Author: Chelsea Henley

In this funny, spooky picture book, a chicken crosses the road and wakes up as a ghost on the other side. Surrounded by new ghost animal friends, the poultrygeist learns how to be scary.

This graphic memoir follows author Alyssa Bermudez through her own seventh grade diary entries. As Alyssa copes with the usual middle school concerns, from friends to her divorced parents to being mistreated by kids at school, the novel accelerates toward 9/11, where Alyssa’s dad works in the World Trade Center.

In this creepy novel, Noelle learns her family’s new home houses the terrifying Smashed Man. Alongside her new friends, Noelle must figure out a way to defeat the Smashed Man for good.

In this middle grade thriller, Tia witnesses a murder outside her window, and the killer sees her. Though she’s determined to stay quiet and her friends and grandmother comfort her, the killer’s threats mean Tia can’t ignore it.

This book serves as an educational introduction to the Black Lives Matter movement. It retells how the organization’s founders came together as well as the stories of victims of police brutality such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and George Floyd, discussing systemic racism and the civil rights movement.

This sweet picture book follows Zahra, a helpful girl who begins to feel self-conscious about her generosity when her classmates tease her about it.

This picture book bursts with positivity and can-do optimism. It centers around Brayden Harrington, the young boy who came to realize his stutter is one of his greatest attributes, leading to speaking at the Democratic National Convention and at President Biden’s inauguration.

This picture book is a bright and energetic introduction to patterns. Nine kittens go on a boating adventure and stumble into a variety of surprises.

There’s something so satisfying about summer being when all the new kids’ horror and other spooky season works start hitting the shelves. This one is the third installment of Katherine Arden’s series that began with Small Spaces that finds Brian and his friends stranded on a haunted island.

This savvy mystery follows three friends, the Renegade Reporters, as they stumble upon a mystery about their school newsroom’s partnership with a media company infringing on student privacy.

This is a translation of a bestselling Korean picture book, set on the bustling Seoul subway, about the magic of shared experiences and humanity’s variances.

In this charming picture book, a little girl visits her grandfather in Cuba. A singing street vendor, she helps him sell his fruit, and even when they’re apart they sing to each other across the distance.

Newly heartbroken Jenna, already nursing the wounds of her parents’ divorce, decides relationships are too risky to pursue. While competing with her ex-boyfriend at newspaper club, and her best friend busy with her own boyfriend, Jenna falls in with new kid Rin and begins to realize that being alone is actually very lonely.

The second book in the adorable Eva Evergreen series is out, featuring another tale of now Novice Witch Eva. With her new title in hand, Eva must turn her sights to exposing the truth about the violent storm threatening the land.

For those horror lovers is this story collection that features a bunch of spine-tingling stories that include scary summer camps, creepy dolls, extended games of hide and seek, and more.

This versatile collection of stories is edited by Kwame Mbalia (author of the Tristan Strong series) and features stories, comics, and poems from other Black male and nonbinary authors that range from school stories to universe-saving tales.

At a coffee shop, a little girl imagines being aboard a train by making train noises, transforming the shop into a great train ride.

For the mythology lovers out there, this fantasy is out now in paperback. After Callie accidentally turns her best friend into a pop star, she learns she’s one of the muses from Greek mythology. As the newest muse of poetry she is tasked with protecting humanity. For her first assignment, Callie must not only inspire her classmate, Maya, but also save her from Sirens determined to destroy her destiny.

When Lucy discovers her parents’ old records, she’s catapulted into a summer of Beatlemania. Inspired, she starts a band with her friends, Vanessa and Rupa. They still need a drummer, and Georgianna could be perfect for it, but she doesn’t exactly click with Vanessa and Rupa. Check out this graphic novel to learn how Lucy’s efforts to form an all-girl rock band go.

In this second installment in the Super Sidekicks series, the sidekicks are settling in nicely to their new headquarters. But, the Mother of the Seas, sick of the oceans being treated so horribly by humans, is out for revenge.

Now out in paperback is this fun fantasy about Eva, a young witch determined to gain the rank of Novice Witch before she turns thirteen. Unfortunately for Eva, her magic amounts to little more than a pinch. The coastal town she arrives in expects a full-fledged witch, not a mildly magical girl, but Eva opens up a shop to prove her worthiness. When a storm threatens the town, Eva has to rally all the magic and smarts she can to save the town she loves.

This fun (and informative!) picture book follows a group of children on the hunt for a sea bunny, a one-inch long sea slug that crawls along the ocean floor.

It’s July so you know what that means? New Halloween books! I am a forever fan of Jessie Sima (if you haven’t already read Harriet Gets Carried Away, please do) and this marks their first Halloween book about a house only growing more and more anxious about its creepy appearance and the effect it has on any prospective inhabitants.

This picture book explores feelings through color, offering meditative exercises to help children work through big feelings.

As she prepares to start at a new school, Kalamata and her alligator Al Dente, turn to their magical kitchen for comfort, traveling to a far off land for ingredients.

Jillian’s always wanted to join her parents on a space mission, and she finally gets her chance with Take Your Child to Work Day. When they crash land on an alien planet, Jillian has to protect herself and her parents until they can make it back home.

Ramón and his family have recently moved, and with them has come Ramón’s boogeyman, El Cucuy. But with all the anxieties that come with a new place, new school, and new people Ramón can’t find it in himself to be scared of El Cucuy. But Ramón finds he and El Cucuy actually share a lot of the same fears.

This cute picture book encourages a sensory experience as a girl goes about her day, trying to hear each sound in her busy world.

If you’re a fan of the series that started with CeCe Loves Science, you’ll also love this one which is, just in-time for summer, beach themed. On a school trip to the beach, Vivi and her friend/lab partner learn about aquatic creatures, tide pools, and more.

This charming middle-grade fantasy takes place in the Land, where the heir to the throne learns the Land he calls home isn’t what it seems sets off, alongside two other children, to make things right.

During a still, black-and-white summer, the only burst of color is Lala, whose effusive energy exhausts and perplexes her mom. When Lala’s not able to go out and tend to her garden on the hottest day of the summer, she instead talks to the plants in whispers.

This fun and engaging biography of Tejano singer Selena is a nice addition for fans or kids being introduced to her for the first time.

In this fun picture book, illustrated to look a bit like a ’70s cartoon, a child learns how to build robots and how to make friends and how to handle the ups and downs that come with them.

In this fun middle grade, Javier goes big with his school project that asks what guests, living or dead, he would have over for dinner. When Javi uses his family’s magical dinner table to summon the guests from the past, things go sideways as Blackbeard escapes and sets off to reunite with his crew an take over the world, using Javi’s dining table. With the help of his braniac friend Wiki and his sister, Brady, Javi sets out to stop Blackbeard, while unraveling the secrets of his mysterious school, Finestre.

Georgiana is spending the summer in Louisiana visiting relatives, like Aunt Vie, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. With her overprotective mother trying to keep Georgie close to home, Georgie organizes a talent contest to raise money for an Alzheimer’s foundation with her friends.

In this fun and adventurous middle grade, Josephine’s incredibly close to her dad and hates seeing him date. Though Josephine’s been able to scare off most of the women he likes, she can’t seem to do the same with Mariss, who may be more than she seems.

In this fun picture book from YouTubers Ava and Alexis, identical twins realize their differences in taste don’t have to drive them apart. As they prepare for a big fashion show, Ava and Alexis first think they have to agree on every little thing only to run into trouble when they realize one of them may like things fancy and glamorous while the other is more into cool vintage finds.

Picture book bios are coming together so fast these days! This one takes on public figurehead Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose long medical career (researching diseases like HIV and most recently, COVID-19) has led to the rise in his public profile. This one goes back in time to Dr. Fauci’s upbringing in Brooklyn, where his inquisitive nature led him to settle on the medical field as a career choice.

Though Geraldine loves her lunch box (affectionately named Bianding) and the surprise Taiwanese lunches her grandma packs, her classmates don’t love them so much. When Geraldine is teased about her food, she throws out Biandang and immediately regrets it and must decide how to stand up for herself.

In this fun and surprising graphic novel, Vega’s sent to a wilderness camp to make new friends. But alongside the other campers, Vega realizes this camp is far from ordinary, and they work together to figure out what’s really going on.

In this middle grade novel, Millie jumps from homeschool to an arts academy where she bonds with some of her classmates over their shared love of a Japanese pop group called Generation Love. The girls come together and decide to perform in a school show together, but complications at home and at school threaten to tear them apart.

In this cute and funny picture book, a little girl decides she’s ready to be grown up and wear a sari. As she dons the perfect outfit, she prepares to present herself and her new look to her family, but things don’t quite go as planned.

When Paige moves to a new town, she takes her fact collecting notebook with her. When she learns about a neighborhood monster from her neighbor, Penn, she becomes determined to prove him wrong. Until some new findings change her conclusion.

Though Reggie wants to spend the summer stewing over an adventure gone awry, his perky neighbor Emily won’t leave him to spend it alone. Though their personalities are different, Reggie and Emily make a perfect pair.

When Ahmed and his family move from Hawaii to Minnesota, Ahmed must contend with a new bully, a tough language arts class, and his dad’s advancing illness.

In this graphic novel (from the author who wrote the also very good Pashmina) Shahi goes looking for her missing father and stumbles upon a magical jukebox. Transporting listeners back in time, the jukebox carried Shahi’s dad to legendary concerts, and now Shahi and her cousin Naz have to wind their way through musical history to find him and bring him back.

This sweet picture book follows in the vein of one of my favorite other books Grumpy Monkey. Though this isn’t as comedic in its approach, it illustrates the complexity of kids’ emotions and the need to allow the space to work through them. Take Jenny Mei, who’s sad but laughs and jokes through her sadness until she starts to cry, and her friend accompanies her through it all to let her know she’s there for her.

This sweet picture book puts a delightful spin on ballet stories as Zuri opts to try out ballet alongside her friend Jessie (because it’s Jessie’s turn to pick their activity). While Jessie clearly loves ballet (and is good at it too!), Zuri doesn’t like it all (and isn’t very good at it) and wants to quit. But she sticks with it. Long enough to realize that she still just doesn’t like it and is more at home with soccer. But Zuri and Jessie realize that, even though they don’t share hobbies, there’s still a lot to enjoy about spending time together.

I think it’s because it’s summer, but I’ve had this big desire to watch some shark movies. Unfortunately lots of them aren’t that good (and Jaws is apparently not available on of any of the streaming services I pay for). But have no fear because despite the hatchet job the movie did on sharks (sorry, sharks!), there’s still much interest and much to learn about the sea-faring predators (did you know that groups of them are called a shiver of sharks?), and young readers can start with this informational picture book, packed with realistic drawings of all kinds of sharks from the infamous great whites to hammerheads to ones that glow in the dark.

This new book from prolific children’s author and illustrator Vanessa Brantley-Newton is a new-to-school story about Vanessa, who doesn’t think making friends at school is going to be as easy as her parents promise. Her anxieties are realized when her special first day outfit doesn’t go over well with her classmates, and even her name spells trouble, leading Vanessa to try to dull her shine the next day. But with some encouragement from her parents, Vanessa finds the courage to be herself.

This companion novel to A Midsummer’s Mayhem is a fun spin on the Shakespeare story. Trish is once again new in town and has to try out for a new baseball team. Ben is a teammate and math whiz Trish beat in an academic competition. When the team’s snacks start mysteriously making everyone play better (magical effects included), Trish and Ben put their heads together to find the answer to cryptic puzzles arriving in the mail.

This historical graphic novel dips into a 19th century logging camp, where Mei, a Chinese American girl, entertains workers with stories of Auntie Po, a giant guardian who protects them. Meanwhile in the outside world, anti-Chinese rhetoric (including the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act) makes life difficult for Mei and her family at the logging camp.