Category: The Kids Are All Right

Star the Elephant and his herd are searching for a new home. But when Star is separated from his family, he must journey alone into the great unknown. He’ll come face to face with giant spiders, the vast ocean beyond his island, and strange humans. Can Star find his way back to his family?

Rainbow the Koala is ready to go off and live on his own―or so his mom says. But Rainbow is scared! The kookaburra bird cackles at him and he struggles to find a tree to call his home. As scorching heat takes hold and Rainbow runs out of water, he’ll soon face his most dangerous test: surviving a bush fire.

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.

This book is a gift. Filled with gorgeous art and illustrations, the book tells the story of Judith Scott, who was born with Down Syndrome, was deaf, and never learned to speak. Institutionalized until her sister grew up and brought her to live with her family, she then was enrolled in art classes and discovered her passion and talent for mixed media.

This new picture book tells the story of one of the first Native American women to be elected to Congress as well as the first LGBTQ congressperson to represent Kansas. When she began her campaign, many people doubted that she could win because of how she looked, who she loved, and where she came from. But Sharice persisted, and this is her story.

This great biography begins with Anthony growing up in Brooklyn, delivering prescriptions via blue Schwinn bike to customers from his father’s pharmacy. When he went to college, he studied medicine and then went on to serve under seven presidents, tackling some of the most challenging public health crises. This informative and interesting book is an excellent introduction to the man who became famous during the COVID pandemic.

This chapter book is the perfect story to read leading up to the summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Considered the fastest woman of all time, Florence Griffith Joyner, also known as Flo Jo, set two world records in 1988 that still stand today. But getting there wasn’t easy, and Flo Jo had to overcome many challenges along the way. Her story is sure to inspire young readers to pursue their dreams.

This fantastic book follows the life of Dian Fossey, who in 1963 spent all her savings and took out a loan to to go to Africa. While she had no formal science training, she happened to meet paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who helped her pursue her goal of studying animals in the wild. Fossey set up a research camp and threw herself into tracking and observing mountain gorillas. Over the next 18 years, Fossey got closer to gorillas than any human ever had before.

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.

The incomparable Debbie Allen pens a semi-autobiographical picture book about Sassy, a young ballerina who worries that her too-large feet, too-long legs, and even her big mouth will keep her from her dream. She tries to impress a big director who comes to her class with big jumps and a bright leotard, but her efforts go unappreciated at first. But Sassy doesn’t give up, letting no one get in the way of her big dreams.

I love this new picture book that celebrates all bodies! From different skin tones to hair textures to body shapes, this sweet and joyful book is one way to introduce young readers to how bodies may be different but are always cool.

This beautiful picture book celebrates the shape of Asian eyes. A young girl realizes that her eyes are like her mother’s, her grandmother’s, and her little sister’s. They have eyes that kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea, crinkle into crescent moons, and are filled with stories of the past and hope for the future. A sweet, tender book about family and self-love.

This book stole my heart! (It also stole my 11-year-old daughter’s heart who both laughed and cried when she read it.) It’s a stunning middle grade book-in-verse about Ellie who has been bullied about her weight since she was five. Her mother and sister are constantly commenting about her size, and the only relief she finds is in the pool where she can take up all the room she wants. With the help of her dad, her therapist, and her new neighbor, Catalina, Ellie begins to love who she is.

This honest and compelling middle grade book explores disordered eating and the pressure and confusion that comes with a changing body. Sarah loves basketball more than anything, but recently her body hasn’t felt like her own and she isn’t playing the way she used to. With confusing food messages from her mom and health teacher, Sarah tries to figure out how to be her best self on the basketball court. With the help of new and old friends, Sarah discovers that true strength comes from finding the courage to feel good about yourself.

This is another wonderful middle grade novel-in-verse! All of Me follows Ari, a boy who is going through a lot of change. His family just moved to a new place and he is trying to meet new people all while dealing with body image issues. Relentlessly bullied for his weight, Ari also struggles to talk to his parents who are so busy they don’t notice he is struggling. This tender and honest novel is a must-read.

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.

Recently, Marla Frazee released the third and final book in a picture book series that began with The Farmer and the Clown. These wordless picture books are gorgeous and filled with heart and humor. The first book was published in 2014, so I imagine Marla has been working on these books in some way or another over the past decade. I love thinking of her sitting in her studio and tinkering with sketches of these indomitable characters. The final book in the series, The Farmer and the Circus, is just as wonderful as the first, full of humor and heartwarming moments. The complete series order is: The Farmer and the Clown, The Farmer and the Monkey, and The Farmer and the Circus.

Another fantastic wordless picture book trilogy is by Aaron Becker. His illustrations are so luminous that the illustrations appear to glow from the page. In these books, children find portals to worlds filled with kings and adventure and sinister emperors. Each book stands alone yet are connected to each other in style and story. The complete series order is: Journey, Quest, and Return.

Another trilogy I love is Grace Lin’s fantasy middle grade series that began with Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. These gorgeous and lyrical books are linked together in surprising ways, crossing generations and using Chinese folklore to tell a beautiful story of family and bravery. The complete series order is: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Starry River of the Sky, and When the Sea Turned to Silver.

As you probably know, I am a huge fan of Rita Williams-Garcia, and her middle grade series about the Gaither sisters is both fun and thought-provoking. In the first book, 11-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, visit their kin during a time when the nation is rapidly changing. The complete series order is: One Crazy Summer, P.S. Be Eleven; and Gone Crazy in Alabama.

For upper middle grade readers, The March series by the late John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell is a fantastic graphic novel trilogy about John Lewis’s life during the Civil Rights movement. The books are a wonderful opportunity to see history through the eyes of someone who was there on the front lines. The series as a whole is called March, and each book is numbered.