New Release Spotlight: February 3, 2026

Phew, y’all, it’s been a week! There are tons of great titles releasing this week, but between technical difficulties and taking some much-needed self-care, I did not get to all the middle grade titles and none of the picture books this week. Gah!

I hope to add them in the next couple of weeks, but I am now working full-time in a school again, so I cannot guarantee it. I’m doing my best, but it’s not easy to balance everything at the moment.

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 #5035 – #5043 on The Ginormous Booklist.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Mal Flowers expected senior year fall to be full of cozy sweaters, good coffee, and copyediting. As the new editor-in-chief of their school’s literary magazine, they just want to follow The Plan to graduate and get out of their small midwestern town—a place where, as a broke, fat, queer person with ADHD, they’ve never really fit in. But when budget cuts result in the lit mag’s cancellation, Mal is suddenly left scrambling for something to replace it.

That is, until Emerson Pike—who also has ADHD but is loud, confident, and Mal’s complete opposite—suggests the staff go rogue and create a zine instead. Which would be cool, except that making and selling contraband isn’t exactly what Mal envisioned listing as the extracurricular activity on their college application. A zine would be unofficial, unapproved, and definitely not in The Plan.

But a zine is also a good way to spend more time with Emerson, whose playful banter and bad jokes Mal can’t seem to get enough of. And maybe, with a group of new friends, the back of the charming coffee shop where Emerson works could be somewhere Mal does belong. Because breaking the rules with Emerson—and flirting with her over coffee—is fun.

Maybe The Plan isn’t the only way to find happiness, but can Mal let go of something they’ve depended on for so long?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Paloma Vistamontes is heartbroken. A year ago, her ex-boyfriend, Julio Ramos, broke up with her after his father’s death, a tragedy that drove Paloma and him apart. Ever since then, the mountains have felt flatter, the sky farther away.

Now, her hometown of San Fermín, a place where honest people work on farms and in factories, is in danger. Selva, a massive e-commerce conglomerate, threatens to open one of their warehouses beside her high school.

This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. Since Selva arrived, they’ve opened warehouses everywhere where there used to be green spaces. Because of them, the air pollution is so bad that school is often canceled. Many people, including Paloma’s ever-practical Ma, want to leave.

But Paloma wants nothing more than to stay. Because when the smog clears, there is still hope. That hope drives Paloma to reconnect with Julio to expose and challenge the dangers that Selva introduces to communities like their own. Can they stop Selva from destroying everything they know? Is there still a chance for their budding romance?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

On the far side of a swift and unknowable apocalypse, a few sapiens are surviving off the last scraps of humanity. No longer recognizable as Cape Cod, the dunes of their archipelago are empty apart from regrets and ruins—until West blows in like a storm.

West is a prophet of instinct, the last amateur anthropologist, ever aware of being present in life. He can’t help but move through Ani’s rage, Karen’s anxiety, and Emil’s immense longing with curiosity and care. West’s unbridled love and grief challenge the survivors to defy extinction with the most beautifully human thing imaginable: a family.

He may even impress Death.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Anabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. But Ana can’t afford to escape it, even as the wealthiest in Caimor buy and discard expensive designer bodies without a thought. When she fails to gain admittance to the prestigious Paragon Academy―and access to the healthy new forms the school provides its students―her final hope implodes. Now without options, Ana must use her illusion magic to try to steal a healthy chassis―before her own kills her.

But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt brews in Caimor’s smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith.

With no choice but to accept, Ana will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of renegades: an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who might just spell her ruin. As Ana is drawn into a tangled web of secrets, the line between villain and hero shatters―and Ana must decide which side is worth dying for.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Ruby is a genius humanoid who was grown in a secret lab at the local university, created to solve science’s greatest problems. But Ruby suspects she can’t fulfill her function while trapped inside, so she breaks out.

Now living among humans, Ruby attempts to lie low and fit in as a barista at the university coffeehouse, Inkcap. Working there gives her plenty of opportunity to figure out what problems people need solving. And as far as she can tell, most humans’ biggest problem is struggling to find happiness. And what makes them happy? Love! So, Ruby uses her superpowered brain to play cupid.

As Ruby sets to work pairing up the staff and regulars at Inkcap, she feels more and more human herself: she’s got a community now, maybe even a crush. But the lab believes she’s dangerous, and it wants her back. When pursuing her own happiness leads Ruby straight into a trap, she’ll need her new motley crew of coffeehouse friends to save her from the scientist who only want to use her.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

It starts as an update at one Chicago high school: copies of a certain book are no longer allowed in the classrooms or the library. But it’s not just one high school—it’s all Chicago public schools. Not even the principals know why this is happening; they just know they must comply with the order. One thing is clear: The book, which tells a story of oppression, survival, and resistance against authoritarian power, is seen as a threat, dangerous enough to ban. One other thing is clear: Some of the students aren’t going to let this go without resistance of their own.

As the extent of the ban becomes known, the students rise up. They organize a school-wide walkout and library sit-in. They publicize the banning in every forum they can: social media, the press, classes, clubs, the school paper. And most of all, they get everyone they know to read the book: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi.

Told from multiple perspectives, based on extensive interviews with the real-life students and teachers who were affected, and written by the librarian who exposed key information about the Chicago Public Schools censorship decision, Wake Now in the Fire is a fictionalized account of a true event that galvanized a community. 

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Fallon Little has a secret—and it’s not how she got the enormous scar that divides her face in two.

Thirteen-year-old Fallon has only ever told one person what really happened on the day she got her scar. Why would she? The truth is dark, and Fallon has much brighter things to focus on, like being cast as the lead in the school play, and hanging out with her two best friends, Trent and Kaia.

But when Fallon’s uncle Geebie dies, his funeral ignites a wildfire of events that Fallon can’t manage to tamp down. The school play is spiraling out of control, Fallon’s impossible Aunt Lune comes to live with them, and Trent and Kaia might just be so into each other that there isn’t room for Fallon in their friend group any more.

And when secrets even worse than the one about Fallon’s scar threaten to come to light, Fallon might not have the strength to keep them buried for much longer.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Sixth grader Lucy thinks people are seriously overrated. People come with feelings, and Lucy can’t escape them because of her so-called “gift” of empathy. She can feel the tension when her parents fight and can’t escape the truth of what went wrong in her relationship with her former best friend.

So when Lucy’s parents suggest spending her summer vacation with her reclusive grandfather at his isolated cabin on Prince Edward Island, she jumps at the chance to get away from people, feelings—all of it.

Lucy arrives at her grandfather’s with a small suitcase and the only thing she really needs: her camera. From behind the lens, she can watch the world without having to feel any of it.

While exploring her new home, Lucy finds her grandmother’s old camera and a darkroom that hasn’t been used since Nana passed away five years ago. Lucy starts taking pictures of the people in her grandfather’s town and developing photos the old-fashioned way.

The finished photos reveal everything about the subjects—their deepest fears and hidden desires. Along with a quirky neighbor and her reluctant grandfather, Lucy sets out to get to the bottom of the photographic magic. But can she uncover the truth of her grandmother’s legacy and figure out what to do with the magical photos before summer ends?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

When Macy gets book one of The Mighty Zora series for her birthday, she stays up until 11:34pm finishing the book. But the next day, when Macy gets to her school library, eager to check out book two, she finds the door locked with a sign explaining that the library will now only be open a few days a week due to budget cuts.

Even worse, she finds out her father won’t be home to help her figure out what to do, as he will be traveling to a museum in Montgomery, Alabama to read a poem about civil rights.

With help from her fellow third graders, support from her mom, and encouragement from poems written and hidden for her by her father, Macy must find her voice and learn the power of advocating for herself and her community.

Can Macy learn to be Mighty?