New Release Spotlight – August 20, 2024

Middle grades and picture books look best to me this week!

My top picks:

• Pearl by Sherri L. Smith (MG)
• A Star Shines Through by Anna Desnitskaya (picture book)
• Almost Underwear by Jonathan Roth (picture book)

PRESENTATION LINKS:

All three presentations are in Canva and editable! Just click below, then go to File-Make a Copy in your Canva account. If you do not have a Canva account, you can get a free educator account here (must be verified).

I will add titles to the Canva presentations throughout August 2024. By the end of August, each presentation will have around 20 titles on it. So great to play on a loop in the library!

YA Presentation Link – Grades 7+

Middle Grades Presentation Link – Grades 3-8

Picture Book Presentation Link – PreS-Grade 5+

This week’s Spotlight titles are #4248 – #4261 on The Ginormous Booklist.

 

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

In Sài Gòn, Lan is always trying to be the perfect daughter, dependable and willing to care for her widowed mother and their bánh mì stall. Her secret passion, however, is A Bánh Mì for Two, the food blog she started with her father, but has stopped updating since his passing.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese American Vivi Huynh, has never been to Việt Nam. Her parents rarely even talk about the homeland that clearly haunts them. So Vivi secretly goes to Vietnam for a study abroad program her freshman year of college. She’s determined to figure out why her parents left, and to try everything she’s seen on her favorite food blog, A Bánh Mì for Two.

When Vivi and Lan meet in Sài Gòn, they strike a deal. Lan will show Vivi around the city, helping her piece together her mother’s story through crumbling photographs and old memories. Vivi will help Lan start writing again so she can enter a food blogging contest. And slowly, as they explore the city and their pasts, Vivi and Lan fall in love.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Lia Peartree is haunted—by memories, by her past, by secrets, by the ones she left behind. Five years ago, the Peartrees fled their home—the infamous ancestral Brier Hall—and never looked back. But her oldest sister went missing that night, and there’s been no sign of her since.

In the aftermath, the Peartrees are traumatized and get by however they can. Lia’s remaining sister Ali says yes to any bad idea, and Lia tries so desperately to be the perfect daughter that it’s tearing her apart. But as the five year anniversary of the night they left nears, Lia begins seeing her missing sister everywhere, and memories of Brier Hall won’t leave her alone.

When Ali disappears with no warning except a cryptic phone call—“don’t follow me when I’m gone”—Lia is sure she’s gone back to Brier Hall. Lia must go home one final time and face what haunts her in an effort to find her sisters and uncover the truth of her past.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Zay’s ma always said his mouth would get him in trouble. Sure enough, it got him into his first and only fight in his junior year of high school. Expelled from his district, Zay’s only hope for redemption is to transfer to Broadlawn Alternative School and complete the year.

Zay isn’t thrilled about the disgusting school lunch and classroom trailers at Broadlawn, and boarding with his aunt Mel and her live-in boyfriend isn’t the greatest. But he’d rather be there than in the city dealing with his estranged father, his overbearing mother, and the fallout from his fight. Besides, Broadlawn has Feven, the beautiful new student Zay is starting to get to know―and fall for.

Still, first love is rarely a fairy tale, and as Zay’s time in Broadlawn comes to an end, he learns that shaping yourself within a new place is a lot harder than letting it shape you.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Rylee Swanson is beginning eighth grade with zero friends.

A humiliating moment at the end-of-seventh-grade pool party involving a cannonball, a waterlogged updo, and some disappearing clothes has Rylee halfway convinced she’s better off without any friends—at least friends like those.

The one question Rylee can’t shake is . . . why?

When a group assignment in journalism pairs Rylee with science geek DeNia Alonso, DeNia’s annoyingly know-it-all, nerdy personality is both frustration and fuel to Rylee’s search for answers.

Together they conduct research, run surveys, and write their way toward even more questions about what makes friendships—and breaks them. Between her shaky new partnership with DeNia, an annoying brother, and a friend from the past, Rylee’s got a lot to think about.

But the more she learns, the more Rylee wonders: Could there be a science to friendship? And can it keep her from losing friends ever again?

I haven’t read this yet (on the list!), but I am adding Pearl to my 2025 Newbery contender “titles to watch” list.

This is a graphic novel about a Japanese-American tween from Hawaii who is stranded in Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. I’ve seen massive praise for this title, plus 5 starred professional reviews.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Amy is a thirteen-year-old Japanese-American girl who lives in Hawaii.

When her great-grandmother falls ill, Amy travels to visit family in Hiroshima for the first time.

But this is 1941. When the Japanese navy attacks Pearl Harbor, it becomes impossible for Amy to return to Hawaii.

Conscripted into translating English radio transmissions for the Japanese army, Amy struggles with questions of loyalty and fears about her family amidst rumors of internment camps in America — even as she makes a new best friend and, over the years, Japan starts to feel something like home.

Torn between two countries at war, Amy must figure out where her loyalties lie and, in the face of unthinkable tragedy, find hope in the rubble of a changed world.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Wednesday Thomas sees ghosts. But that doesn’t mean she has to talk to them.

After a terrifying experience in an Arizona state park with a wicked ghost, Wednesday and her mother Olivia sell their RV and move back south to the family home in Alton, Georgia. Wednesday’s determined not to use her gift anymore—until she meets a group of girls who also know about the spirit realm.

There’s free-spirited Miki Okada and Southern belle Danni-Lynn Porter who seem to know about the ghosts who roam the school’s hallways, popular girl Alexa Scott who tells Wednesday to stay away from Miki and Danni-Lynn and not draw attention to herself, and mysterious neighbor Violet Delgado who died last year but still haunts the house across the street.

Wednesday feels these girls have some kind of shared history, but it isn’t until Miki gives her an official invitation to the Dead Club that she starts to understand there’s a lot more going on with the ghosts in Alton and the girls who can see them.

And when another malevolent ghost threatens to harm Wednesday, it will take the help of new friends both living and dead to save her and banish the evil being to the spirit realm where it belongs.

The professional reviews are a bit lukewarm for this title, but I’m including it because Kathryn Lasky is a well-known middle grade author. There are also lots of young readers who quickly snap up fairy tale retellings!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

In a grand glass house, there was a girl named Bess whose power would, one day, change the fate of her family. . . Bess Wickham has always felt like a bit of an outcast among her family of extraordinary glassblowers, but then an immense, magical power that’s lain dormant in her bloodline begins to emerge. So, when she suspects her family’s business has taken a sinister turn, Bess must find the strength to defeat dark magic and save a certain cinder girl. But will she shatter under the weight of such evil or get her happily ever after?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Young Wei dreamed of being a legendary lion dancer just like his dad. With his best friend Hung performing as the tail and Wei controlling the head, he knew they could become the next generation of lion dance champions.

But after his dad’s sudden passing, Wei abruptly quits lion dancing—and his friendship with Hung.

Years later, Wei is stuck…in life, in school, and on the bench at games. That is, until he crashes a junior lion dance practice and feels his long-sleeping passion wake up within him once more.

The team is happy to have another member to carry on the tradition, especially as one as preternaturally talented as Wei. There’s just one person who doesn’t want him there: the self-proclaimed star, Hung.

As Wei and Hung fight to be considered the top lion dancer, both will have to learn how to face their mistakes head-on and remember what it really means to be part of a team.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Mink doesn’t believe in rules. She loves letting her hair down and getting the most out of life. So when a loose zebra appears in the square where she lives—and she finds out that his parents have been captured by the evil Mr. Spit—she’ll do what it takes to make sure the zebra family can run as wild and free as she does.

In this tale of bravery, friendship, and the importance of taking action, Mink uses all her courage and determination to rescue a whole menagerie of animals.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

We used to live in a big city. In our apartment window was a star-shaped lamp, shining through the cold. I could recognize home from far away. But then the war began, and we left for another country. Everything is different here—the food, the language, even Mom and me. Today Mom bought us a package of scissors, glue, and cardboard. Can we make this place feel a little more like home?

Narrated by a young refugee, A Star Shines Through is based on the experiences of the author-illustrator, who left Russia with her family after the start of the Ukraine War. With an evocative palette of blues and yellows, Anna Desnitskaya shows how making art can create a sense of hope, even amidst emigration and resettling.

This title published two weeks ago, but it did not meet my Spotlight criteria of two positive, professional reviews until this week.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Time never passed so happily! From sledding and snowman-crafting in January to the New Year’s countdown in December, childlike drawings and jolly text describe each month of the year with all the fun that each one promises. This book works like a song: each month is a new verse, and readers transition into each new season by a chorus with a recurring refrain, which is riffed on throughout the year.

Beloved author-illustrator Carter Higgins is back with all her quirky warmth in Round and Round the Year We Go, a book as fun to read aloud as it is to listen to and learn from. Story time is sure to provoke giggles, games, and ideas for your own seasonal escapades.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

From visiting with family to golu hopping and more, Navya loves everything about Navarathri—except singing in front of a crowd. She’s too afraid. Will the support of her female relatives and the goddess Durga help Navya overcome her fear?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Crows are crafty birds. In this picture book about a particularly noisy and mischievous young crow, their intriguing behaviors are on full display.

They can mimic sounds and use objects for tools, and they love to hide things. They also enjoy raising a ruckus.

Follow along as Crow leaves his home nest and his large extended family and flies to the nearby farm, looking for fun and trouble. He enjoys pestering the songbirds, stealing food from Cat, and taunting Dog. But he soon tires of his usual hijinks, and he sets out to find more exciting adventures.

What will happen when he runs into DANGEROUS trouble?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

One day in 1903 the Wright brothers entered a department store in Ohio to buy a bolt of fabric. The plain muslin cloth was most often used to make underwear.

As it happens, the Wright brothers were about to wrap the simple cloth around the ribs of a mechanical ‘wing’ and dramatically change the world.

Sixty-six years later, in 1969, Neil Armstrong took a big leap onto the moon. With him was a swatch of the exact fabric the bicycle mechanics had purchased in 1903.

Fifty-two years after that, in 2021, a remote-controlled car-sized explorer landed on Mars. Attached to the underside of a cable was a tiny piece of very old cloth—cloth that had almost become underwear.

Almost Underwear is the story of that incredible piece of fabric, and the historic ‘firsts’ it stitches together.

PREVIOUS 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?