November 1, 2024
In 1963 Czechoslovakia, a hockey game could mean life or death. Ten-year-old Lukas and his brother Denys want nothing more than to play hockey. The family is poor, but hockey is the one bright light for the boys. Then their father, who works for a newspaper, is arrested. No one knows where he has been taken or when he might be coming home. Now Lukas and Denys realize they are being watched, too, and when the secret police promise them information about their father if they help throw a game against a visiting Soviet team, Lukas must make some difficult […]
July 5, 2024
Thirteen-year-old Vincent has a very special talent: He can jump into paintings and move around inside them. When the painting The Thunderstorm by an old Dutch painter is stolen from a London mansion, Vincent decides to track it down. During his search, to his great surprise, he meets Holly, who can dive into paintings just like him. The two make a bet: Whoever finds The Thunderstorm first, wins. Vincent is sure he will be faster, but the search turns out to be difficult, and then something is wrong with Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. Why is it that when Vincent […]
May 3, 2024
Barker Mifflin never leaves home without his go bag, army boots and trusty fly swatter. As the town of Nevermind’s resident eleven-year-old survivalist, Barker knows catastrophe can strike anytime, anywhere. But now that school is out for the summer, he might be able to let his guard down. After all, he and his friends all got jobs picking strawberries at McFadden Farm. What could possibly go wrong? Join Barker Mifflin as he pieces together a forty-foot-tall mystery hidden in the barn that could crush the whole town of Nevermind. No amount of training could prepare anyone to survive this! This […]
May 3, 2024
Suleikha, Leo and Kai, a group of 12-year-olds known as “The Freezies,” befriend the intriguing Mr. Christaki, a traveller who camps with his converted bus on their village green. Exposed as an illegal immigrant from Syria, he goes on the run with a four-year-old girl. The Freezies come up with a risky and audacious scheme to reveal his desperate plight on national TV and manage to rescue him. This rollicking, contemporary novel features three kids (two boys and a girl) in a small town in England, who connect with a vagrant music teacher and ultimately campaign to keep him from […]
May 3, 2024
What happens when a smart toy gets a little too smart? Victor is thrilled to get the toy he’s always wanted for Christmas. It’s a LenBot―a smart robot that can learn anything. For once, it’s a toy that lives up to the hype. The robot really does become Victor’s best friend. But before long the robot starts learning more than Victor has taught it and acting very strangely. Victor knows LenBot is smart, but a toy robot couldn’t be cruel. It can’t kill… can it? This delightful read is “thriller lite,” as in horror on training wheels. Told in first […]
May 3, 2024
In the real world, Leon isn’t built to be a hero, but he must become one when he gets trapped in a cutting-edge virtual-reality game. Twelve-year-old Leon loves video games. When he plays, he feels confident and amazing for just a little while. The rest of the time he feels like a loser. So Leon is shocked when Nico, the coolest kid ever and the son of a video-game developer, invites him over to test out the newest game at his dad’s high-tech lab. To play, they must submerge themselves in giant tanks filled with nanobots, which are programmed to […]
March 1, 2024
From beautiful mermaids and gentle unicorns to fire-breathing dragons and bloodthirsty vampires, mysterious beings and magical beasts appear in stories told all around the world. This book highlights 20 legendary beings. Twenty types of mythical creatures creep, stalk, hustle, fly or swim through this fun graphic novel. From Bigfoot to dragons, vampires to giants, we are treated to surprising facts, a sense of how their mythologies came into being, and how they live – not just their preferred environment, but what they eat and whether they’re hostile or friendly to human beings. We even learn what movies they’ve starred […]
February 2, 2024
On the edge of town, a boy named Dawz lives with his sister and their uncle-turned-adoptive-father, Pop. No one in their ramshackle house knows that a monster – who is smaller than a bear cub – lives in Dawz’s bedroom closet. She calls herself Mim. When a series of events forces Mim to leave her closet, she sets out on a quest to unlock the magic of books, but will Dawz be willing to help her? The story of a monster who desperately wants to be seen and the reluctant boy who wishes he weren’t the only one who could, […]
January 5, 2024
What if talking about racism was as easy as baking a cake, frying plantains or cooking rice? The Antiracist Kitchen: 21 Stories (and Recipes) is a celebration of food, family, activism and resistance in the face of racism. In this anthology featuring stories and recipes from 21 diverse and award-winning North American children’s authors, the authors share the role of food in their lives and how it has helped fight discrimination, reclaim culture and celebrate people with different backgrounds. They bring personal and sometimes difficult experiences growing up as racialized people. I opened the cover of this book with […]
January 5, 2024
Jay doesn’t believe in Bigfoot. His dad loves hunting for Bigfoot, but searching for a mythical creature in the dark isn’t Jay’s idea of fun. Especially because he always gets stuck looking out for his little sister while his dad plays with the cool gear, like night-vision goggles. But while out on a camping trip, a large creature starts hunting them, and then Jay’s father goes missing. Jay is forced to start tracking the creature himself while still keeping his sister safe. It turns out that not only is Bigfoot real but it isn’t the only threat in the woods. […]