New Release Spotlight: April 14. 2026

Can you believe it’s already mid-April? I hope the weather is as beautiful in your area as it has been here in North Texas! We are enjoying blue skies, bluebonnets in bloom, warm temperatures, and plenty of wind! Having just moved back to this area last summer, I had forgotten how windy it can be here!

Middle grades look amazing this week – loads of must-see titles!

My top picks:

• Soundtrack by Jason Reynolds (YA realistic fiction)
• The Genie Game by Jordan Ifueko (MG adventure)
• 102 by Matthew Cordell (picture book)

You can see a cumulative list of all the Spotlight books for April here. I will add to it as the month continues.

At the end of the month, I will release the three Canva links for the April Spotlight titles. These are a great way to share the best new titles with your school community. The links are free to my email list, which is here if you need to sign up.

This week’s titles are #5153 – #5164 on The Ginormous Booklist.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Stuy Grey plays the drums, just like his mom, a founding member of the all-black punk band the Bed-Stuy Magic Dusters. He teaches himself by watching videos of tap dancers. Now he’s left home, estranged from his mom and her abusive boyfriend. He’s camping out with his uncle on the Lower East Side. His landlord, Dunks, has chops: He shreds on only five strings. Add Alexis on bass guitar and Keith on horn: These teens are a band, busking in New York City subway stations to scrape enough money to record an album.

As their popularity grows, so do the pressures, from complicated family dynamics to the glare of unexpected public attention. And when the police start looking for their bassist, Stuy faces his toughest decision yet.

Adapted from the acclaimed Listening Library original audiobook and written with Jason Reynolds’s signature rhythm, heart, and honesty, Soundtrack: A Novel is a raw, resonant story about friendship, creativity, and what it truly means to find, and fight for, your voice.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Aisling is many things to many people: princess, heir to the throne, teenage daughter of two loving parents… She’s also about to learn a lot more about herself: changeling. Fey creature. Hunted. Feared. Loved?

Forgive-Me-Not is the name given to the true princess ― the lost teenage biological daughter to the king and queen, who’s grown up in the chaotic and untrustworthy realm of Faerie.

When Forgive-Me-Not breaks into Aisling’s room the night before their 18th birthday looking for revenge, the two embark on a long and arduous journey. And what starts as a confrontational and adversarial pairing grows into a bond of mutual understanding, friendship, and maybe something more…

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Vibrant and witty, Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism shows young readers how to love their bodies, fight for social justice, and be proud of the history that’s made them who they are.

Grounded in diverse lived experiences of featured Auntie Heroes and inspiring Young Rebels, this guide discusses the Asian American community, past and present; explores allyship with other communities of color; finds a place in national and global movements; and turns inward so young readers can practice love and self-care.

Each chapter includes activism strategies for all kids–from those who love math and statistics to those who can’t wait for their next art project.

Along with her co-creators of Radical Cram School, Kristina Wong is Auntie Kristina, accompanying readers as they process uncomfortable realities, connect to the history of Asian America, and become leaders within their own communities and beyond.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Valentine Adesanya has two missions: 1) become a Feared and Fabulous Film Director and 2) find her missing big sister, Mango. She suspects The Trio Trust, a collection of creepy mega-companies that now rule the United States, made Mango disappear.

A text lures Valentine to a magical boba shop, which comes to life and tells Valentine she is now a GENIE: a member of the General Employee Network of Immortal Engineers, an underground workforce run by the Trio Trust. Genies may only leave their bottles to grant the wishes of mortals.

With each granted wish, The Trio Trust gains more magic, and so the Trio hosts a glamorous wish-granting competition, rewarding top players with fabulous prizes. The twist?

The greedy Trio forbids genies from using magic. Genies must grant wishes using nothing but smarts, luck, and elbow grease.

To free her sister Mango and escape the Genie Game, Valentine must score more wish-granting points than any other Genie. But how did the Trio Trust get so powerful in the first place? Why is a magical monster stomping through her home city of Gloss Angeles?

And why does the Trio Trust seem so afraid of 13-year-old Valentine Adesanya?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Six very different kids’ stories collide at an unforgettable last day pool party in this hilarious and relatable story about friendship, popularity and the messiness of growing up.

When her name gets skipped at the eighth-grade graduation ceremony, Rose decides she is done being invisible. She’s determined to finally stand out and make her unfulfilled middle school dreams come true at the upcoming pool party. But she’s not the only one who wants to make a splash…BFFs Liv and Juhi are on the verge of a friend break-up when Juhi reveals her family is moving, and Liv uses the party as a chance to scout for a new bestie.

Queen bee Maya was forced by her mom to come to unpopular Dustin’s party to be “nice”. And meanwhile, her not-so-social cousin Paul is just trying to avoid all the pool party pandemonium.

By the time the sun sets, unexpected twists and ridiculous mishaps will make this the weirdest, wildest last day of school ever. Get ready, because this party is about to go off the deep end.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Before she moved from Austin to Rhode Island, everybody knew Lacey as one half of an inseparable duo: Lacey-and-Grace, best friends since they were toddlers. Grace and her moms were practically family. But at school, being lumped together with overeager, worm-obsessed, crushes-on-everyone Grace meant Lacey never quite fit in—and that’s why at her new middle school, Lacey plans to reinvent herself. This time, she’s going to be cool. She’s going to be normal.

At first, everything seems to go as planned. Lacey makes new friends right away, she finds a rabbi to help her prepare for the bat mitzvah that got deprioritized by her parents in the chaos of the move, and she even gets cast in the lead role of the eighth-grade musical. Which is when things start to get stressful, because it turns out the students at her new school have a long-standing, unofficial tradition: No matter what the show is, in the final performance, the leads always kiss for real.

Lacey’s never kissed anyone before—she’s not even sure she’s ever had a crush. And in Bye, Bye, Birdie, there are a few different co-lead kiss possibilities for Lacey to choose from. There’s confident, cocky Andre. There’s sweet, friendly Jaden. And then there’s the other new girl at school: dryly funny, impossibly cool Violet.

But while her new friends and older sister create whiteboard wall charts and botched field trip schemes to help her decide, suddenly Lacey can’t stop thinking about Grace, who she was so sure she wanted to leave behind. When Grace comes back into her life, Lacey needs to decide if she’s brave enough to be who she really is, in front of the person who matters most.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Genya—the nickname of the book’s author and story’s protagonist, Yevgenia—knows from age five that she wants to be an artist. When she turns eleven, she’ll apply to the same prestigious art school that her mother attended. But making the cut won’t be easy, especially with the school’s open-secret rule that no more than 1% of the student body can be Jewish.

The years before Genya’s eleventh birthday bring plenty to distract her. Nothing in Soviet Ukraine is quite as it seems; adults mock the government, but only in private; and her classmates are terrified of American bomb strikes. And that’s all before April 26, 1986, when Genya’s police officer neighbor gets called to an emergency in a town she’s never heard of: Chernobyl.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

In the town of Barnacle Bay, a creature lurks. He’s come from the ocean, in search of others like him.

To fit in with humans, Sashimi sneaks into an elementary school and pretends to be a student. But he’s clearly a fish out of water!

When Sashimi finds out the whole town is on the hunt for the Beast of Barnacle Bay―a creature who sounds a lot like Sashimi―hijinks ensue! Fortunately, with the help of a new friend and the class goldfish, Sashimi figures out a way to stay afloat.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

12-year-old Leo gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the very first Moon colony. He’s excited to be part of the top-secret mission, but things quickly go off the rails. Right after his family lands on the Moon, Leo’s dad is called off on an urgent mission from which he never returns. The authorities claim the mission never existed, and Leo’s dad is accused of desertion.

Leo goes looking for his dad and discovers far more than he bargained for. Everyone in the colony insists there’s NO life on the Moon. But Leo’s explorations reveal a landscape brimming with extraordinary creatures—with baffling behaviors and beliefs.

Leo’s big question is: why keep Moon life a secret? Who stands to gain? And how can he find a way to save his new Moon friends before the lie becomes a reality?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Since the death of her younger brother, eleven-year-old Bones has spent most of her time drawing animal skeletons and foraging for dead things to add to her collection. She’s drifted away from her friends and doesn’t want to make new ones—not even with the sociable non-binary kid, Tenny, who’s moved in next door.

One night, under the light and magic of the full moon, Bones inadvertently brings a baby bird skeleton back to life. The creature doesn’t like its new state of being, so Bones must work out how to reverse her accidental curse.

But over time, Bones grows attached to her skeleton friend and has to decide whether she can let the baby bird go even though she doesn’t want to say goodbye.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Sent home from school earlier in the day with a fever, George awakens in the middle of the night to discover a cricket beckoning him on an adventure and soon finds himself shrunken down in size. He follows the insect guide through a crack in his bedroom wall, through the moonlit yard, and into the home of a family of mice at the base of an oak tree.

There, in a tiny, cozy kitchen, George discovers the meaning of his quest: he must help the Mama mouse complete her special 102-bean soup for her sick young son.

Delightfully sweet as it is fantastic, 102 seamlessly explores the values of curiosity, kindness, and generosity. The simple yet profound conclusion shares a clever wink with readers, encouraging them to believe the unbelievable.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

When Truman Toad―the most stubborn, perfectionist toad in Green Grove―wakes up one morning from a dream about the perfect hug, he knows exactly what he must do: find whoever is holding the other half.

With a charmingly witty text by author Oren Lavie and playful illustrations by beloved artist Anke Kuhl, Truman Toad and the Quest for the Perfect Hug is a delightful tale that reminds us that the best things in life will always take us by surprise!