New Release Spotlight: June 23, 2026

Happy Tuesday, everyone! This week’s Spotlight is only YA and picture books – I wasn’t super-impressed with the middle grade titles this week, and many did not meet my Spotlight criteria anyway.

This week’s New Release Spotlight features titles #5285–#5292 from The Ginormous Booklist.

You can explore all June spotlight titles (so far) on my Amazon Idea List here.

A quick reminder: Next week’s Spotlight will be the final one for a little while, as I’m taking a break from the series in July. I’ll also be sharing the Canva links for the June Spotlight next week via email—subscribe here so you don’t miss them.

This week’s top picks:

• Together We See by Ari Tison (YA mystery) – Great for fans of The Firekeeper’s Daughter!

• The Deepest Blue by Shauntay Grant (picture book) – A young Black girl dives in the ocean and finds a sunken slave ship. This gorgeous picture book reads vertically!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

When Margaret sees Mars for the first time, it doesn’t feel like love at first sight so much as future at first sight—she just knows right away that he will loom large in her life.

When her job delivering pizzas brings Margaret right to Mars’s doorstep, she can’t deny their connection, even as the anxious voice in her head warns her about everything that could go wrong. Soon they’re giving in to fate as their romance deepens over stargazing and moments under the endless night sky, where Mars shares his passionate interest in the Voyager’s Golden Record—a time capsule of humanity preserved indefinitely in space. Together, they are absorbed by the unknowable questions we all face: How will we be remembered? What will we leave behind? And can anything truly be infinite?

But even for someone who can’t help but anticipate the worst, when the worst actually happens, Margaret is shattered. How can she move forward from tragedy when it feels like the world has stopped spinning? Somehow, she has to let go of the gravity of grief pulling her down and find her way back to the stars. But only if she can let the whole of the universe in—all the beauty and all the pain.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Told in multiple points of view, Together We See follows Ulá Dominguez, a Bribri-American teenager, searching for the truth behind her land-activist father’s mysterious death on their Native territory in Costa Rica. Ulá and her brother, Kabék, uncover secrets and corruption as they face off against illegal loggers, kidnappers, settlers, and the local government in the hunt for clues.

Their only allies are a few family friends and relatives still living in Bribri, as well as a young journalist, who may be in danger himself. But as details of their father’s death emerge, long-held trust is broken. And in this sinister web of deception, no one is safe.

Inspired by real-world missing, dead, and attacked Indigenous activists, award-winning author Ari Tison writes her first novel in prose and pushes the envelope yet again by pulling together a propulsive story full of grief, environmental justice, and the fight for retribution.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Maris Larsen is the captain of the West Eaton High cheer team. She’s Coach’s favorite and the team worships her. Being on the team makes her feel special—powerful. When she’s leading the girls on the mat, Maris doesn’t have to think about her dead-end life in a dead-end town.

She can forget about her depressed mother and absent father and the fact that her girlfriend doesn’t really love her. But when newcomer and Coach’s new golden girl, Genevieve Ray, joins the team, the only thing going right in Maris’s life is suddenly in jeopardy. A bitter rivalry develops between the two, but Maris is determined to take Genevieve down. The knife she needs to wield comes to Maris in her dreams.

While sleepwalking, Maris is visited by a monstrous, decaying beast in the shape of an enormous deer. Doe is an ancient, tired creature who has been wandering, trapped in her current form for decades. She cannot die, but she cannot go on living as she has. Only a girl related by blood to those who bound her in this form can free her, but those girls she loved died years ago—murdered in a fire.

But Maris is somehow linked to Doe’s beloved girls—linked by blood—and so she has the power to free Doe, to unleash her immense power. In Maris’s dreams, she and Doe form a bond, but Maris doesn’t know the creature from her dreams is real. Maris doesn’t understand the danger she’s in. She only knows Doe has promised her a way to win her battle with Genevieve. But for Maris to win, someone has to die, and the only real winner in the end will be Doe.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Tia doesn’t know how much more she can take. Her middle sister Mel is in a coma after a mental health crisis, a global pandemic has stolen her senior year, and racial tension is high across the country, following the murder of another unarmed Black man by a police officer. Her best friend, Drew, seems to think the answer is speaking up and out. But Tia? She’s just trying not to fall apart.

So when her oldest sister, the usually calm and collected Alexis, invites Tia to stay at her place, Tia jumps at the chance to escape her house and her despair, if only for a little while. Surrounded by a new city, a new romance with a cute girl, and a new pandemic puppy, Tia starts to feel a glimmer of light in the darkness. But the darkness lingers. Will Mel finally wake up? Is Alexis as steady as she seems? Will Drew forgive Tia for stepping back, instead of stepping up? Is love, in all its forms, enough to sustain her, or will illness and injustice define her life?

Stifled by unrest and uncertainty at every turn, Tia will have to figure out how to keep from losing her mind and losing hope.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Owen loves his garden, especially his trees. He loves taking care of them— naming them, watering them, and even singing songs to them. So, when his parents tell him the family is moving, he is devastated. He just can’t imagine leaving all his friends and his beloved garden behind. And if he becomes a tree, no one can make him move away. 

Luckily, some creative thinking by his big sister, Wendy, and a loving circle of friends come to the rescue in this uniquely imaginative and beautifully illustrated tale about change and the comfort nature can provide for us.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

A past

that’s passed from me

to you:

the dearest,

darkest,

deepest blue.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

We are joy—showing off our moves and tick-tocking to the drumbeats
of our created culture—the culture that moves the world.

We are joy—full surrounded by laughter, and light
and love, and love, and love.

Shining with lyrical prose and gorgeously vibrant art, this delightful picture book read-together is an inspiring celebration of the beauty and strength of Black culture, Black community, and Black family. It’s an empowering affirmation that joy—especially black joy, is all around us—in the people we love, in our commmunities, and in our hearts.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Did you know that chickens are descendants of dinosaurs? A soon-to-be mother hen just found out, and now she is reexamining her entire life.

She used to be a dinosaur, a prehistoric queen with a mighty roar! Now she spends her days on a farm, waiting for her eggs to hatch. It’s downright fowl! At least, it is until she decides to summon her own inner dinosaur.