Last week it was my great pleasure to attend the Children’s Institute, the annual
meeting of children’s booksellers. This year it was in Portland Oregon. It was my 4th Children’s Institute. As always I was inspired by the passion of children’s booksellers for the art of getting each child the just-right book. The kindness and generosity of booksellers makes me proud to count myself among their number.
And in the very same week there was another bit of good news from my home state. The Oregon Legislature passed a bill that makes it illegal to ban a book written by or about a person from a protected class as recognized by the Oregon constitution. These classes include race, ethnicity, immigration status, disability, and LGBTQ+ which accounts for all the books currently the focus of book bans.
Scarlet Morning by ND Stevenson (Quill Tree Books HC) is the authors first venture into prose novels. It has so many elements that MG readers are going to love: pirates, a mysterious book, friendship, treachery, a daring voyage and a search for hidden truth. Best of all it has lots of lively black-and-white spot illustrations throughout to bring the adventure to life. It will publish in September.
The Golden Necklace: a Darjeeling Tea Mystery by Mitali Perkins (Charlesbridge) will be available in October. It is set on a tea plantation in Nepal. Our heroine Sona is determined to win a scholarship to the best school in her community and also to solve the mystery of a missing inheritance so that her brother will not be blamed for the crime. This one has a handful of full page illustrations that bring the countryside of Nepal to life.
Chloe Vega and the Agents of Magic by Leslie Adame (Harper) is a debut title. Like so many mixed status immigrant families, Chloe Vega worries about her parents. Worries they’ll be deported. Worries that she is a financial burden on them. So when she learns that her parents are heirs to a magical power and have been taken, not by ICE, but by sinister magical forces, Chloe is determined to master her powers and save her family. This book comes out in September
Folk Remedy by Jem Yoshioka (Andrews McMeel) is a graphic novel set in 1920s Japan. It features characters from Japanese mythology. I appreciated the mix of historical and fantastical elements. The art has a muted palate with warm tones and a style that will feel fresh and interesting to readers who mostly look at American-made graphic novels. It will publish in September.
Refuge the graphic novel by Alan Gratz (Graphix) This book in prose form has been a best seller for years. It portrays the lives of refugees in 1939, Germany; 1994, Cuba; and 2015, Syria. Understanding the refugee experience is vital to grasping the politics of our times. This graphic novel will make an important story all the more accessible. It will be available in September.
Set in a remote Nigerian village far from the jangle of cellphones and human noises, Children of the Quicksands by Efua Traoré, tells the story of a girl who defies her grandmother and gets lost in a parallel world. Plenty of thrills and chills memorably set in the culture and traditions of Nigeria and featuring Yoruban mythology. This is Traoré’s debut novel
The survival of bees has always been one of my environmental interests so I was glad to see The Last Beekeeper by Pablo Caraya a climate fiction tale that will thrill young climate activists. Yolanda Cicerón is a climate warrior who puts all her hopes on saving honey bees. Along with the thrills and action is a celebration of the determination and resilience of the Latinx community.
Invisible by Christina Gonzalez & Gabriela Epstein is a great friendship story about five kids who have nothing in common besides all of them speaking Spanish. They have community service hours to complete and forge an unlikely friendship in the process. The art is fun and vibrant and the considerable amount of Spanish dialog is translated into English for readers who can’t do that for themselves. It’s tricky to inclusively convey the experience of being bilingual in print but this graphic novel does it more successfully than most.
Surely Surely Marisol Rainey by Erin Entrada Kelly occupies that vital territory in what I think of as the Ramona Quimby/Encyclopedia Brown zone. This is where kids fall in love with reading for the first time, or don’t. Find themselves reflected in books for the first time, or don’t. I’m thrilled to see Filipino-American champion of kindness, Marisol Rainey back for book two in the series. I hope we see more sweetly-illustrated books about overcoming fears big and small. She joins some other notable diverse characters in the chapter book space. Mindy Kim by Lyla Lee