It’s that time of year again when keeping young minds engaged, learning, and reading is a priority for many parents and caregivers. If you are on the hunt for some mesmerizing and intriguing new books for your kids, here are some recommendations for all ages!
Picture Books
Alexa, What Color Are You? by Dr. Kimberly Ortiz-Hartman, Psy.D., LMFT
Alexa is a little girl who loves the amazing colors of our world. On her first day of kindergarten, she is stumped when asked, “What color are you?” Join Alexa on her journey to self-discovery as her parents teach her to love and embrace her skin color and her biracial identity.
This book provides a loving story of navigating race and identity conversations for children and their parents. Created to increase representation for multicultural children and their families, this book is also great for all children to learn about acceptance and diversity in the world around them. It is never too early to teach the little ones in your life about kindness and love for others!
Night Market Rescue by Charlotte Cheng
While resting on a stoop, Gogo smells something sweet and spicy on the breeze. It leads him to a place he’s never been—a bustling night market where vendors sell delicious treats. As he wanders, sniffing for scraps, GoGo also discovers something else: a little girl who has gotten separated from her parents. He knows he can help and guides her through the market . . . to where her worried parents wait for her—with open arms for their daughter and GoGo, their new pet!
Middle Grade
Once There Was by Kiyash Monsef
Once was, once wasn’t.
So began the stories Marjan’s father told her as a little girl—fables like the story of the girl who sprung a unicorn from a hunter’s snare, or the nomad boy who rescued a baby shirdal. Tales of extraordinary beasts that filled her with curiosity and wonder.
But Marjan’s not a little girl anymore. In the wake of her father’s sudden death, she is trying to hold it all together: her schoolwork, friendships, and keeping her dad’s shoestring veterinary practice from going under. Then, one day, she receives a visitor who reveals something stunning: Marjan’s father was no ordinary veterinarian. The creatures out of the stories he told her were real—and he traveled the world to care for them. And now that he’s gone, she must take his place.
Marjan steps into a secret world hidden in plain sight, where mythical creatures are bought and sold, treasured and trapped. She finds friends she never knew she needed—a charming British boy who grew up with a griffon, a runaway witch seeking magic and home—while trying to hide her double life from her old friends and classmates.
The deeper Marjan gets into treating these animals, the closer she comes to finding who killed her father—and to a shocking truth that will reawaken her sense of wonder and put humans and beasts in the gravest of danger.
Food for Hope By Jeff Gottesfeld, Illustrated by Michelle Laurentia Agatha
John van Hengel started the world’s first food bank in 1967 and went on to create a network of food banks through Feeding America.
The concept of getting food that would otherwise be wasted to people who are hungry has spread throughout the world. Gottesfeld’s warm text and Agatha’s lively art shows that there’s no shame in being hungry — the shame lies in how long it took for someone to figure out how to feed people! All it took was one person with a good idea to change things.
“Food is so much more than nourishment. Gottesfeld’s inspiring story with Agatha’s bright, beautiful illustrations reminds us of how kindness also feeds us.”
YA
The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love, & Truth by Wade Hudson
Thirty diverse, award-winning authors and illustrators invite you into their homes to witness their conversations with their children about race in America today in this powerful call-to-action that invites all families to be anti-racists and advocates for change.
As long as racist ideas persist, families will continue to have difficult and necessary conversations with their young ones on the subject. In this inspiring collection, literary all-stars such as Renée Watson (Piecing Me Together), Grace Lin (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon), Meg Medina (Merci Suárez Changes Gears), Adam Gidwitz (The Inquisitor’s Tale), and many more engage young people in frank conversations about race, identity, and self-esteem. Featuring text and images filled with love, acceptance, truth, peace, and an assurance that there can be hope for a better tomorrow, The Talk is a stirring anthology and must-have resource published in partnership with Just Us Books, a Black-owned children’s publishing company that’s been in operation for over thirty years. Just Us Books continues its mission grounded in the same belief that helped launch the company: Good books make a difference.
**This book caught our eye after news of a Principal at a California School who bought each of her graduating students a copy!**
Sorceline by Sylvia Douyé (Graphic Novel)
For as long as she can remember, Sorceline has had a knack for the study of mythical creatures. Now a student at Professor Archibald Balzar’s prestigious school of cryptozoology, she’s eager to test her skills and earn a spot as one of Balzar’s apprentices.
But for all her knowledge of gorgons, vampires, and griffins, Sorceline is mystified by her fellow humans. While she excels in her studies, she quickly clashes with her classmates, revealing her fiery temper.
When one of her rivals suddenly disappears, Sorceline must set aside her anger and join the quest to find her. But the mystery only deepens, leading Sorceline on a journey far darker and more personal than she expected . . .
Check Out More Summer Reading Book Recommendations HERE and HERE!
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