New Children’s Books for February 1, 2022

In this joyful picture book inspired by the Cedella Marley’s childhood with her father, musician Bob Marley, Marley and her family leave Jamaica for Delaware. To celebrate the move Marley plans an outdoor concert that’s unfortunately ruined by bad weather, until their new neighbors step in to help.

From the author of Amal Unbound comes a companion novel about the titular Omar, a scholarship student at a boarding school. Though Omar’s looking forward to his new school, he’s quickly disappointed, and then furious, when he learns that not only are first year scholarship students not allowed to take part in extracurriculars, but they have to get much higher grades than students paying tuition. So Omar sets out with a new group of friends to change the system entirely.

In this middle grade novel set against the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, kids in the same apartment building struggle with adjusting to their new lives at home. But as time goes on, the kids realize that there’s power in community, and they can help each other through difficult times. As protests erupt across the country, they begin to consider what they can do to make the world safer for everybody in it.

In this historical fiction novel, siblings Homer and Ada escape the plantation where they have been enslaved and discover Freewater, a secret community of formerly enslaved and freeborn people. When Homer learns of a threat to Freewater, he resolves to save his mother, reluctantly left behind, and his new home.

For fans of Ramona Quimby, this new novel is about Harriet Wermer. who is unhappily sent to her grandma’s B&B for the summer. But Harriet is surprised to find Marble Island isn’t as boring as she thought, not with a mystery about her dad’s own childhood on the island that she’s determined to solve.