Bookworm for Kids

These new books are highly recommended for home and school libraries.

New Books for Younger Kids

Extra Yarn
by Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen
Ages 4–8
Annabelle, who lives in a world of white snow and black soot, longs for color. When she finds a box full of bright yarn, she sets out to knit colorful sweaters for everyone she knows. No matter how much she knits, the box always seems to hold more yarn. A greedy archduke tries to buy the yarn box, but Annabelle refuses. When he steals the box, he finds that it is empty, though it magically refills when returned to Annabelle.

One Cool Friend
by Toni Buzzeo, David Small
Ages 5–8
Elliot is a very proper child. He prefers to dress in tuxedos, unlike his absentminded and slightly messy father. On a visit to the aquarium, Elliot finally discovers the perfect pet—a Magellanic penguin. His father agrees, assuming Elliot is asking about a stuffed toy, and Elliot brings the penguin home, where he constructs the perfect penguin environment while his father doesn’t even notice. This clever and silly book has a delightful surprise ending.

Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass
by Lesa Cline-Ransome, James E. Ransome
Ages 5–9
Powerful first person narration tells the story of Frederick Douglass’s early life as a plantation slave. Learning to read was the catalyst for Frederick’s determination to escape from slavery. “I bought my first newspaper and learned new words—liberty, justice, and freedom.” Eventually Frederick uses his writing skills to forge a letter from his master releasing him. Though not avoiding the cruel realities of slavery, this accessible biography celebrates determination and hope.

Hans My Hedgehog: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm
by Kate Coombs, John Nickle
Ages 5–8
Hans is not a normal boy. Born a hedgehog from the waist up, Hans becomes an accomplished fiddle player and loves riding his rooster through the woods with his faithful hogs. After rescuing two kings and visiting their castles, Hans finally meets a princess who loves him as he is. This adaptation is a much happier version of the original fairy tale.

Earwig and the Witch
by Diana Wynne Jones, Paul O. Zelinsky
Ages 8–12
The orphaned Earwig has been at the St. Morwald’s Home for Children since she was a baby. Everyone does whatever Earwig says, and she is happy there with her best friend Custard. When adoptive parents arrive, Earwig make sure that none pick her. But then Bella Yaga, a strange woman with one blue eye and one brown, adopts Earwig and sets her to the daily task of grinding up disgusting things to use in spells. But the determined Earwig is more than a match for the evil witch and her grouchy assistant Mandrake.

Looking at Lincoln
by Maira Kalman
Ages 5–8
The little girl in this book wants to see beyond the picture on the penny and discover who Lincoln really was. She discovers that Lincoln believed in freedom for everyone, had a dog named Fido, kept his notes in his hat, and loved Mozart and his wife’ s vanilla cake. This fresh look at our 16th president will captivate young readers.

Those Rebels, John and Tom
by Barbara Kerley, Edwin Fotheringham
Ages 7–11
Clever verse and humorous illustrations portray the different personalities of two founding fathers and early presidents: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Lively typography and a bold color palette complement this story of strength coming from difference.

The Monster Returns
by Peter McCarty
Ages 3–6
Jeremy is sure that the blue spiky monster he sent away with a one-way bus ticket is gone for good, but he receives a telephone call warning him that the monster is retiurning. Carrying a brown suitcase and wearing a pink hat, the monster approaches Jeremy’s door. But Jeremy arms his friends and neighbors with fancy pens, and they create a horde of colorful monsters. (sequel to Jeremy Draws a Monster)

Little Treasures: Endearments from Around the World
by Jacqueline Ogburn, Chris Raschka
Ages 4–8
This joyful book celebrates family love with endearments from all over the world. Children will enjoy learning the different expressions — ducky, little mischievous pea, nugget of gold — presented both in English and the original language (with phonetic pronunciations).

May B.
by Caroline Starr Rose
Ages 8–12
May B. (12) lives with her family on the Kansas prairie. After a bad harvest, May B. is sent to a farm 15 miles away to help out the farmer and his new wife. Her father promises that it’s only until Christmas, but May B. misses her family and the opportunity to attend school. Then the homesick farmer’s wife runs off to her Ohio home, followed by the farmer, leaving May B. alone on the farm. Alone in the sod house, May B. bravely faces bad weather and dwindling supplies.

Jazz Age Josephine
by Jonah Winter, Marjorie Priceman
Ages 4–8
This accessible biography of Josephine Baker uses the rhythms of blues and jazz to tell the story of the famous singer and dancer. Beginning with her impoverished childhood dancing for money on the streets of St. Louis we follow Josephine to her big break as a chorus line dancer in New York and to her fame in Paris as the American icon of the Jazz Age.

New Books for Older Kids

Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat
by Francesca Lia Block
Ages 14–up
In this prequel to Weetzie Bat, we meet Louise as a 7th grader. When her father suddenly leaves for New York City, she must cope with her own grief as well as her mother’s depression. It doesn’t help that she faces a clique of mean girls at school and the sinister family in Unit 13 of her condominium. Anonymous notes, an attractive older boy, and two new friends who are also outcasts help Louise transform herself into Weetzie, the artist.

The Mighty Miss Malone
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Ages 10–14
In 1936 Gary, Indiana, the Great Depression causes Roscoe Malone to lose his job. He leaves for Flint hoping to find another job, leaving his wife, son Jimmy, and daughter Deza (12) behind. When Deza’s mother also loses her job, the family becomes homeless and sets off to Flint. In a camp on the journey, Jimmy’s beautiful voice is recognized, and he leaves to pursue a career as a performer. Deza and her mother find a new home and cling to the hope that they will find her father. (Deza makes an appearance as a minor character in Bud, Not Buddy.)

The Whole Story of Half a Girl
by Veera Hiranandani
Ages 9–12
Sonia Nadhamuni, half Indian and half Jewish American, loves her private school. But when her father loses his job at the end of her 5th grade year, Sonia enters a racially divided public school. For the first time her mixed heritage is an issue, and she begins to think about who she really is. Even harder to deal with is the depression that overtakes her father when he can’t find another job. Sonia’s struggles to cope with new family problems and to fit into her new school without losing her own individuality are beautifully portrayed.

Try Not to Breathe
by Jennifer Hubbard
Ages 14–up
Ryan (16) hasn’t had a good year. He’s endured a new school, mono, romantic rejection, and a suicide attempt that sent him to a psychiatric facility. The awful year is finally over, but Ryan is finding that there wasn’t a happy ending. He is back in school, has the same parents, and nothing has gotten easier while he was gone. His only friends are those he met in the hospital; the kids at school think he is creepy. Then he befriends Nicki, who demands that he explain in words what he has gone through, which finally brings about change.

To the Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement
by Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Ages 12–up
This accessible historical memoir tells the story of the author’s harassment and threats when she entered the University of Georgia in 1959. Other chapters tell of other struggles for equal rights: lunch counter sit-ins, Freedom Riders, voter registration drives. The personal look at political struggle is both educational and inspiring.

In Darkness
by Nick Lake
Ages 14–up
Shorty (15) is trapped in the rubble left by a collapsed hospital during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. As he waits, hoping to be rescued, Shorty relives his life’s journey running drugs until ending up in the hospital with a bullet wound. As he waits in darkness, Shorty is joined by Toussaint L’Ouverture, a slave and revolutionary leader 200 years earlier. The parallels between the two stories highlight the violence and brutality of Haiti’s history. This disturbing and challenging book faces hard truths head-on.

Cinder
by Marissa Meyer
Ages 12–up
Cinder lives in New Beijing with Adri, her demanding step-mother, and two step-sisters Peony and Pearl. Half human and half robot, Cinder was rescued from a hovercraft accident by the inventor Galen, Adri’s husband. As a cyborg, Cinder is a second-class citizen, but is a gifted mechanic and is immune to the plague that threatens humans. This clever dystopian fairy tale is the first in a planned series—the Lunar Chronicles.

Fracture
by Megan Miranda
Ages 12–up
Delany Maxwell (17) falls into a frozen Maine lake. After 11 minutes under the ice, she is rescued by her best friend Decker. After six days in a coma, Delany wakes up. But her brush with death has changed her, and she is drawn again and again to people on the verge of death. Delany’s friendship with Decker is threatened by feelings of guilt over her near drowning, and by Troy, an older boy who is also drawn toward the dying.

There Is No Dog
by Meg Rosoff
Ages 12–up
Bob’s mother won Earth in a poker game, and gave the plant to her teen-aged son to play with. Bob is inspired during Creation, but then loses interest and Earth is plagued with natural disasters, injustice, and chaos. When Bob falls in love with a human named Lucy, his relatives scheme to keep them apart, causing even more problems for poor planet Earth.

Freedom’s a-Callin Me
by Ntozake Shange, Rod Brown
Ages 8–12
This book of illustrated poems tell the story of slaves making their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad. The horrors of the past that haunt the slaves as well as the dangers of the journey are clearly portrayed in this hauntingly beautiful book.

Irises
by Francisco X. Stork
Ages 14–up
Kate (18) dreams of going to medical school at Stanford University, and her sister Mary (16) is a talented painter. When their strict minister father dies, the two sisters are forced to make some painful decisions. Their mother has been in a persistent vegetative state after an accident two years earlier, and the insurance company denies their father’s policy. Then the church threatens to evict them from their home. Free of their father’s loving but restrictive control, the two sisters begin to grow in unexpected ways as they struggle with supporting themselves and the decision of maintaining their mother’s life support.

Crow
by Barbara Wright
Ages 8–12
It’s the summer of 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Moses (11) is teaching Boo Nanny, his slave-born grandmother, to read. For the first time, Boo Nanny shares stories of her youth as a slave. Moses’s Harvard-educated father is a respected reporter for the newspaper, and Moses believes the troubles his grandmother experienced are a thing of the past. Then an editorial sparks the Wilmington Race Riots. The first-person narration in this powerful book presents an intimate look at race relations and injustice.