Diversity in MG Lit #49 Aug., Sept,. & Oct. 2024

Lots of great new diverse middle grade books in the last few months. These books are representative of what comes my way at the independent bookstore where I work and are by no means the only diverse books that have published in the last few months. As always I love to see further recommendations in the comments.

I’m going to begin not with a diverse book but one of particularly timely interest Your Vote Matters: how we elect the US President, by Rebecca Katzman, Scholastic, 2024. There are many books on electoral politics. This one is concise yet comprehensive. It offers the broadest introductory information about things like caucuses, primaries, voting rights and political parties. It’s even handed and current up to the 2020 election. However, it does not mention the Jan 6th insurrection. Given the target audience of 3rd to 5th graders I have mixed feelings on the omission. I think it’s worth overlooking that problem in favor of having a useful guide to electoral politics for this age range.

Disability is the least served segment of diverse readers so I was happy to see a new series from the Mayo Clinic Press. It’s called Helping Paws Academy  They are early readers and use the vehicle of hospital or clinic therapy dogs to give information about various medical conditions ranging from cuts and stitches to leukemia. I read Cricket Gives Comfort: exploring epilepsy. The prose was plain and clear and the illustrations fairly basic, but I was impressed by the amount of ground it covered in a straightforward way. It was written by a physician, Pat McCaw MD, and there are six initial titles. This would be a great resource for a school library.

As always there are many new MG novels in the fantasy ca

Jaden Powers and the Inheritance Magic, by Jamar J Perry. African-American. Bloomsbury

The Crossbow of Destiny by Brandon Hoàng. Vietnamese. Scholastic Press

Beware the Heartman by Shakirah Bourne. Bajan. Scholastic Press.

Jasmine is Haunted by Mark Oshiro. Queer and Latinx. Tor, Starscape

Kwame Crashes the Underworld by Craig Kofi Farmer. Ghanian. Farmer is a debut author. Roaring Brook Press

I’m always happy to see a good sports book for MG readers and elated to see three sports-based graphic novels.

Like Irish step dancing, Lion dancing is both a cultural expression and an athletic competition. Cai Tse is a lion dancer herself and a member of the Chinese Youth League of Australia. She brings her experiences exuberently to life in

Lion Dancers. Simon & Schuster

We are Big Time  written by Hena Khan and Illustrated by Safiya Zerrougui, Random House, tells the story of an all hijabi basketball team in the midwest finding success on the court and a deeper Muslim identity. Zerrougui is a debut illustrator.

Between the Pipes is a graphic novel about a 13 year old gay First Nations hockey player in Canada navigating both his own culture and the toxic masculinity of high contact sports. The author Albert McLeod is Cree and Metis and a human rights activist specializing in 2Spirit history and identity. The artist, Alice RL, is a non-binary Ojibwe. Highwater Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Sticking with graphic novels but shifting to historical fiction and nonfiction, Black Lives: great minds of science by Tonya Bolden, illustrated by David Wilkerson is a new graphic novel series from Abrams. It delves into the lives of nine African-American scientists. Each one includes a life timeline and endnotes. The book is geared for the younger MG reader and will serve as a great introduction to science professions from aviator to marine biologist.

Pearl by Sherri L. Smith, illustrated by Chistine Norrie, Scholastic, covers ground I have not yet seen in a book for a MG reader. Set in WWII Hawaii and Japan, it’s the story of a young American woman who was sent to Japan before the attack on Pearl Harbor and survived the bombing of Hiroshima. It’s based on a memoir and because of the topic I’d recommend it for older MG grade readers.

When We Flew Away:  a novel of Anne Frank before the diary by Alice Hoffman, Scholastic Press, is a prose novel about the years before the Frank family went into hiding in Amsterdam. It chronicles the relentless deterioration of their human rights. The book is written with the cooperation of the Anne Frank House.

The Salt Thief: Gandhi’s heroic march to freedom by Neal Bascomb is not just the story of Gandhi’s march to the sea but also a look at his influence on peaceful protest in the years following his activism. It comes with extensive bibliography and source notes. Scholastic Focus

Stealing Little Moon: the legacy of the American Indian boarding schools, by Dan Sasuweh Jones is an extensive chronicle of Indigenous people in America. It’s a heartbreaking read and follows, in part, four generations of the author’s family and their incarceration at Chilocco Indian Agricultural School. It includes historic photographs and an extensive bibliography of resources. It mentions many boarding schools across a more than a hundred years of cruel and shocking history. It does end with recent efforts of Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior, to investigate and fully report on the Indian schools and information about the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. Dan Sasuweh Jones is a former chairman of he Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Scholastic.

Thanks for supporting diverse books!

Rosanne