New Release Spotlight: February 17, 2026

It’s another relatively large Spotlight! I’ve continued to add titles I skipped in the first week of February. I’ve got 13 new titles for you this week.

My top picks:

• Angry Girls Will Get Us Through by Ruby Shamir and Rebecca Traister (YA nonfiction)
• Some of Us Are Brave by Saadia Faruqi (MG historical fiction)
• The Dream by Gideon Sterer (wordless picture book)

If you want to see all the titles I wanted to feature this week, you can see the full list on my February 2026 New Release Spotlight Amazon list.

This week’s titles are #5066 – #5078 on The Ginormous Booklist.

Canva presentation links release via email next Tuesday! If you do not already get the monthly Canva presentation links, you can join my email list here.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Sylvia Plath knows she was born to be remembered. She loves learning, literature, and writing, especially poetry. The problem is, she’s coming of age in a time when women are expected to happily set aside their dreams for a husband and a home. Even in high school, Sylvia struggles to reconcile the societal expectations placed on women and the ambitions she has for a great career. She aches for a partner and a family, but she longs to become a poet, too. And she’s afraid she can’t have both. 

​Covering her high school and college years, and capturing her many highs and lows as she wrestled with her mental health and blazing talent, Love, Sivvy is a beautifully rendered portrait of one of the most incandescent poets of all time. 

Sylvia Plath knows she was born to be remembered. She loves learning, literature, and writing, especially poetry. The problem is, she’s coming of age in a time when women are expected to happily set aside their dreams for a husband and a home. Even in high school, Sylvia struggles to reconcile the societal expectations placed on women and the ambitions she has for a great career. She aches for a partner and a family, but she longs to become a poet, too. And she’s afraid she can’t have both. 

​Covering her high school and college years, and capturing her many highs and lows as she wrestled with her mental health and blazing talent, Love, Sivvy is a beautifully rendered portrait of one of the most incandescent poets of all time.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

On February 17, 2022, Brittney Griner arrived in Moscow ready to play for a Russian women’s basketball team. Instead, a security checkpoint became her gateway to hell and she was arrested for mistakenly carrying a small amount of an illegal substance in Russia. Brittney’s world was violently upended in a crisis that would capture the interest of an entire nation.

Brittney shares this harrowing story of courage and strength, while recalling her teenage years where she found meaning and empowerment in sports, and overcoming her own struggles with her sexual identity.

Her principles of fortitude and courage are ever evident as she goes on to recount her feelings of isolation while navigating a foreign legal system, her emotional and physical anguish as the first American woman ever to endure a Russian penal colony, the chilling prisoner swap with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, and her remarkable rise from hostage to global spokesperson on behalf of other detained Americans.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

From an early age, young girls are taught anger isn’t an emotion they should express. They’re told—either implicitly or explicitly—to spend their lives keeping their fury locked inside for the benefit of others.

But partly, Traister argues, that’s because the anger of women and girls has been a crucial catalyst for change, putting in motion some of the most defining social and political movements in our nation’s history. And it’s that anger that will blaze the path forward for the future.

Traister chronicles a concise history from the colonial era to the Women’s March of 2016 demonstrating how women’s rage has forged coalitions and created political change through movements for women’s and civil rights and more, and how the past decade has created an inflection point for women and girls who have yet to experience rights equal to men’s in the United States.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Relic Hamilton is just your average twelve-year-old, living a quiet life with his grandfather above their old antique shop in Chinatown in London. Until, that is, the day he’s polishing some mysterious brass lamps in the basement and something extraordinary happens.

He feels spine-chillingly cold. Breathless. Scared. And there it is—a real live genie standing before him. But this is no kind, benevolent genie. This one is evil . . . and it feeds on hope.

Ghostbusters meets Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Pokémon (with a genie twist) as award-winning author Joseph Coelho follows Relic to the heart of a fast-paced underground community of dedicated genie hunters.

Led by the excitable Professor Latimer and the über-cool Doctor Raphaela, they will travel together in their one-of-a-kind jet, the Aladdin, on a secret mission to chase down rogue genies before they wreak havoc on the world. Vividly and imaginatively written, with a humorous cast of cool characters, this first in a trilogy is brought to life in twenty black-and-white illustrations by Korean artist Hyun Song We.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

It’s a humid summer in Houston, Texas, and Yasir is dreaming of being soccer team captain—if only he could get the team bully, Cody, off his back, and maybe impress his sort-of-crush, Mona. Meanwhile, Mona is turning her nightmares into art, and Cody’s home life feels as tense as the storm literally brewing down the coast.

When Hurricane Harvey makes landfall, the three kids could hardly be called friends. But as their regular lives fall apart and rising floodwaters pull them together, Mona, Cody, and Yasir will need to work as a team if they want to survive. The hurricane will churn up their deepest fears and cement their bond forever—if it doesn’t tear them apart.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

leven-year-old Birdy and her younger brother, Mouse, have always looked out for each other. They make the perfect team: Birdy is realistic and practical, while Mouse is affable and trusting.

After their mother dies of cancer, Birdy and Mouse are forced to move out of the city to the country with relatives they’ve never met. Aunt Mitzie and Uncle Shadow’s house is full of organized chaos, and it takes Birdy time to adjust to having adults around. But the kitchen is always stocked, and both kids are allowed to play outside as often as they want.

There’s only one problem: it’s all temporary. Their social worker has promised to find them a permanent home by the next school year, whether they want to leave or not. As the summer unfolds, Mouse starts to feel attached to their new life. But Birdy knows better—adults have never been reliable. When Birdy’s fears get the best of her, she makes a big mistake that could jeopardize their future.

Heartfelt and emotionally resonant, this literary coming-of-age novel explores the unbreakable bond between siblings—and how family can be found in the most unexpected places.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Paris, present day. Penny Marks has never felt so alone. Forced to move to France for some fancy job her mom couldn’t turn down, she’s now miles away from her old life. If she hadn’t quit art after all that drama went down last year, she’d at least have something to keep her mind off the fact that life back home is moving on without her.

Paris, 1943. Marie Bonnet has never felt so afraid. When the German army seized power over France, she and her sister Heloise watched their father get taken away, leaving them on their own. Then Marie finds evidence that Heloise has secretly been working for the French Resistance—a group of rebels determined to take the Nazis down—and while it has danger written all over it, she’s desperate to join. Any small act of uprising could help their country…but it could also cost them their lives.

Penny and Marie’s worlds collide when an old painting resurfaces in present-day Paris after decades of being hidden. Along with it is a note whose message may lead Penny to Marie…and the fate that awaited her.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

In this stunning combination of wordcraft and woodcuts, readers meet the changing seasons with thirteen poems, all in different poetic structures, from award-winning Dutch author Bette Westera.

Each season opens with a haiku, following with the season’s months and their poems. Readers will dance into March with a rondel for a newborn lamb, wave in the August wind with a five-line tanka for a summer sunflower, snuggle in for December with a limerick for all those who stayed home instead of going south…

Exquisite woodcut art from Henriette Boerendans, an artist making her US and UK debut, showcases the wonder of the natural world.  Back matter offers further details about the poems’ structures―offering the perfect opportunity for young writers to write their own sonnet for February or quatrain for September. Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Bread is many things.

Bread is simple. The dough can be made with just flour, salt, starter, and water.

Bread is science. With the right ingredients, in the right amounts, the dough grows and changes.

Bread can be unpredictable. Sometimes it rises, like a soft pillow. Sometimes it’s flat and crunchy.

But bread is always delicious, especially when it is made with love.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

What happens when one girl, disheartened by the way we treat the earth, crosses paths with a mysterious wolf in the woods—who feels just as she does?

With the help of countless beasts from land, sky, and sea, can they protect our plant and its inhabitants?

Here’s a story for all the doers who believe that working together can make that dream come true.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

“Hesci! Here come the aunties!”

Aunts by kinship as well as family friends, neighbors, and community members all step up to fill the important role of “auntie.” They are there for life’s joys, sorrows, and celebrations, bringing their own special love.

A wonderful gift from or for a treasured auntie!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Ms. Lee’s class had come perilously close to running out of games, but the hunt for the best world gains steam right away. The orange is tasty, but too small to share. A dodgeball world can be punted to outer space by a mean older kid. A maple tree isn’t portable enough.

Imaginations have never been so alive. But still no perfect world turns up, and the kids’ search is leaving a trail of litter and destruction behind them. Maybe there really is only one world that ticks all the boxes, only one world where everyone fits and can get what they need… and maybe it’s time to treat it a little better.

With a cast of big personalities and a hearty helping of witty banter, If This Were the World reads like the very best recess, with a well-earned nod to our planet and the work of protecting it.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

In this powerful love letter to nature, a child who befriends a tree grows up and fights to protect it. With its spare, lyrical text; sumptuous illustrations; and back matter about trees, oxygen, and the carbon cycle, this inviting, inspiring call to save our planet is perfect for Earth Day, and every day.