SLJ Best Books 2021

‘Tis the season of giving and gratitude, and we at MUF are grateful to spy several of the authors we admire most make the School Library Journal Best Middle-Grade Books of 2021 list.

school library journal logo

The prestigious list includes 139 titles from seven categories, this year including “a breakout list of poetry.” (SLJ)  Many congratulations to all the authors. We’ve been lucky to feature two of them on our We Need Diverse MG Mixed-Up Files series and we’d love to feature more stars from the rest of this list in the coming year.

Chad Lucas

WNDMG Letting Boys Be Boys

Thanks A Lot, Universe Book Cover

Saadia Faruqi

Saadia Faruqi author photo

9-11 Book List and Yusuf Azeem is not a Hero book cover

Chrystal Giles

Take Back the Block book cover Chrystal D. Giles author photo

 

Shakirah Bourne

Josephine Against the Sea book cov erShakirah Bourne author photo

 

 

Heather Murphy Capps
Heather Murphy Capps has always had a deep appreciation for comfort and elegance. She and Claudia would have run out of money quickly together but would absolutely have been on the same page about taxis and nice restaurants. And of course, solving mysteries about beautiful art. That said, Heather also appreciates Jamie’s love of complication, which is why she spent several years living in rural Kenya and then became a television news reporter, which involved standing for hours in the middle of hurricanes and political battles. Now she’s raising middle-grade readers and writing for them. She loves to read and write books with lots of great science, magic, mystery, and adventure. Heather is the communications coordinator for Mixed-Up Files, as well as creator/curator for our We Need Diverse MG series. She is committed to creating more diversity in publishing.