English MG & Up Hey y’all! I’m back, Happy 2022! I hope you all had a graceful end of the year and an optimistic beginning to the new one! Below is a list of the books I read during my absolutely fabulous and much much much needed break. Tap any book cover to grab yourself…
Category: Friendship
Hello, Mandarin Duck!
English & many others! 4+ May Day Languages Welcoming Bao Phi & Dion MBD summary Twins Hua and Hue are on their way to the big May Day parade in their community when they come across a Mandarin duck looking a bit lost. As they run into more of their friends, they welcome the duck…
Abrams Dinner Party & a YA Read!
English YA (13+) Food/Cookbooks LGBTQ+ Relationships Sex Positive YA Romance Humor summary Cheese. One of the best substances in the world. In my opinion, the more a cheese tastes like a barnyard the better. When I got the book Cheese, Sex, Death from Abrams Books as the next installment of #AbramsDinnerParty it was obviously a…
Gitty and Kvetch
English & Yiddish 4+ Friendship Judaism Jewish Culture & Identity Social-Emotional Learning Caroline Kusin Pritchard & Ariel Landy summary Gitty is an optimistic force of nature and her best friend Kvetch is…the opposite. A little grumpy, a little unsure, Kvetch prefers to air on the safe side of life. Begrudgingly convinced to try and beat…
The Insiders
English & Spanish MG LGBTQ Friendship Bullying Queer Friendships Latinx Family Moving New School Fantasy/Magic Mark Oshiro summary Ahh middle school. Hormones, moving to new schools, wanting to look cool…secret rooms that respond to your needs? Maybe not for all of us, but for Héctor and his new middle school this seems to be the…
Partly Cloudy
English & Creole MG SEL Family Friendship New Schools Forest Fires Racism Tanita S. Davis Cover Art: Geneva Bowers summary From Tanita S. Davis of Serena Says (which has a melodramatic and lovely narrator) comes Madalyn from Partly Cloudy. Madalyn really loves naps, and I appreciate that personality quirk. She’s moved in with her Great…
Two New Mindy Kim Adventures!
English & Korean Early Chapter Book Readers Korean Culture Vacation Language Learning Family Single Parent Family American Culture SEL Lyla Lee & Dung Ho summary I LOVE this series! Mindy is a great protagonist and narrator, and Lyla Lee’s writing is always fresh and engaging. Mindy Kim and the Trip to Korea came out this…
A Kid is a Kid is a Kid
English 3+ Conversation Starters New Kids Gender Stereotypes Ability Friendship SEL Back to School Sara O’Leary & Qin Leng summary I looooove A Family is a Family is a Family, it’s one of the books I always include on recommendation lists. Now, a follow-up is out and I might be even more in love with…
A Fiction Feast: Leveled Readers for the Family
English Mixed: all ages Fiction Feast Baking Board Books Early Chapter Books Friendship SEL Cooking Skills summary Today is #TheFictionFeast once again! With the summer winding down and the school year ramping up, I thought about the days at home (and nannying) when the need for an activity for multiple ages is needed before we…
Hold That Thought!
English 4+ Nonbinary Protagonist Friendship Support Ideas SEL Creativity Bree Galbraith & Lynn Scurfield summary Pointed nonbinary representation in books? YES PLEASE. So everyone knows I’m a Bree Galbraith fangirl (in a totally not weird definitely not creepy way), and her latest release is gorgeous in every way. In our story, Finn wakes up in…