Children's Books
Fall Day, All Day
Kari Percival
As the leaves change colors and the air starts to crisp, the natural world begins to shift, and so do we. Through vibrant digital woodcut illustrations and lyrical text, award-winning author-illustrator Kari Percival (How to Say Hello to a Worm) captures the magic of fall, inspiring young children to see the ways in which our seasonal routines reflect those of animals and plants in the wild.
Little Blue Truck Lost and Found
Alice Schertle
Toad helps prepare for a hayride by loading piles of hay into Little Blue’s truck bed. But when they’re ready for a ride, Toad is nowhere to be found! Can Blue and his farm animal friends find Toad in time for him to join the fun?
Owl by Myself
Pete Oswald
Owl wakes up with a mission for the day: to do everything owl by himself. Like clean his room. (Don’t look in that corner. Or that corner…) Brush his teeth. (Just step over that small mountain of toothpaste on the floor.) And pack his backpack for school. (You can never bring too many stuffies to school!) Follow a day in the life of the most adorable owl you’ve ever seen as he proves he’s a big boy ready to take care of himself—or at least tries his best. With art that pairs hilariously with spare text, often showing that Owl is not the most reliable narrator, this book is the perfect blend of humor and warmth. While it’s filled visual gags that will make readers laugh, it ends with a bedtime moment that will make them go aww.
A Party of Colors
Aya Khalil and Bayan Lahham
“Salem sees a party of colors when he goes to the car wash for the first time with Baba. Follows the sequence of events in a car wash using ordinal numbers
Raven, Rising
Christine Hartman Derr
Raven Miller just moved to Bear Creek Falls, but she already hates it. There’s a clique that has it out for her, a vice principal who keeps targeting her for dress code violations, and a cruel rumor going around that Raven is a witch who killed her parents. If it weren’t for her new friends, Laurel and Hazel, she’d be lost. The witch stuff would be easy to shrug off, but Raven does seem to have magical powers in the kitchen—the treats she makes can mysteriously change the lives of those who eat them. Well, they used to. She doesn’t bake anymore—not since the accident that took her parents’ lives. Then the clique’s bullying and the vice principal’s watchful eye intensify. When Raven’s attempts to retaliate fall flat, she wonders if the magical sweets she used to make could whip up a justice so powerful it would set everything right. In order to find out, however, she’ll have to face the things she’s been avoiding. Can Raven rise above the pain of her past to secure a better future?
Reading the Bones
Marc Aronson & John S. Mead
“‘Are you brave enough?’ That’s what anthropologist Keneiloe Molopyane texted one of her graduate students, inviting her to join a dangerous underground search for a mysterious new human ancestor, Homo naledi. Would she dare to slide through the tight spaces and sheer drops of the Rising Star cave in South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind to help unlock the secrets of a tiny chamber filled with literally hundreds of fossilized bones? Join us as we follow the exciting explorations of Dr. Molopyane, along with six female excavators known as the Underground Astronauts, the dynamic, controversial leader Dr. Lee Berger, and others as they puzzle over the remains of this strange new species with much smaller brains than ours who may have buried their dead, made tools, used fire, and left markings on rocks. Guided by Sibert Medal-winning author Marc Aronson and teacher John S. Mead, whose sixth-grade science class followed many stages of the exploration as it happened, Reading the Bones: Homo naledi and the Mysteries of Human Evolution is real science in real time. Packed with drawings, maps, and a variety of resources, this is a thrilling introduction to scientific explorers on the front lines of the hunt for connections between humans and our primate relatives and ancestors. Are you ready to join the quest?
A Riddle of Eels
Nicholas Day
You’d think a book about eels would tell you everything you need to know about eels: where they’re born, how they grow, where they live, where they die. But the truth is far stranger: the more we think we know about eels, the more the mysterious creature wriggles away, leaving even experts scratching their heads. And maybe this book tells you a few things about eels. We know, for instance, that they are fish even though they look like snakes. But how can we ever know if we’ve got the complete picture on anything? Why are we so certain of our knowledge…till we’re not? With humor and expressive, bright illustrations, this book blends science and history to illuminate a real-life mystery that has puzzled great minds from Aristotle to Freud. Perfect for inquisitive readers and fans of weird-but-true stories, here is a celebration of curiosity and the unknown by a Sibert Medalist and a Caldecott Honoree–it reminds us that some questions are more magical when they don’t have simple answers.
Shook
Julian Randall
Malik Page–though unless you’re his mama, call him “Shake”–dreams of making the Marshall Grove varsity basketball squad as an eighth grader. Then he’ll be on his way to joining the ranks of Chicago legends like his pops and late Uncle Kenny. But when Shake fractures his ankle in a championship game, he’s sidelined for the first time since his first dribble.As his world is turned upside down, Shake feels like there’s ginger ale bubbling in his chest and sweat slicking on his palms. With a best friend who’s getting more distant by the day, a growing silence between him and his dad, and varsity tryouts fast approaching, Shake will have to cross up every obstacle to find a way back onto the court–and back to being himself. Thankfully in Marshall Grove, the sky is always full of hope.
Snake & Bat: What Will We Find in This Box?
Mo Willems
Snake and Bat discover a box that is full of surprises.
That You Are Here is No Small Thing
Traci N. Todd
Young descendants of enslaved Africans are guided through the history that led them to exist and thrive today.