for: Grades 6+
Themes: broken hearts, family curses, Valentine's Day, family problems, family secrets, lion dancing, grandmothers, Lunar New Year, parental death (father), alcoholic parent (mother), Asian culture, lion dancing
Protagonist: teen female, Vietnamese American
Starred reviews: Booklist, SLJ, Horn Book, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly
Pages: 352
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY
She was destined for heartbreak. Then fate handed her love.
Val is ready to give up on love. It’s led to nothing but secrets and heartbreak, and she’s pretty sure she’s cursed―no one in her family, for generations, has ever had any luck with love.
But then a chance encounter with a pair of cute lion dancers sparks something in Val.
Is it real love? Could this be her chance to break the family curse? Or is she destined to live with a broken heart forever?
MY NOTES:
Prepare for this one to be a HIT! The author, Gene Luen Yang, is well-established in the YA graphic novel world with titles like American Born Chinese, Dragon Hoops, and Boxers and Saints. The illustrator, LeUyen Pham, is also no stranger to graphic novels as the illustrator of the mega-popular Princess in Black and Shannon Hale’s Friends series.
Heads-up for middle school librarians: The SLJ review recommends Grades 6+, but both Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly recommend Grades 9-12. I always provide a range here, but I haven’t read this one yet. It’s on my TBR, so when I read it, I will let you know in the review.
Author: Carolina Ixta
Genre: realistic fiction
Setting: Oakland, California, USA
Recommended for: Grades 9-12
Themes: family problems, parental abandonment, depressed parent, sisters, anxiety, racism, teen pregnancy, misogyny, domestic violence, generational trauma, overcoming adversity, resilience
Protagonist: female, Mexican American
Starred reviews: Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY
Belén Dolores Itzel del Toro wants the normal stuff: to experience love or maybe have a boyfriend or at least just lose her virginity. But nothing is normal in East Oakland. Her father left her family. She’s at risk of not graduating. And Leti, her super-Catholic, nerdy-ass best friend, is pregnant—by the boyfriend she hasn’t told her parents about, because he’s Black, and her parents are racist.
Things are hella complicated.
Weighed by a depression she can’t seem to shake, Belén helps Leti, hangs out with an older guy, and cuts a lot of class. She soon realizes, though, that distractions are only temporary. Leti is becoming a mother. Classmates are getting ready for college. But what about Belén? What future is there for girls like her?
Author: Kristin Dwyer
Publication Date: January 9, 2024
Genre: realistic fiction
Setting: Western Sierra Trail, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA
Recommended for: Grades 9-12
Themes: grief, trauma, nature, wilderness therapy, new friendships, death of a parent (father), getting a second chance, previously poor personal choices, found families, volunteer work
Protagonist: female, white, HS dropout
Starred reviews: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY
Atlas has lost her way.
In a last-ditch effort to pull her life together, she’s working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. The only plus is that the days are so exhausting that Atlas might just be tired enough to forget that this was one of her dad’s favorite places in the world. Before cancer stole him from her life, that is.
Using real names is forbidden on the trail. So Atlas becomes Maps, and with her team—Books, Sugar, Junior, and King—she heads into the wilderness.
As she sheds the lies she’s built up as walls to protect herself, she realizes that four strangers might know her better than anyone has before. And with the end of the trail racing to meet them, Maps is left counting down the days until she returns to her old life—without her new family, and without King, who’s become more than just a friend.
Author: Arushi Avachat
Publication date: 9 Jan 2024
Genre: rom-com, humor, romance
Setting: Punjabi family wedding week
Recommended for: Grades 8-12
Themes: Bollywood, dancing, weddings, academic rivals, sisters, family dynamics, Punjabi culture
Protagonist: female, HS senior, Punjabi
Starred reviews: no starred reviews
Pages: 320
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY
Shaadi preparations are in full swing, which means lehenga shopping, taste testing, dance rehearsals, and best of all, Arya’s sister Alina is home. The Khannas are together again, finally, and Arya wants to enjoy it. So she stifles her lingering resentment towards Alina, plays mediator during her sister’s fights with their mother, and welcomes her future brother-in-law with open arms. (Okay, maybe enjoy isn’t exactly right.)
Meanwhile at school, Arya’s senior year dreams are unraveling. In between class and her part-time gig as a bookshop assistant, Arya struggles to navigate the aftermath of a bad breakup between her two best friends and a tense student council partnership with her rival, the frustratingly attractive Dean Merriweather.
Arya is determined to keep the peace at home and at school, but this shaadi season teaches Arya new realities: Alina won’t always be in the bedroom down the hall, Mamma’s sadness isn’t mendable, friendships must evolve, and life doesn’t always work out like her beloved Bollywood movies. But sometimes, the person you least expect will give you a glimpse of your dream sequence just when you need it most.
THE LINKS YOU’LL NEED FOR JANUARY
- January 2024 – YA Books – Google Slides presentation – click “use template” to make a copy – share with students and teachers! Remember that this presentation will eventually include all YA Spotlight titles for January 2024.
- Printable list of all January 2024 Spotlight titles – sorted by genre and grade level group; click “use template” to make a copy
- The Ginormous Book List – this week’s YA titles are #3757 – #3760 on The Ginormous.
MORE JANUARY 2024 NEW RELEASE SPOTLIGHTS
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.
Each week, school librarian Leigh Collazo compiles the New Release Spotlight using a combination of Follett’s Titlewave, Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble. Recommended grade levels represent the range of grade levels recommended by professional book reviewers. See the full selection criteria here.
Inevitably, there are far more books that meet my criteria than can make it on the Spotlight. When I have to make the tough decisions on what to include, I just use my “librarian judgment.” Would I buy this book for my own library? Would my students want to read this book? Is the cover appealing? Does it fill a need?