Dear Kid Lit Friends,
Hello from early November, where the leaves across New York City are changing colors and drifting to the ground. I love the sound of autumn, and I love sitting on the couch under a blanket reading a good book. Is there any better feeling?
Bookish Goods
Bookish Stickers by WildOakStickers
I love the collection of bookish stickers available at WildOakStickers’s Etsy page! There are discounts when you buy in bulk, just saying…$3 each.
New Releases
Sisterhood of Sleuths by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman (middle grade)
This new mystery by the Book Scavenger series author is filled with Nancy Drew lore and mystery. When Maizy discovers a box of old Nancy Drew books at her mom’s consignment shop, it leads to lots of questions and the search for the book’s owner. Can Maizy uncover the truth?
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky: The Graphic Novel by Kwame Mbalia, adapted by Robert Venditti, illustrated by Olivia Stephens
In this beautifully rendered graphic novel, the story of Tristan Strong is brought to life in vivid colors. When Tristan is sent to his grandparents’ farm in Alabama to recover from a tragedy, he finds himself in a tug-of-war with an unworldly creature and punches the Bottle Tree which subsequently creates a chasm in the sky and releases all sorts of trouble. Can Tristan find someone who can help him mend the sky and save the world?
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
There have been some really informative new books about Japanese internment during World War II that have come across my desk lately, and I thought I would share them with you!
Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, illustrated by Yas Imamura (picture book)
I adore this picture book about two people who fall in love in the most unlikely of places: Minidoka, a War Relocation Center in the desert. There, Tama works in the camp’s tiny library, and each day George is waiting at the door when the library opens ready to return his book haul and select new stories to check out. Tama has never met such a bookworm! Or is George visiting the library so frequently for a different reason?
Fish for Jimmy by Katie Yamasaki (picture book)
When his younger brother Jimmy stops eating once their family is moved to an internment camp, Taro spends his nights making the risky trip out of the camp to catch fish for Jimmy in hopes that he can tempt his brother to eat.
Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration by Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki (middle grade nonfiction)
This thoroughly researched nonfiction book illuminates an underrepresented topic in American history. During the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, three photographers set out to document life in Manzanar, an internment camp in the California desert. Through their eyes, we see a variety of images that capture what life was like inside the camps.
Peace is a Chain Reaction by Tanya Lee Stone (middle grade nonfiction)
In this heavily researched book, award-winning author Tanya Lee Stone tells the story of two groups of teenagers on opposite sides of the world connected by war who grow up into adults who pursue peace and forgiveness.
What are you reading these days?
Let me know! Find me on Twitter at @KarinaYanGlaser, on Instagram at @KarinaIsReadingAndWriting, or email me at KarinaBookRiot@gmail.com.
Until next time,
Karina
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