ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
THE LION OF MARS
Author: Jennifer L. Holm
Publisher: Random House Books For Young Readers Year: 2021 Publisher's Description: Bell has spent his whole life--all eleven years of it--on Mars. But he's still just a regular kid--he loves cats and any kind of cake, and is curious about the secrets the adults in the US colony are keeping. Like, why don't they have contact with anyone on the other Mars colonies? Why are they so isolated? When a virus breaks out and the grown-ups all fall ill, Bell and the other children are the only ones who can help. It's up to Bell--a regular kid in a very different world--to uncover the truth and save his family...and possibly unite an entire planet. |
THE WOLVES OF YELLOWSTONE : A REWILDING STORY
Author: Catherine Barr
Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens Year: 2022 Publisher's Description: In the 1930s, the last wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park. Without them, elk herds overran the plains. Bears starved, rabbit families shrunk, and birds flew away to new homes. Then plants and trees started to die off, too-even the flow of rivers was affected. Could the park be saved . . . by the wolves it had lost? After years of planning, in 1995 a team of experts was ready to find out. They carefully relocated fourteen wolves from the Canadian Rockies to Yellowstone. This is the story of their homecoming. |
MEASURING UP
Author: Lily Lamotte
Illustrator: Ann Xu Publisher: HARPERALLEY Year: 2020 Publisher's Description: Twelve-year-old Cici has just moved from Taiwan to Seattle, and the only thing she wants more than to fit in at her new school is to celebrate her grandmother, A-má’s, seventieth birthday together. Since she can’t go to A-má, Cici cooks up a plan to bring A-má to her by winning the grand prize in a kids’ cooking contest to pay for A-má’s plane ticket! There’s just one problem: Cici only knows how to cook Taiwanese food. And after her pickled cucumber debacle at lunch, she’s determined to channel her inner Julia Child. Can Cici find a winning recipe to reunite with A-má, a way to fit in with her new friends, and somehow find herself too? |
HOPE SPRINGS
Author: Jaime Berry
Publisher: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers Year: 2021 Publisher's Description: Eleven-year-old Jubilee Johnson is an expert at three things: crafting, moving, and avoiding goodbyes. On the search for the "perfect place," she and her Nan live by their Number One Relocation Rule—just the two of them is all they need. But Jubilee's starting to feel like just two is a little too close to alone. Desperate to settle down, Jubilee plans their next move, Hope Springs, Texas—home of her TV crafting idol, Arletta Paisley. Here she meets a girl set on winning the local fishing tournament and a boy who says exactly the right thing by hardly speaking at all. Soon, Jubilee wonders if Hope Springs might just be the place to call home. But when the town is threatened by a mega-chain superstore fronted by Arletta Paisley, Jubilee is faced with skipping town yet again or standing up to her biggest bully yet. With the help of her new friends and the one person she never thought she'd need—her Momma—will Jubilee find a way to save the town she's come to love and convince Nan that it's finally time to settle down? |
ANGLERFISH : THE SEADEVIL OF THE DEEP
Author: Elaine M. Alexander Illustrator: Fiona Fogg
Publisher: Candlewick Press Year: 2022 Publisher's Description: Dive thirteen thousand feet below the ocean’s surface, where no ray of sunlight can penetrate. Resources are scarce, and fellow inhabitants scarcer. This is life in the midnight zone—life for the anglerfish, known as the Seadevil of the Deep. Still largely a mystery to scientists, the deep-sea anglerfish is a true source of fascination and awe. To some, the fish resembles a prehistoric creature forgotten by time; to others, she is the embodiment of power, grace, and grit, using her remarkable physical attributes and a talent for deception to survive one of the harshest environments on the planet. |
HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY
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STUNTBOY, IN THE MEANTIME
Author: Jason Reynlds
Illustrator: Raul The Third Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy Books Year: 2021 Publisher's Description: Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes—like his parents and two best friends—stay super. And safe. Super safe. And he does this all in secret. No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy! But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives. All this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. His parents are fighting all the time. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too—as soon as he figures out how. Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all.CAITLYN DLOUHY BOOKS |
WILLODEEN
Author: Katherine Applegate
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends Year: 2021 Publisher's Description: Eleven-year-old Willodeen adores creatures of all kinds, but her favorites are the most unlovable beasts in the land: strange beasts known as “screechers.” The villagers of Perchance call them pests, even monsters, but Willodeen believes the animals serve a vital role in the complicated web of nature. Lately, though, nature has seemed angry indeed. Perchance has been cursed with fires and mudslides, droughts and fevers, and even the annual migration of hummingbears, a source of local pride and income, has dwindled. For as long as anyone can remember, the tiny animals have overwintered in shimmering bubble nests perched atop blue willow trees, drawing tourists from far and wide. This year, however, not a single hummingbear has returned to Perchance, and no one knows why. When a handmade birthday gift brings unexpected magic to Willodeen and her new friend, Connor, she’s determined to speak up for the animals she loves, and perhaps even uncover the answer to the mystery of the missing hummingbears. |
POWER UP
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SPOOKY CASTLES
Author: Megan Borgert-Spaniol
Publisher: Aldo Publishing Company Year: 2020 Publisher's Description: Tour some of the world's most famous haunted places in Spooky Castles. Young readers will learn about the history, eerie occurrences, and public reactions to several spooky sites. The book also provides historic context and scientific facts that explain what is really going on. Dynamic photos and illustrative details will make readers feel as though they've just visited each hair-raising locale! |
