Book Lists!

January 20, 2025 marks the 30th Anniversary of the National Day of Service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Americans first celebrated this federal holiday in 1986, and Congress designated it as a national day of service in 1994 to encourage all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities. Laurie Edwards wrote a great post in January 2016 highlighting books written by King’s niece, Angela Farris Watkins, along with other middle grade biographies and books detailing MLK Jr.’s life and legacy.  As you celebrate the holiday today, here are some books written since 2016 honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.   Martin Rising: Requiem for a King by Andrea Davis Pinkney, Illustrated by Brian Pinkney   From School Library Journal: A powerful celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., set against the last few months of his life and written in verse. Divided into three sections, (“Daylight,” “Darkness,” and “Dawn”), Andrea Davis Pinkney’s poems focus on the winter and...

  As a bookseller, I meet so many kids looking for graphic novels. Some seek fun, best-selling titles like Dog Man and Captain Underpants, others are eager to explore the varied landscape of stories in this section.  Controversy Naysayers don’t consider graphic novels as ‘real books.’ Luckily, this myth is...

It might seem that creating an epic fantasy novel starring a charming character who portrays intelligence, anxiety, cultural divides from parents, close and diverse friendships, and the magic and myths of a Chinese water goddess would be an impossible task. Gloria L. Huang has done this in her delightful middle...

Winter break can be a great time to dive deep into a novel, but the busyness of the season (and maybe a new gift or two!) can also lend itself to shorter reading experiences. What better way to sample multiple author offerings than with a collection of stories or essays?...

One of the fun things about middle grade books is that they possess the capacity to reflect the adult world on a smaller scale, mimicking and evoking the tropes of other genres without missing a beat. You can have your hardboiled private detectives, your intrepid journalists, your tarnished white knights....

The holidays are here! One of the best things to do when it’s chilly outside is to curl up under a warm blanket with some hot cocoa and read a book! Here are some fun seasonal MG reads for all readers, whether they enjoy action, adventure, fantasy, love, mystery, or...

Let’s talk gratitude! Fall is the time of year we tend to consider the concept. I recently read Michael J Fox’s memoir No Time Like the Future. His theme: “With gratitude, optimism is sustainable” drove home the realization that gratitude isn’t just a feeling we should have (peaking sometime around Thanksgiving),...