Category: The Kids Are All Right

In the city of Lagos in the country of Nigeria, Too Small Tola and her two siblings and Grandmummy live together and have lots of adventures. In this set of three stories, Tola is given a great gift from her grandmother and finds joy in helping her family every day.

In a follow up to Mangoes, Mischief, and Tales of Friendship, these stories based on Indian folklore follow Prince Veera and his best friend Suku as they encounter secrets, tricksters and riddles. This is a fun book to read aloud or for newly independent readers! (The illustrations are so fun!)

This book is right up my alley because it’s about kids who want PETS! Rica really wants a pet— anything will do, she’s not picky!— but her parents are strongly opposed. Can Rica convince her parents that she has everything it takes to care for an animal?

This is the third book in the Ryan Hart series, and I just love Ryan Hart and her imaginative mind and her positive attitude! In this book, Ryan finds herself in the middle with her family and her friends. She tries to make everyone happy, which strangely enough makes no one happy! Can Ryan find ways to share joy even when nothing seems to be going right?

In this adorable picture book, Leila, who is usually perfect at all witchy pursuits, struggles to bake the most perfect cake for the Magnificent Witchy Cake-off. Baking is hard, even with the help of her froggy companion! Thankfully, with the help of three supportive sisters, she finally figures out the trick to baking. Does she win the contest? Nope. But winning isn’t everything.

This super fun read-aloud has Spanish words scattered throughout the rhythmic prose. Told in the second person, this picture book gives advice about what to do if you realize your babysitter is a bruja. The colorful illustrations depict a little girl in just such a predicament. But in the end, it turns out that a bruja babysitter is an absolute blast.

Ah, this nostalgic, bittersweet picture book made me cry. It’s about a little girl named Hilda who helps the witch Hazel around the house. Witch Hazel tells stories from her past as she sweeps dust away, and the dust magically recreates her memories. When Witch Hazel dies, Hilda despairs, until a little sweep of dust recreates a memory of Hilda and Hazel together, and she knows Witch Hazel will never be truly gone as long as she remembers her. *wipes away tears*

In this hilarious picture book, a witch on a cooking show attempts to demonstrate how to make frog soup to her viewers. However, these frogs aren’t about to congenially allow themselves to be spooned into a soup. No thanks. They take off every which way, and this cooking show witch is left to scramble after them. This picture book gets big belly laughs from my little witch.

No one does novels-in-verse like Nikki Grimes! In this beautiful book set in middle school, 12-year-old Joylin Johnson finds her world in disarray. Her friends are suddenly flirting with each other, basketball isn’t the same, and a new kid arrives that gives Joy all sorts of feelings. Will Joy survive middle school?

In the third book in The Kids Under the Stairs series, Jordan J *might* have made enemies of the entire school dance team due to his honest reviews of their dances in the school paper. But with his goal of making it onto his favorite dance show, he needs help and appeals to the only dance team member who is still talking to him. Can Jordan make his dream come true?

Newbery Honoree Rajani LaRocca pens a beautiful novel-in-verse about Reha, the only Indian American student at her school. Reha is torn between her family, with their traditions and high expectations of her, and school, where she feels different and unable to share who she really is. But when her mom gets really sick, she knows she needs to do everything in her power to help her mom get better.

Anna leaves her home in Taiwan for the “beautiful country,” the Chinese word for America. But moving to a new place is so much harder than she ever dreamed, especially when her parents struggle with making enough money and Anna struggles with the language and encounters bullies at school. This is an honest book about the challenges of being an immigrant in America.

In this compelling story by Aida Salazar, a young girl named Lula Viramontes is a farm worker alongside her family in California in 1965. Her dreams include joining a Mexican traveling circus, but such dreams seem far away when she spends her days in dangerous working conditions. When she meets labor rights activists, she realizes that she might have bigger dreams than she ever realized.

This heartwarming picture book is about how a home rented by Cuban refugees becomes a safe place in the community for other immigrant families to find refuge in. Esperanza at first thinks their new rental is small, but soon she sees how large it can become with her family’s generosity in sharing it with other immigrant families like them, who come to the U.S. with nothing. It’s based on the author’s childhood experience.

Based on a true story, this picture book takes place on the Mexico-U.S. border. When Noemi and her mama arrive at the border, they’re told they need to add their names to a ledger, which keeps track of those wanting to cross. The Notebook Keeper is another refugee in charge of the ledger, and Noemi is impressed by her kindness. When the Notebook Keeper calls her own name from the list, she gives the ledger to Noemi and her mother to keep up with. This book includes backmatter that describes this process in more detail.

In this lyrical, contemporary retelling of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty, a young Puerto Rican girl, is raised to be proud of her lineage as a Boricua of Taíno and African descent. However, when she gets older, she picks up on how the media and other racist people she encounters view people like her as less. She loses her sense of identity and self-love. But with the help of her family and community’s love, she “wakes up” to the injustice and begins to love herself and her people once more. This is such an empowering retelling.

I am a sucker for a good intergenerational picture book, and this one is stunning. Julia’s grandmother lives just outside Mexico City in a beautiful cottage. During the last few months of her mother’s pregnancy, Julia stays with her grandmother for the first time without her parents. Somehow Grandma senses whenever Julia is homesick and knows just what to do to help her feel better. This picture book is beautifully illustrated and includes poems by Tania de Regil’s great-grandfather, handwritten by her grandmother.

In the third book in her Merci Suarez series, Newbery award-winning author Meg Medina continues the Suarez family story as Merci heads into eighth grade. There are changes at school and at home — can Merci handle the shifting tides?

As you know, I love a good animal story. Here, Clementine is a certified mouse genius. She lives in a lab where scientists perform tests on her. Clementine’s only social interaction are with a chimpanzee named Rosie. But when Clementine is freed, she discovers a whole new world outside her cage.

Renee Watson’s Ryan Hart series is so lovely, and I’m excited that the third book is coming out on September 27! In this book, Ryan is being pulled in different directions — by her family and by her friends. Can Ryan continue to find joy and share it with those she meets?

First of all, isn’t this cover fabulous? This is the story about wonderful Lotus Bloom, a seventh grader, a violinist, and a new student at a school for the arts where she has the opportunity to play the violin under a famous maestro. But the new school isn’t all she’s dreamed it to be, especially when boys throw paper planes and spit balls into her hair, and Lotus gets in trouble for a dress code violation. Can Lotus find the words to speak up for herself without endangering all that she’s worked for?

One last note! The next book in the Vanderbeeker series, The Vanderbeekers on the Road, is on sale this Tuesday! In this installment, the Vanderbeekers squeeze into a van and head across the country to California. What could go wrong?

In this adorable picture book, mermaid Cadence longs for a kitten friend after watching kittens play by the shore. However, playing with a kitten is a bit difficult in the water. Can she find a furry friend to snuggle and play with? A nearby watching otter might be the perfect match for Cadence. This is an excellent read-aloud, and the colorful illustrations are lovely.

Heba, who is Pakistani American, is so excited to swim like a mermaid in the pool wearing her brand new yellow burkini, which matches her mama’s. However, when she arrives at the pool, the other kids don’t think she’ll be able to swim in her burkini. At first, she feels self-conscious, but Mama reminds her of all the mermaid girls before her, and Heba finds the confidence to enter the pool and show the other kids her swimming skills.

This cute early reader features three stories about mermaid Vera and her friend Octo-kid Beaker. With bright, colorful illustrations and funny and adventurous stories with simple, easy-to-follow prose, this new series is perfect for burgeoning readers. There are currently two books in the series, this one and Mermaid Days: The Sea Monster, with a third to release early next year, Mermaid Days: A New Friend.

This gorgeously illustrated guide to mermaids for kids ages 7+ follows a fictional, 19th-century explorer as she poses as a man and boards the HMS Challenger, which was a real ship. She takes detailed notes in her notebook as the ship encounters mermaids, including their history and lore. This is the latest book in the Folklore Field Guides series and all of them are so fascinating and accompanied by beautiful illustrations.

This graphic novel is filled with gorgeous artwork depicting two border towns: one on the Mexico border and one on the United States border (like with My Town/Mi Pueblo!). Twins Luis Fernando and Luisa Teresa find themselves going to different schools for the first time in the lives. Their schools aren’t even in the same country! Luisa Teresa crosses the border everyday to go to a new private school while Luis Fernando stays in Mexicali and ends up befriending a boy he’s not so sure about. Can these twins make it through the school year even as they grow apart?

Five kids are grouped together for their school’s community service project, and the only thing they have in common is that they speak Spanish. When a new kid arrives and needs their help, will they work together to do the right thing?

Victoria has loved horses her whole life, but the competitive spirit in the stables she trains with has gotten to be too much for her. After a massive fight with her best friend, Victoria decides it’s time for a new start… and a new stable.

Sue wants a normal summer. She wants to go to camp and make comics with her friends. But when she has to go to Honduras instead — to a place with no internet! — and her mom says they are throwing her a quinceañera, Sue is certain that this is the worst summer ever.

As Cory enters his final year of middle school, his group of friends are ready to do whatever it takes to win the biggest dance competition. But then Cory’s grades fall and he needs a tutor, he’s upset to learn it’ll be Sunna, one of his classmates. They don’t like each other one bit!

This little girl protagonist has two great families: her mom and her daddy and his partner Harry. She also has the perfect schedule worked out to split the time between the two, but when her mom picks her up from school on Tuesday — Daddy’s day — she feels thrown off. Things just aren’t right! However, her dads and mom have a surprise that will make everything better. This is a super fun, LGBTQ+ inclusive picture book.

While the other three books on this list present happy divorced families, this picture book deals with the initial sadness of finding out your parents are divorcing. Thursday is the protagonist’s favorite day of the week, but when her parents tell her they’re divorcing on a Thursday, it ruins the day for her. At first she feels stuck in sadness and frustration, but nature and the comfort of a unicorn lovey she found next to the trash help her to awaken to the world again slowly. This is a sensitively written, sad yet hopeful picture book about divorce.

My daughter and I have been slowly making our way through The Critter Club early chapter books, and while this book isn’t new, it’s new to us. Amy’s parents are divorced, and her Dad is remarrying a woman who has a child Amy’s age, Chloe. Amy is so excited to meet Chloe, but they immediately clash. To Amy, it feels like Chloe is being intentionally mean to her. Over the weekend, both girls are constantly at odds, until a wayward Dalmation helps them connect, and Amy realizes she and Chloe were just having one big misunderstanding.

This new early chapter book series is adorable. When Anne the librarian was a child, she had a beloved doll, Ivy. When she finds Ivy in a box, she adds her to her library’s book buddy collection. Kids can check out a book buddy for two weeks and write their own little book about their adventures. Ivy is adopted by a girl who is staying with her dad for the weekend. She rarely gets to visit her dad, and she’s resentful of her younger step-siblings who are always there, and who monopolize her time. She loves staying with her mom, but she misses her dad too. She tells all this to Ivy, who calmly listens. Maybe Ivy and the other book buddy companions can help! Told from Ivy’s perspective, this is a delightful and imaginative book for early readers.

This book received a Caldecott Honor, and for good reason! The illustrations hold so much meaning and carry the story from start to finish. Readers will be cheering for a happy ending.

The gorgeous illustrations in this book remind me of a Pixar film. A young girl slowly develops a friendship with a stray dog and cannot stop thinking about him. Then one stormy night, both of their lives change forever.

Eight-year-old Kaita Taken and her family love fostering animals, but when they pick up Truman, they don’t know what they’re getting into! Even though Truman is an older rescue dog, he’s full of mischief. Can Kaita help Truman and find him a forever home?

This is one of my favorite middle grade books! (Spoiler alert: keep tissues handy.) When former foster kid Ben Coffin finds a stray dog outside the Coney Island Library, it leads him to befriend Halley. As the trio become fast friends, they support each other through tough trials and heartbreak.

This interactive board book is a lot of fun for toddlers. With bandaid flaps, a pop-up ice pack, and even a baby that can be taken out and cared for, this is such a good way for very young children to explore injuries and how to take care of them. It’s one of our most-read board books.

This picture book biography is a fascinating glimpse into the life of Tu Youyou, who became the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize after discovering a cure for malaria based on traditional Chinese medicine. After a childhood bout with tuberculosis, Tu Youyou became interested in viruses and how they worked. This eventually led her to studying medicine in college and to leading her own research team. This is an excellent addition to STEM and women in science collections.

We’ve been reading this picture book a lot lately. From the five types of germs to how the immune system works, this book explains germs using simple, child-friendly language and silly illustrations. It’s an excellent introductory text to the topic that’s also a blast to read.

This follow-up to The Secret Life of Boo-Boos is a more thorough introduction to viruses. It includes information about how viruses reproduce, the immune system, wearing masks, vaccines, and more. While more in-depth in its approach, it’s still child-friendly with cute illustrations, and would be a valuable addition to elementary school libraries.