Author: Karina Glaser

This beautifully poetic book is wonderfully illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell and was recognized by the United Nations! With spare text and vivid art, we are called to come together to protect our resources.

Winner of the Caldecott Medal, this stunning picture book is timely and powerful. Calling upon all of us to protect one of our most valuable resources: water. This book is an urgent rallying cry to stand as one against corruption and the greed that pollutes our waterways.

I really enjoy this series of books that Groundwood publishes, all centered around young environmental and human rights activists. This one is Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s 1992 Earth Summit speech, which called on world leaders to make their actions reflect their words and to protect the Earth for generations to come.

In this great new series, Little People, Big Dreams, we learn about Greta Thunberg and her incredible work in Sweden and around the world to bring awareness to the climate crisis. From her daily sit-ins outside the Swedish Parliament to speaking out all around the world, Greta shows that young people have a lot to say about the world they are inheriting.

In this lyrical and beautifully illustrated picture book, we see children and adults enjoying a swim in many places across the world. All of the various perspectives of people swimming is quite lovely, from beaches to swimming pools to canals and oceans.

One of my favorite picture books, Jabari Jumps is centered around that pivotal childhood milestone: jumping off of the diving board. I adore the illustrations and the wonderfully encouraging father in this book.

This was one of my favorite books of 2019! Swim Team is a graphic novel about a young girl who moves with her dad to Florida and joins a school where one of their required classes is swimming. Afraid of the water, Bree avoids class until she gets help from a neighbor to find confidence in the water and in life.

When Obie transitioned, he expected to get some hate. But he didn’t expect that one of his best friends from swim team would react so strongly, intent on bullying and hurting Obie. And while Obie had to leave his old swim team, he feels supported by his new team and his coach. But his old coach’s hurtful and demeaning words ring in his head at each practice. Can Obie find the courage to face his fears and believe in himself?

Inspired by the author’s own experience as a parachute kid, Tang weaves a fascinating graphic novel about a family that moves to America from Taiwan. But what her parents don’t tell her is that they are returning to Taiwan…and the three kids are going to stay in California on their own. Can the kids keep it together and make a life for themselves all on their own?

In this futuristic graphic novel, Grace is thrilled to escape her boring, plant-obsessed mother to visit her fun mom, Kendra, who lives on a faraway moon. But Kendra is so busy with work that Grace is left on her own, which means that Grace has to figure out the fun things to do on her own, whether Kendra likes it or not!

In the companion to the Newbery Award-winning book New Kid, Jerry Craft puts together another fantastic graphic novel featuring Jordan, Drew, Liam, Maury, and their friends from Riverdale Academy Day School. They are heading to Paris, excited to experience a new city and culture. But when their guides are replaced at the last minute, their trip takes on a hilarious turn.

This is another fantastic middle grade fantasy, brought to you by Eisner winner K. O’Neill. In this story, Anya is so excited to finally be a Moth Keeper, an important position that is integral to keeping her village alive. The lunar moths are necessary for making the Night-Lily flower, something the village needs. The illustrations are stunning and the story is powerful.

In this unique book that combines science, poetry, and art, readers will be gifted with fascinating information about trees — from their genesis as tiny seeds to their growth over decades to be giants.

In this beautiful book filled with vibrant paintings, a young girl lives among the baobab trees and takes care of them, just like her dad and grandma did before her. She enjoys watching the birds that shelter in the tree branches and stretches her arms high to imitate the trees. This is a joyful book about land stewardship!

This book cover makes me smile! In this story, a daisy is told by a rose that she’s just a weed. The rose tells the daisy that she is always in the way and not stunning like the other flowers around her. But Daisy learns that her part in the garden is so much more and finds her own purpose and beauty in the world.

When a young girl visits her family in the city, she finds that a handful of seeds can transform a dirt patch in the middle of a dense housing area into a beautiful and nourishing garden for everyone to enjoy! This book is inspired by the author’s own experience as a child.

Acclaimed author/illustrator Jason Chin astounds again in his space-themed nonfiction book. He examines perspective, astronomy, and astrophysics…not a small feat for a picture book and yet he does so with such skill and beauty. This book won the Cook Prize!

This fun, interactive book challenges kids to take rare space objects from around the world and place them in the appropriate exhibition areas of a space museum.

I love this story that brings to light the amazing work that Black female mathematicians contributed to United States space history. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden all played pivotal roles in helping NASA achieve its goals, and they did it all while overcoming gender and racial barriers.

Isn’t this cover so beautiful? I love all of Jasmine’s books, but this one is incredibly special. When a Mars rover is launched into space, the rover knows he has a job to do. But when he starts developing human emotions, he wonders if he will be good enough to complete the mission. He knows so many people are counting on him, and Mars is much more difficult to navigate than he originally thought.

This sweet (see what I did there?) picture book by Christina Tosi, the creator of the bakery Milk Bar, is about Sammi, a young girl who lives in Samesville and is tired of everything being so boring and dull in her town. When she goes to bed with a recipe card under her pillow, she wakes up to a town that is bolder and brighter and more colorful! And it’s a perfect place to bake a bold and bright and colorful cake with her friends!

Zoe Washington really wants to prove to her parents that she is a good enough baker to audition for Food Network’s Kids Bake Challenge. But when a letter arrives on her twelfth birthday from her father, her life is upended. Her dad has been in prison, and in his letter he says he’s been falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Can Zoe believe him? And if what he’s saying is true, is there anything she can do to help? Be sure to check out the sequel, On Air with Zoe Washington!

This charming picture book by the award-winning couple Anika Denise and Christopher Denise is about a group of young bears who spend the day baking with their grandmother. The illustrations are so sweet and capture that warmth and love that is unique to a grandmother’s kitchen!

These illustrations just make me smile! LouAnn is getting ready for winter, and she is making one final batch of doughnuts. Friends, lured to her home by the smell of fresh doughnuts, partake in the festivities. LouAnn makes more and more doughnuts until she realizes that her cupboard is totally empty…and winter is coming!

This wonderfully informative book talks about what goes on with your body’s waste — how you produce it and what happens when it leaves your body. The book also discusses the impact of human waste as well as surprising uses of urine throughout history. This is a great book for kids who are always asking the big questions that no adult can ever answer.

When plastic bags became ubiquitous in Gambia, so did the amount of trash. Suddenly, plastic bags were everywhere, polluting streets and schools and farm land. Isatou Ceesay saw this happening in her neighborhood and decided to do something about all the garbage, and in turn made a powerful impact on her community.

I know that I have a lot of questions about where all of our garbage goes, and Rebecca Donnelly does an excellent job answering all of those niggling thoughts you might have about trash, waste, and what happens after the garbage truck picks it up. Donnelly tells us just how bad our garbage problem is, and what we can do to prevent so much waste from polluting our environment.

In Cateura, Paraguay, a community lives next to an enormous landfill and most jobs involve digging through the trash to find items to recycle. Music teacher Favio Chavez wanted to bring more music to the young people in the community, but he didn’t have instruments. He wondered whether he could build instruments out of recycled materials, and he could! I saw a documentary about this community many years ago and met some of the young musicians who were a part of this “recycled orchestra” — it was a beautiful experience.

The words in this picture book were originally written as lyrics to a song composed for the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth and performed with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Now paired with gorgeous illustrations by Monica Mikai, this book tells the story of a family, forcibly enslaved, who helped build homes and cultivate the lands for families that were not their own. But the family is resolved to build their own lives, their own homes, and claim their song.

Three young girls wait every night for their father to return from work and tell them a story about his homeland of Palestine. Sometimes he tells a story about his trips to the market with his family, and sometimes he tells a story about how he helped cut vegetables at the family cafe. Even though the girls know they might only know Palestine through their father’s stories, they hold his tales close to their heart.

A young girl lives in a city, and her mom has a job where she has to work late and travel. Thankfully, the young girl has places to go where she is showered with love and warmth — a different house and a different “Big Mama” for every day of the week.

This powerful picture book is about two best friends who are so close they call themselves twins. But Bianca’s family hangs a Confederate flag outside her house, and neither family lets their daughter visit each other’s homes. When their class makes a field trip to the Southern Heritage Museum, Keira learns more about the meaning behind the Confederate flag. Can Keira and Bianca’s friendship survive as long as Bianca’s family flies that flag in front of their home?

The American flag represents so much to so many people, but it can also cause more complicated feelings among those who don’t experience the freedom and equality that the flag represents. Told through the perspective of a young Black boy talking with his grandfather, this story validates the right of every American to make a choice about how to relate to America and to the flag.

Not only is this a wonderful book, but it is also the 2023 Newbery Award winner! When two enslaved children escape Southerland Plantation, they find a secret community called Freewater, a society created by formerly enslaved people and some freeborn children. The community is welcoming and warm, and Homer finds a true home for the first time in his life, until Freewater is threatened and Homer needs to keep his home safe.

Adapted from the bestselling book by Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be A (Young) Antiracist is specifically written for teens and is centered around the topics and concerns that pertain to young adults. With bestselling author Nic Stone, Kendi empowers this new generation to think critically about race and racism.

Joseph Bologne was the son of an enslaved woman, and from a young age he showed musical prowess and eventually became a champion swordsman, violin virtuoso, composer, and military commander in the French Revolution.

A beautiful story about legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma who used his gift of music to build bridges between two countries separated by a border. Yo-Yo Ma is one of the most celebrated classical musicians of our time, having won 19 Grammy Awards, performed for eight American presidents, and received the National Medal of the Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This wonderful middle grade includes a musically gifted bird, a piano-playing boy, and a real-life mystery involving three artistic geniuses. Mirabelle, a music-loving goldfinch, and Michael, a young boy who is gifted at piano, work together to make music. Along the way, they make an important discovery that links the great composer Frederic Chopin, the trailblazing author George Sand, and the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix.