Tag: Kathleen Glasgow

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Tundra Telegram: Books To Mattel Your Friends About

Come on and join us as we go party and celebrate the release of the Barbie movie! Tomorrow, both the movie and the official soundtrack release, and we’re tickled pink to finally see it. The movie has been a long time coming (it’s been the subject of a Telegram before), and all the promotion from Team Barbie has been the talk of the town, including the AirBNB pink Malibu mansion, the pink TARDIS that popped up in the UK, and other collaborations that prove life in plastic is fantastic. For anyone who’s a big fan of all things pink, this is your time to shine!

If you’re like us, and are a major fan of movie soundtracks, then you’ve probably been listening to the released songs on repeat. Although not all the songs have been released, we’ve gone ahead and come up with recommendations from our children’s and YA titles for each song. In some cases, the connection may be a similar plot or theme. In others, especially if the song hasn’t been previously released, we made the suggestion based off the vibe of the artist or song title. No matter the case, we hope you’ll join us to dance the night away with these Ken-tastic reads.

Pink by Lizzo — Anonymouse by Vikki VanSickle

Anonymouse
By Vikki VanSickle
Illustrated by Anna Pirolli
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735263949 | Tundra Books
Art for the birds.
Art for the ants.
Art for the dogs, cats and raccoons.
Art to make them laugh, make them think, make them feel at home.
But who is creating it?
Only Anonymouse knows for sure . . .
This clever tale mixes street art, animals and gorgeous illustrations to create a meditation on how art can uplift any creature’s spirit – human or animal – when it speaks directly to them. Every page of Anna Pirolli’s stunning artwork is its own masterpiece with its bold pops of color and sly humor, elevating Vikki VanSickle’s subtle but evocative text.

Dance The Night by Dua Lipa —
The Turning Pointe by Vanessa L. Torres

The Turning Pointe
By Vanessa L. Torres
432 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593426135 | Knopf BFYR
When sixteen-year-old Rosa Dominguez pirouettes, she is poetry in pointe shoes. And as the daughter of a tyrant ballet Master, Rosa seems destined to become the star principal dancer of her studio. But Rosa would do anything for one hour in the dance studio upstairs where Prince, the Purple One himself, is in the house. After her father announces their upcoming auditions for a concert with Prince, Rosa is more determined than ever to succeed. Then Nikki – the cross-dressing, funky boy who works in the dance shop – leaps into her life. Weighed down by family expectations, Rosa is at a crossroads, desperate to escape so she can show everyone what she can do when freed of her pointe shoes. Now is her chance to break away from a life in tulle, grooving to that unmistakable Minneapolis sound reverberating through every bone in her body.

Barbie World by Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice (with Aqua) —
Kens by Raziel Reid

Kens
By Raziel Reid
256 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735263796 | Penguin Teen Canada
Every high school has the archetypical Queen B and her minions. In Kens, the high school hierarchy has been reimagined. Willows High is led by Ken Hilton, and he makes Regina George from Mean Girls look like a saint. Ken Hilton rules Willows High with his carbon-copies, Ken Roberts and Ken Carson, standing next to his throne. It can be hard to tell the Kens apart. There are minor differences in each edition, but all Kens are created from the same mold, straight out of Satan’s doll factory. Soul sold separately. Tommy Rawlins can’t help but compare himself to these shimmering images of perfection that glide through the halls. He’s desperate to fit in, but in a school where the Kens are queens who are treated like Queens, Tommy is the uncool gay kid. A once-in-a-lifetime chance at becoming a Ken changes everything for Tommy, just as his eye is caught by the tall, dark, handsome new boy, Blaine. Has Blaine arrived in time to save him from the Kens? Tommy has high hopes for their future together, but when their shared desire to overthrow Ken Hilton takes a shocking turn, Tommy must decide how willing he is to reinvent himself – inside and out. Is this new version of Tommy everything he’s always wanted to be, or has he become an unknowing and submissive puppet in a sadistic plan?

Speed Drive by Charli XCX — Clean Getaway by Nic Stone

Clean Getaway
By Nic Stone
240 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781984892973 | Crown BFYR
How to Go on an Unplanned Road Trip with Your Grandma: Grab a Suitcase: Prepacked from the big spring break trip that got CANCELLED. Fasten Your Seatbelt: G’ma’s never conventional, so this trip won’t be either. Use the Green Book: G’ma’s most treasured possession. It holds history, memories, and most important, the way home. What Not to Bring: A Cell Phone: Avoid contact with Dad at all costs. Even when G’ma starts acting stranger than usual. Set against the backdrop of the segregation history of the American South, take a trip with this New York Times bestseller and an eleven-year-old boy who is about to discover that the world hasn’t always been a welcoming place for kids like him, and things aren’t always what they seem – his G’ma included.

WATITI by Karol G featuring Aldo Ranks —
Vlad, The Fabulous Vampire by Flavia Z. Drago

Vlad, The Fabulous Vampire
By Flavia Z. Drago
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781536233322 | Candlewick
Vlad is a vampire with the misfortune of having rosy cheeks that – gasp! – make him look abysmally alive. But being the fabulous vampire that he is (and hoping to avoid rejection), he hides his rosy complexion behind elaborate vampire outfits in traditional black. That is, until he finds out that his best friend has a pink secret of her own . . . With signature flair, Flavia Z. Drago offers a story about being yourself and finding your community, strikingly illustrated in a distinctive, detailed art style influenced by her Mexican heritage.

Man I Am by Sam Smith — Man o’ War by Cory McCarthy

Man o’ War
By Cory McCarthy
336 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593353721 | Dutton BFYR
River McIntyre has grown up down the street from Sea Planet, an infamous marine life theme park slowly going out of business in small-town Ohio. When a chance encounter with a happy, healthy queer person on the annual field trip lands River literally in the shark tank, they must admit the truth: they don’t know who they are – only what they’ve been told to be. This sets off a wrenching journey of self-discovery, from internalized homophobia and gender dysphoria, through layers of coming out, affirmation surgery, and true freakin’ love.

Journey To The Real World by Tame Impala —
The Barnabus Project by The Fan Brothers

The Barnabus Project
By The Fan Brothers
72 Pages | Ages 5-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735263260 | Tundra Books
Deep underground beneath Perfect Pets, where children can buy genetically engineered “perfect” creatures, there is a secret lab. Barnabus and his friends live in this lab, but none of them is perfect. They are all Failed Projects. Barnabus has never been outside his tiny bell jar, yet he dreams of one day seeing the world above ground that his pal Pip the cockroach has told him about: a world with green hills and trees, and buildings that reach all the way to the sky, lit with their own stars. But Barnabus may have to reach the outside world sooner than he thought, because the Green Rubber Suits are about to recycle all Failed Projects . . . and Barnabus doesn’t want to be made into a fluffier pet with bigger eyes. He just wants to be himself. So he decides it’s time for he and the others to escape. With his little trunk and a lot of cooperation and courage, Barnabus sets out to find freedom – and a place where he and his friends can finally be accepted for who they are. This suspenseful, poignant and magical story about following your dreams and finding where you truly belong will draw readers into a surreal, lushly detailed world in which perfection really means being true to yourself and your friends.

I’m Just Ken by Ryan Gosling —
Ten Little Dumplings by Larissa Fan and Cindy Wume

Ten Little Dumplings
By Larissa Fan
Illustrated by Cindy Wume
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266193 | Puffin Canada
In the city of Tainan, there lives a very special family – special because they have ten sons who do everything together. Their parents call them their ten little dumplings, as both sons and dumplings are auspicious. But if you look closely, you’ll see that someone else is there, listening, studying, learning and discovering her own talent – a sister. As this little girl grows up in the shadow of her brothers, her determination and persistence help her to create her own path in the world . . . and becomes the wisdom she passes on to her own daughter, her own little dumpling. Based on a short film made by the author, inspired by her father’s family in Taiwan, Ten Little Dumplings looks at some unhappy truths about the place of girls in our world in an accessible, inspiring and hopeful way.

Hey Blondie by Dominic Fike —
The Night in Question by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson

The Night in Question
By Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson
Illustrated by Cindy Wume
416 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593645833 | Delacorte Press
Last October, Alice Ogilvie’s ex-best friend, Brooke Donovan, was killed – and if it weren’t for Alice’s unlikely alliance with her tutor, Iris Adams, and her library of the complete works of Agatha Christie, the wrong person would almost certainly be sitting in prison for the crime. The Castle Cove police aren’t exactly great at solving crimes. In fact, they’re notorious for not solving crimes. Which is why, on the night of Castle Cove High’s annual Sadie Hawkins dance, Alice takes the opportunity to explore Levy Castle – the site of one of Castle Cove’s most infamous deaths. Mona Moody – the classic film star – died there almost a century ago, and Alice is pretty sure the police got that invest­igation wrong, too. But before she can even think about digging deeper, she walks right into the scene of a new crime. Rebecca Kennedy, on the ground in a pool of blood. And standing over Kennedy? Another one of Alice’s ex-friends – Helen Park. The Castle Cove Police Department thinks it’s an open-and-shut case, but Alice and Iris are sure it can’t be that simple. Park isn’t a murderer – and the girls know all too well that in life, and in mysteries, things are rarely what they appear to be. To understand the present, sometimes you need to look to the past. Castle Cove is full of secrets, and Alice and Iris are about to uncover one of its biggest – and most dangerous – secrets of all.

Home by Haim —
Story Boat by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Rashin Kheiryeh

Story Boat
By Kyo Maclear
Illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735263598 | Tundra Books
When a little girl and her younger brother are forced along with their family to flee the home they’ve always known, they must learn to make a new home for themselves – wherever they are. And sometimes the smallest things – a cup, a blanket, a lamp, a flower, a story – can become a port of hope in a terrible storm. As the refugees travel onward toward an uncertain future, they are buoyed up by their hopes, dreams and the stories they tell – a story that will carry them perpetually forward.

What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish —
The Dollhouse by Charis Cotter

The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story
By Charis Cotter
360 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269088 | Tundra Books
Alice’s world is falling apart. Her parents are getting a divorce, and they’ve cancelled their yearly cottage trip – the one thing that gets Alice through the school year. Instead, Alice and her mom are heading to some small town where Alice’s mom will be a live-in nurse to a rich elderly lady. The house is huge, imposing, and spooky, and everything inside is meticulously kept and perfect – not a fun place to spend the summer. Things start to get weird when Alice finds a dollhouse in the attic that’s an exact replica of the house she’s living in. Then she wakes up to find a girl asleep next to her in her bed – a girl who looks a lot like one of the dolls from the dollhouse. . . . When the dollhouse starts to change when Alice isn’t looking, she knows she has to solve the mystery. Who are the girls in the dollhouse? What happened to them? And what is their connection to the mean and mysterious woman who owns the house?

Forever & Again by The Kid Laroi —
Don’t Want to Be Your Monster by Deke Moulton

Don’t Want to Be Your Monster
By Deke Moulton
304 Pages | Ages 10-14 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880494 | Tundra Books
Adam and Victor are brothers who have the usual fights over the remote, which movie to watch and whether or not it’s morally acceptable to eat people. Well, not so much eat . . . just drink a little blood. They’re vampires, hiding in plain sight with their eclectic yet loving family. Ten-year-old Adam knows he has a better purpose in his life (well, immortal life) than just drinking blood, but fourteen-year-old Victor wants to accept his own self-image of vampirism. Everything changes when bodies start to appear all over town, and it becomes clear that a vampire hunter may be on the lookout for the family. Can Adam and Victor reconcile their differences and work together to stop the killer before it’s too late?

Silver Platter by Khalid —
Frankie’s Favorite Food by Kelsey Garrity-Riley

Frankie’s Favorite Food
By Kelsey Garrity-Riley
36 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735264311 | Tundra Books
Frankie has a problem: he has too many favorite foods. He can’t bring himself to choose just one to be for the school play, so on the day of the performance, he’s still without a costume. His teacher comes up with a delicious idea: what if Frankie becomes the Costume Manager? That way, he can parlay his love of all things culinary into the whole production. From adding some last-minute garnishes to helping the rice and beans into their costumes, Frankie shines backstage until he has a brilliant idea and decides to make his debut on the menu as something that combines his love for all his favorite foods . . . In this funny and scrumptiously adorable story, readers will delight in the variety of foods represented and the clever performances full of silly word play and sweet camaraderie. In Kelsey Garrity-Riley’s author-illustrator debut, she shows the joy of food and revels in celebrating the way food can bring people together and inspire creativity.

Angel by PinkPantheress —
Places We’ve Never Been by Kasie West

Places We’ve Never Been
By Kasie West
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593176337 | Ember
Norah hasn’t seen her childhood best friend, Skyler, in years. When he first moved away, they talked all the time, but lately their relationship has been reduced to liking each other’s Instagram posts. That’s why Norah can’t wait for the joint RV road trip their families have planned for the summer. But when Skyler finally arrives, he seems . . . like he’d rather be anywhere else. Hurt and confused, Norah reacts in kind. Suddenly, her oldest friendship is on the rocks. An unexpected summer spent driving across the country leads both Norah and Skyler down new roads and to new discoveries. Before long, they are, once again, seeing each other in a different light. Can their friendship-turned-rivalry turn into something more?

Butterflies by Gayle —
Butterflies Are Pretty . . . Gross! by Rosemary Mosco and illustrated by Jacob Souva

Butterflies Are Pretty . . . Gross!
By Rosemary Mosco
Illustrated by Jacob Souva
36 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735265929 | Tundra Books
Butterflies are beautiful and quiet and gentle and sparkly . . . but that’s not the whole truth. Butterflies can be GROSS. And one butterfly in particular is here to let everyone know! Talking directly to the reader, a monarch butterfly reveals how its kind is so much more than what we think. Did you know some butterflies enjoy feasting on dead animals, rotten fruit, tears, and even poop? Some butterflies are loud, like the Cracker butterfly. Some are stinky – the smell scares predators away. Butterflies can be sneaky, like the ones who pretend to be ants to get free babysitting. This hilarious and refreshing book with silly and sweet illustrations explores the science of butterflies and shows that these insects are not the stereotypically cutesy critters we often think they are – they are fascinating, disgusting, complicated, and amazing creatures.

Choose Your Fighter by Ava Max —
Walking in Two Worlds by Wab Kinew

Walking in Two Worlds
By Wab Kinew
296 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269026 | Penguin Teen Canada
Bugz is caught between two worlds. In the real world, she’s a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe. Feng is a teen boy who has been sent from China to live with his aunt, a doctor on the Rez, after his online activity suggests he may be developing extremist sympathies. Meeting each other in real life, as well as in the virtual world, Bugz and Feng immediately relate to each other as outsiders and as avid gamers. And as their connection is strengthened through their virtual adventures, they find that they have much in common in the real world, too: both must decide what to do in the face of temptations and pitfalls, and both must grapple with the impacts of family challenges and community trauma. But betrayal threatens everything Bugz has built in the virtual world, as well as her relationships in the real world, and it will take all her newfound strength to restore her friendship with Feng and reconcile the parallel aspects of her life: the traditional and the mainstream, the east and the west, the real and the virtual.

Barbie Dreams by Fifty Fifty (feat. Kali) —
Mitford at the Fashion Zoo by Donald Robertson

Mitford at the Fashion Zoo
By Donald Robertson
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780451475428 | Viking BFYR
Mitford the giraffe has always loved fashion and dressing up. It’s been Mitford’s life-long dream to work at the famous fashion magazine COVER. Thanks to its art director, Ace Salmonton, Mitford gets the chance. But not without first jumping through many hoops, thrown by the infamously fabulous editor, Panda Summers. Along the way, Mitford meets Zap Possum, Shark Jakobs, and Mikael Boars, and saves Fashion Week from disaster!

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Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 3

To celebrate the release of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hitting theatres, we’ve paired each song from the Awesome Mix, Vol. 3 to a young adult title for you to enjoy. Happy reading!

Creep (Acoustic) by Radiohead

Kiss & Tell
By Adib Khorram
384 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593325278 | Dial Books
Hunter never expected to be a boy band star, but, well, here he is. He and his band Kiss & Tell are on their first major tour of North America, playing arenas all over the United States and Canada (and getting covered by the gossipy press all over North America as well). Hunter is the only gay member of the band, and he just had a very painful breakup with his first boyfriend – leaked sexts, public heartbreak, and all – and now everyone expects him to play the perfect queer role model for teens. But Hunter isn’t really sure what being the perfect queer kid even means. Does it mean dressing up in whatever The Label tells him to wear for photo shoots and pretending never to have sex? (Unfortunately, yes.) Does it mean finding community among the queer kids at the meet-and-greets after K&T’s shows? (Fortunately, yes.) Does it include a new relationship with Kaivan, the drummer for the band opening for K&T on tour? (He hopes so.) But when The Label finds out about Hunter and Kaivan, it spells trouble – for their relationship, for the perfect gay boy Hunter plays for the cameras, and, most importantly, for Hunter himself.

Crazy on You by Heart

Never Vacation with Your Ex
By Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593326909 | Viking
Seventeen-year-old volleyball star Kaylee Jordan lives a life of player rankings, constant training, and a carefully curated social media full of followers watching to see if she’ll go pro out of high school like her famous mom. Her one refuge, and the thing she looks forward to every summer? The vacation her family spends in Malibu with the Freeman-Yus. This year, there’s only one problem: Kaylee and their son, Dean, dated for the past three months, and Kaylee just unceremoniously dumped him. Hoping to spare them the worst summer ever, Kaylee comes to Dean with her unconventional solution: she’s going to walk him through her rules for getting over an ex. When Dean grudgingly cooperates, Kaylee’s got her work cut out for her. But helping Dean follow her own rules starts becoming difficult when the pressures of Kaylee’s family legacy and perfect life start to feel less like a plan and more like a prison…and amid warm California nights and stolen laughs, Kaylee feels herself falling for Dean for the same reasons and some new ones. With their trip coming to an end, Kaylee has to make the complicated choice between doing what’s expected and taking a (second) chance on love.

Since You Been Gone by Rainbow

Always Isn’t Forever
By J. C. Cervantes
384 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593404485 | Razorbill
Best friends and soul mates since they were kids, Hart Augusto and Ruby Armenta were poised to take on senior year together when Hart tragically drowns in a boating accident. Absolutely shattered, Ruby struggles to move on from the person she knows was her forever love. Hart can’t let go of Ruby either…. Due to some divine intervention, he’s offered a second chance. Only it won’t be as simple as bringing him back to life – instead, Hart’s soul is transferred to the body of local bad boy. When Hart returns to town as Jameson, he realizes that winning Ruby back will be more challenging than he’d imagined. For one, he’s forbidden from telling Ruby the truth. And with each day he spends as Jameson, memories of his life as Hart begin to fade away. Though Ruby still mourns Hart, she can’t deny that something is drawing her to Jameson. As much as she doesn’t understand the sudden pull, it can’t be ignored. And why does he remind her so much of Hart? Desperate to see if the connection she feels is real, Ruby begins to open her heart to Jameson – but will their love be enough to bridge the distance between them?

In the Meantime by Spacehog

Something More
By Jackie Khalilieh
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882139 | Tundra Books
Fifteen-year-old Jessie, a quirky loner obsessed with the nineties, is diagnosed as autistic just weeks before starting high school. Determined to make a fresh start and keep her diagnosis a secret, Jessie creates a list of goals that range from acquiring two distinct eyebrows to getting a magical first kiss and landing a spot in the school play. Within the halls of Holy Trinity High, she finds a world where things are no longer black and white and quickly learns that living in color is much more fun. But Jessie gets more than she bargained for when two very different boys steal her heart, forcing her to go off-script.

Reasons by Earth, Wind, and Fire

French Kissing in New York
By Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593173619 | Delacorte Press
Margot hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Zach, the dreamy American boy she met one magical night in Paris. In an instant, they fell head over heels in love and spent the perfect evening ensemble—sealed with a kiss and a promise: if the universe wants them to be together, fate will find a way. Flash forward one year later: Margot has finished high school and is newly arrived in New York, ready to roll up her chef’s-coat sleeves in Manhattan’s bustling restaurant scene, celebrate her father’s upcoming wedding . . . and reconnect with Zach. But a lot can happen in a year, and promises made in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower look different in the neon glow of the Big Apple. Margot spends the summer desperate to find Zach and enlists the help of Ben, the sweet line cook at her restaurant. Margot is convinced she found her soul mate that night in Paris . . . but what if the universe has a different plan?

Do You Realize?? by The Flaming Lips

Catch the Light
By Kate Sweeney
368 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593350256 | Viking
Nine months after the death of her father, Marigold is forced to pick up and move from sunny Los Angeles all the way across the country to rural Upstate New York. According to her mom, living with her aunt in a big old house in the woods is the fresh start Marigold and her little sister need. But Mary aches for the things she’s leaving behind – her best friend, her older sister, her now-long-distance boyfriend, and the senior year that felt like her only chance at making things feel normal again. On top of everything, Mary has a troubling secret: she’s starting to forget her dad. The void he’s left in her memory is quickly getting filled with bonfires, house parties, and hours in the darkroom with Jesse, a fellow photographer and kindred spirit whom she can’t stop thinking about. As the beauty of Mary’s new world begins to sink in and her connection with Jesse grows stronger, she feels caught between her old life and her new one. Mary might just be losing her grip on the pieces of her life that she’s tried so hard to hold together. When the two finally come crashing together, Mary will have to decide what she really wants and come to terms with the ways that the loss of her dad has changed who she is. Even if she can’t hold on to her past forever, maybe she can choose what to keep.

We Care a Lot by Faith No More

Once Upon a K-Prom
By Kat Cho
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781368066983 | Disney Hyperion
Elena Soo has always felt overshadowed. Whether by her more successful older sisters, her more popular twin brother, or her more outgoing best friend, everyone except Elena seems to know exactly who they are and what they want. But she is certain about one thing – she has no interest in going to prom. While the rest of the school is giddy over corsages and dresses, Elena would rather spend her time working to save the local community center, the one place that’s always made her feel like she belonged. So when international K-pop superstar Robbie Choi shows up at her house to ask her to prom, Elena is more confused than ever. Because the one person who always accepted Elena as she is? Her childhood best friend, Robbie Choi. And the one thing she maybe, possibly, secretly wants more than anything? For the two of them to keep the promise they made each other as kids: to go to prom together. But that was seven years ago, and with this new K-pop persona, pink hair, and stylish clothes, Robbie is nothing like the sweet, goofy boy she remembers. The boy she shared all her secrets with. The boy she used to love. Besides, prom with a guy who comes with hordes of screaming fans, online haters, and relentless paparazzi is the last thing Elena wants – even if she can’t stop thinking about Robbie’s smile…right?

Koinu no Carnival (from ‘Minute Waltz’) by EHAMIC

Borrow My Heart
By Kasie West
288 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593643259 | Delacorte Press
Wren is used to being called a control freak. She doesn’t care; sticking to the list of rules she created for herself helps her navigate life. But when a cute guy named Asher walks through the door of her neighborhood coffee shop, the rulebook goes out the window. Asher is cute, charming . . . and being catfished by his online crush. So Wren makes an uncharacteristically impulsive decision—she pretends to be the girl he’s waiting for to save him from embarrassment. Suddenly she’s fake-dating a boy she knows nothing about. And it’s . . . amazing. It’s not long before Asher has her breaking even more of her own rules. But will he forgive her when he finds out she’s not who she says she is? Wren’s not so sure. . . . After all, rules exist for a reason.

I’m Always Chasing Rainbows by Alice Cooper

Good As Gold
By Candace Buford
320 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781368090254 | Disney Hyperion
Casey’s life in Langston has been charmed. She’s the queen bee of her prep school, a shoe-in for prom queen, and on her way to the Ivy League come fall. She can’t wait to leave the whole town of Langston behind her. That is until her father loses his job and she finds herself on the brink of losing her ticket out of town. The town of Langston is known for its picturesque lake and robust summer tourism. Everyone who lives in town has heard the rumors at some point – there is a treasure buried deep below the surface that no one has ever been able to find. Few people actually believe in the treasure, and even fewer have searched for it. But some have tried . . . Suddenly an outcast from her popular squad, Casey falls in with a new group of friends who are exactly the opposite of her usual crowd, but are more accepting. Together they devise a plan to find the elusive treasure, in a quest to get the money and save Casey’s family and her future. But what they find is much more complicated than just a pile of gold. With thrilling twists and turns and high stakes adventure, fans of Outer Banks will devour this summer adventure.

San Francisco by The Mowgli’s

You Bet Your Heart
By Danielle Parker
320 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593565278 | Joy Revolution
Sasha Johnson-Sun might not know everything—like how to fully heal after her dad’s passing or how many more Saturdays her mom can spend cleaning houses. But the one thing Sasha is certain of? She will graduate this year as Skyline High’s class valedictorian. At least, she was sure before the principal calls Sasha and her cute, effortlessly gifted ex–best friend, Ezra Davis-Goldberg, into his office to deliver earth-shattering news: they’re tied for valedictorian and the scholarship attached… This outcome can’t be left to chance. So, Sasha and Ezra agree on a best-of-three, winner-take-all academic bet. As they go head-to-head, they are forced not only to reexamine why they drifted apart but also to figure out who they’ve become since. With her future hanging in the balance, Sasha must choose: honor her family’s sacrifices by winning (at all costs) or give her heart a shot at finding happiness?

Poor Girl by X

You’d Be Home Now
By Kathleen Glasgow
416 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780525708070 | Ember
For all of Emory’s life she’s been told who she is. In town she’s the rich one – the great-great-granddaughter of the mill’s founder. At school she’s hot Maddie Ward’s younger sister. And at home, she’s the good one, her stoner older brother Joey’s babysitter. Everything was turned on its head, though, when she and Joey were in the car accident that killed Candy MontClaire. The car accident that revealed just how bad Joey’s drug habit was. Four months later, Emmy’s junior year is starting, Joey is home from rehab, and the entire town of Mill Haven is still reeling from the accident. Everyone’s telling Emmy who she is, but so much has changed, how can she be the same person? Or was she ever that person at all? Mill Haven wants everyone to live one story, but Emmy’s beginning to see that people are more than they appear. Her brother, who might not be “cured,” the popular guy who lives next door, and most of all, many “ghostie” addicts who haunt the edges of the town. People spend so much time telling her who she is–it might be time to decide for herself. A journey of one sister, one brother, one family, to finally recognize and love each other for who they are, not who they are supposed to be, You’d Be Home Now is Kathleen Glasgow’s glorious and heartbreaking story about the opioid crisis, and how it touches all of us.

This Is the Day by The The

A Scatter of Light
By Malinda Lo
336 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780525555285 | Dutton
Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends – one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother’s gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost becomes unforgettable – for Aria, her family, and the working-class queer community Steph introduces her to. It’s the kind of summer that changes a life forever.

No Sleep Till Brooklyn by Beastie Boys

The Isle of the Gods
By Amie Kaufman
464 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593479285 | Knopf Books for Young Readers
Selly has salt water in her veins. So when her father leaves her high and dry in the port of Kirkpool, she has no intention of riding out the winter at home while he sails off to adventure. But any plans to follow him are dashed when a handsome stranger with tell-tale magician’s marks on his arm commandeers her ship. He is Prince Leander of Alinor and he needs to cross the Crescent Sea without detection so he can complete a ritual on the sacred Isles of the Gods. Selly has no desire to escort a spoiled prince anywhere, and no time for his entitled demands or his good looks. But what starts as a leisure cruise will lead to acts of treason and sheer terror on the high seas, bringing two countries to the brink of war, two strangers closer than they ever thought possible and stirring two dangerous gods from centuries of slumber…

Dog Days Are Over by Florence + the Machine

A Spark in the Cinders
By Jenny Elder Moke
368 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781368039918 | Disney Hyperion
The story has reached it’s happily ever after, the peasant girl has married her prince and become queen, all is well in the kingdom… But for Aralyn, the princesses stepsister, the story is only just beginning. The kingdom of Novador has had a streak of misfortunes, with drought, famine, and disease plaguing the lands. According to a prophecy, restoring an ancient magical artifact – the Protector’s Blade – is the only thing that can pull the kingdom back from the brink of destruction. With inside information from her fairy godmother, Aralyn teams up with lady knight Vee to go questing for the shattered pieces of the blade that have been scattered to the furthest reached of Novador. To win each element of the dagger, the girls must prove themselves by using their strengths to conquer their greatest fear. Aralyn uses wisdom, Vee physical prowess, and Queen Ellarose who is ruling the kingdom, uses benevolence. Together, these three powerful women fight to take their place as the rightful heirs to the kingdom.

Badlands by Bruce Springsteen

The Family Fortuna
By Lindsay Eagar
400 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780763692353 | Candlewick
Beaked. Feathered. Monstrous. Avita was born to be a star. Her tent sells out nightly, and every performance incites bloodcurdling screams. She’s the most lucrative circus act from Texas to Tacoma, the crown jewel of the Family Fortuna, and Avita feeds on the shrieks, the gasps, the fear. But when a handsome young artist arrives to create posters of the performers, she’s appalled by his rendering of Bird Girl. Is that all he sees? A hideous monster – all sharp beak and razor teeth, obsidian eyes and ruffled feathers? Determined to be more, Avita devises a plan to snatch freedom out from under the greased mustache of her charismatic father, the domineering proprietor and ringmaster. But will their fragile circus family survive the showdown she has in mind? By turns delightful and disturbing, bawdy and breathtaking, horrific and heartfelt, this electric and exquisitely crafted story about a family like no other challenges our every notion of what it means to be different – subject to an earful of screams – and to step out of the shadows and shine anyway.

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Tundra Telegram: Books That Have Books Inside of Them

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we thumb through readers’ minds and suggest some spine-tingling texts that might serve as an index for their interests.

Today – March 2 – is National Read Across America Day. Established by the National Education Association (NEA) in 1998 to help get kids excited about reading, the day happens each year on March 2, as it’s also the birthday of children’s book author Dr. Seuss (!). As children’s publishers, this is a day we can get behind, even if we happen to be located north of America.

To celebrate, we’re recommending some children’s books about books – the magic, the wonder, the (sometimes) danger (!). These are books that concern books, reading, writing, and libraries (where so much of that all happens). Wherever possible (or known), we’ve included where the book takes place, so you can think about reading across America geographically, if so inclined. Let’s get meta with some books about books!

PICTURE BOOKS

Who loves books more than librarians? And Library Girl by Karen Henry Clark and Sheryl Murray tells the story of one America’s most famous librarians: Nancy Pearl. Pearl, teased as “library girl” as a child by her classmates, believed in the power of the book and grew up to become the Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library. She spoke (and still speaks) regularly about books on NPR’s Morning Edition and KWGS-FM in Tulsa, Oklahoma, not to mention her monthly television show on the Seattle Channel, Book Lust with Nancy Pearl. (You can put this one down as “Seattle, Washington” on your book map.)

Speaking of famous librarians, we need to mention Arturo Schomburg, an unheralded figure in American letters. You can read his story in Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford and Eric Velasquez. Schomburg was a law clerk who, starting during the Harlem Renaissance, began to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora. When his collection started to overflow his living space, he turned to the New York Public Library, where he created and curated a collection that is now known as Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. (This book takes place in New York, New York.)

And though The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians by Carla Morris and Brad Sneed is not about any real librarians, it remains a tribute to the important work they do. The book follows a curious young boy, Melvin, who visits the library every day after school to visit his favorite people — Marge, Betty, and Leola — at the reference desk.

More generally about libraries (and the many forms they can take) is the nonfiction book My Librarian Is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs. In North America, many kids are able to visit a building in their city or town to get books, but in many remote areas of the world, librarians have to get creative. In this book, you can read about library books delivered by bus, boat, elephant, donkey, train, even by wheelbarrow. This book is a testament to the importance of access to books.

The Little Library by Margaret McNamara and G. Brian Karas is a book in the Mr. Tiffin Classroom Series about the creative way that one librarian instills a love of reading. Everyone in Mr. Tiffin’s class loves books except Jake, a slow and careful reader who can take a long time to finish a book. When the librarian notices Jake running his fingers across a brand-new bookshelf she offers him Woodworking for Young Hands, which becomes his favorite book and inspires a project: making a little free library at the school!

You can find books at the library, but you can also find them at your local independent bookseller. And Good Night, Little Bookstore by Amy Cherrix and E. B. Goodale is a bedtime book that celebrates indie bookstores. What makes it especially fitting for the list is all the little books you can see illustrated on the shelves – you can spend hours looking at all the titles! ( The location is not noted, but author Cherrix works at Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina.)

In the realm of writing books (after reading a lot of them), come two picture book biographies by Linda Bailey: Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein, illustrated by Júlia Sardà, and Arthur Who Wrote Sherlock, illustrated by Isabelle Follath. Both books look at the childhoods of great writers – Mary Shelley and Arthur Conan Doyle – and how the stories they read (or were told) informed their own writing of immensely influential books.

It doesn’t get much more metafiction than The Book in the Book in the Book by Julien Baer and Simon Bailly. Having wandered off from his vacationing family, young Thomas is a little bit lost and looking for something interesting when he finds an abandoned book on the beach. As Thomas opens up the little book, so does the reader! Through a feat of book engineering, a second booklet is bound into the first one, and then a third booklet into the second. Each successive volume is smaller than the previous one, while the closing pages return to the original book’s size as well as its setting. (My head just hurts thinking of the production costs.)

If you’re confused as to whether literature can be only spiritually or maybe literally nourishing, there are two similar books for you: Books Aren’t For Eating by Carlie Sorosiak and Manu Montoya, and Library Books Are NOT For Eating by Todd Tarpley and Tom Booth. Though one features a bookstore owner who happens to be a goat (and faces a crisis when he needs to recommend a book to a goat customer), and the other features a dinosaur who is a teacher with a book-eating problem, their message is the same: don’t eat books that don’t belong to you. (If you want to eat your own books, that’s your call. We just want you to buy them.)

For a fun book about the joys (and challenges) of reading, try Daisy Hirst’s I Do Not Like Books Anymore! Natalie and Alphonse, monster siblings (previously seen in Alphonse, There’s Mud on the Ceiling!) love books of all kinds – when their parents are reading them. But when Natalie tries to learn to read books on her own, she finds it incredibly frustrating. She decides she’s still going to write stories (with Alphonse’s help), just not read them. (Sounds like some authors we know.) Somehow, Natalie must find a way to turn her love of telling stories into a love of reading stories, too.

In the same genre of not wanting to read, author Max Greenfield (Schmidt from The New Girl) and illustrator Mike Lowery have you covered. With both I Don’t Want to Read This Book and the forthcoming I Don’t Want to Read This Book Aloud – not to mention This Book Is Not a Present – they talk to reluctant readers of all stripes and inspire a lot of laughs (and maybe some reading bravery?).

Only one other picture book speaks honestly to the dangers of reading: Get Me Out of This Book by Deborah Cholette and Kalli Dakos, illustrated by Sara Infante. Starring a bookmark named Max, it outlines all the scary things that might appear in a book (snakes, skeletons, who knows what else?), but also some rules and tools you can use to face those fears, whether they appear in writing or in real life!

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Evie and the Truth About Witches by John Martz is another book that doesn’t shy away from the risks involved in reading. Evie loves reading scary books, but her usual scary stories just aren’t doing it for her anymore. When she stumbles across a different book, The Truth about Witches, she hopes she’s found a new horrific fix, but she’s promptly forbidden by a kindly shopkeeper from reading the last page out loud! Obviously, no shopkeeper is going to stop her, and witchy dangers ensue!

An understated danger of reading is it might lead to detention. That’s what happens in The Losers Club by Andrew Clements – or at least detention is what sixth-grade book lover Alec is threatened with after repeated instances of him reading a book (instead of paying attention in class). So, Alec starts a school club just for reading of which he intends to be the sole member. But scads of kids soon find their way to Alec’s club – including his ex-friend turned bully and the girl Alec is maybe starting to like – and Alec realizes lots of people like books (and that certainly doesn’t make them losers).

Beloved animal friends Houndsley and Catina get their own book fix in James Howe and Marie-Louise Gay’s Houndsley and Catina at the Library. Or at least, that’s their plan until they find – horror of horrors – their library is closing! Trixie, the head librarian is retiring, and faced with certain closure, the animal friends try their own paw at library science.

A dog and cat saving the library is one thing, but what about an insect? The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library by Linda Bailey and Victoria Jamieson tells the tale of a shiny green bug named Eddie, who – inspired by the brave animals and insects he’s read about in books (Charlotte, Stuart Little, etc) – devises a plan to keep a struggling library open.

June Harper, the main character of Property of the Rebel Librarian by Allison Varnes, essentially sets up her own local chapter of Read Across America when she starts an underground reading movement in defiance of a massive book ban at her middle-school. It’s hard to read across America when you can’t access the books you might want to read – never forget that!

A lot of young readers find libraries fun, but there’s one book series that turns them into a combination of amusement park and world’s best escape room. The Mr. Lemoncello’s Library series by Chris Grabenstein follow Kyle Keeley and friends as they attempt to solve the increasingly elaborate library-based games and puzzles of Luigi Lemoncello, the world’s most famous game maker. The first book, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, begins with Kyle and friends as they attempt to escape from a new Lemoncello-designed library after its overnight opening party. The group continues to take on challenges from the enigmatic (and literary-minded) puzzle master in later editions. (The books take place in the fictional town of Alexandriaville in the very real state of Ohio.)

The Bookshop of Dust and Dreams by Mindy Thompson wears its faith in the (literal) magic of art and literature on its sleeve. Poppy’s family owns the magic bookshop Rhyme and Reason, which is situated in WWII New York, but caters to customers from around the world and from the past and future. When her older brother threatens to break the most important rule among magic Booksellers, Poppy is caught in an impossible situation and – like every other week it seems – the fate of the bookshops hangs in the balance.

We’ve talked a lot about reading books and curating books in a library or store, but what about writing one? That’s what happens in Susin Nielsen’s The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen – and, as you might expect from the title, it’s not voluntary. Thirteen-year-old Henry’s happy, ordinary life comes to an abrupt halt when his family is shattered by a devastating incident. In a new city, where no one knows his family’s past, Henry is encouraged to keep a journal by his new therapist. Writing helps him unlock past grief and anger, and he begins to open up again. And it’s much funnier than we’re making it sound here. (This one takes place in frequent Susin Nielsen setting, Vancouver, British Columbia.)

Though The Book That No One Wanted to Read by Richard Ayoade (yes, that Richard Ayoade) doesn’t come out until March 14, we had to include it for its look into the psyche of a book. The book is narrated by the book itself (following me?), and it has a lot of opinions about how it should be read. It gets irritated when readers bend its pages back, and it finds authors quite annoying. (Same.) And no one has deigned to read it until you, young reader, start to flip through its pages (but not too harshly, we hope).

What about an adventure set in a universe that was definitively within a book? That’s the concept behind Scott Reintgen’s Talespinners series, in which an ambitious side character, Indira Story, travels to the travel to the city of Fable and attend Protagonist Preparatory, a school where famous literary characters train kids to become successful characters in their own stories. The books, of which there are three – Saving Fable, Escaping Ordinary, and Breaking Badlands – are full of literary references and book jokes: there are anthropomorphic bookmarks and laborers who mine for story nuggets for meta-textual hilarity.

YOUNG ADULT

Though all of Ashley Poston’s Once Upon a Con books could qualify for this list, The Bookish and the Beast is the most book-related. (It’s even in the title!) A new take on Beauty and the Beast, it follows book lover Rosie Thorne, feeling stuck in life in her small town after her mother’s death – and especially after having to sell off her late mother’s library of rare Starfield novels. Hollywood star Vance Reigns, hiding out from a scandal, winds up in the same small town, but it seems unlikely romance will blossom, given Vance doesn’t read. (Remember what John Waters says, friends.)

We all love books, but we don’t endorse stealing them. That is, unless this is YA phenomenon The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, because in this perennial bestseller, Liesel, a foster girl / subsistence thief living in Nazi Germany, encounters hope in something new: books. With the help of her foster father, she learns to read and shares newly stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man they hide in her basement. (This book takes place just outside of Munich, Bavaria, in Germany.)

And if you want to talk about the power of books, how about a magical Library of All Things, where people can reverse their fates? That’s what Princess Amrita searches for in Aditi Khorana’s The Library of Fates, after her kingdom is besieged by the violent Emperor Sikander and she finds herself a fugitive in her own lands. We all know a library can be a sanctuary and change lives, but this is next-level!

Many of us have carried a bag that says something like “I Love Libraries,” but few of us have actually fallen in love with librarians. Okay, maybe all of us have, but few of those librarians turned out to be evil! Enter Michelle Knudsen’s darkly funny Evil Librarian, in which Cynthia’s best friend falls in love with a super-hot and young high school librarian who just happens to be a demon. The entire student body is threatened by this bibliophilic babe, and Cynthia has to become an expert demon hunter while also making sure the school musical goes off without a hitch.

For a more wholesome (or, at least, less demonic) love story set against a backdrop of books, there’s Rachel Cohn and David Levithan’s Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares. Not only does it begin in a bookstore, it also features a titular red notebook in which young Dash and Lily flirt and communicate with each other via a series of challenges before they ever meet in the flesh. Pitching woo through books – is there anything else that a book lover wants? (Like with Schomburg, this one takes place in New York City.)

But books aren’t just good for romancing. They are also good for solving crimes. Case in point: The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson. Unlikely duo Alice Ogilve and her tutor Iris Adams use the complete works of mystery writer Agatha Christie to help them find out what happened to missing classmate (and Alice’s ex-best friend) Brooke Donovan, and uncover dark secrets in their fictional town of Castle Cove. (Stay tuned, as there are more Agathas mysteries coming.)

And our final YA book about books is the anthology The Book That Made Me, edited by Judith Ridge. In 32 personal essays, authors like Shaun Tan and Markus Zusak and Randa Abdel-Fattah write about the books that affected and inspired them most as young readers. Who knows? Maybe one is even a book about books. Which would make this a book about a books about books …

Happy Read Across America Day. Wherever you may be, make sure to spend some time reading across it!

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Tundra Telegram: Books That Blue Us Away

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we run through the issues giving readers grief, and suggest a few books for reading AND weeping.

Since 2005, people have acknowledged “Blue Monday.” (Celebrate is not exactly what we’d say happens.) The third Monday of January was given that name by a UK travel company, since they had allegedly calculated it as the most depressing day of the year. (One can assume they hoped to inspire some January travel to combat said blues.) Relatedly, “Blue Monday,” the song by New Order, has been acknowledged since 1983 to be a serious banger.

Whether there is any basis for “Blue Monday” being the saddest date on the calendar – many mental health professionals have dismissed it as pseudoscience – we nevertheless felt it’s never a bad time to recommend some books for all ages that discuss sadness, grief, and clinical depression. (Though, as a content warning, we should note many of the YA books, in particular, feature frank depictions of mental illness, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.) That said, let’s wallow in some great books about being blue.

PICTURE BOOKS

The titular ursine friend in Cecile Metzger’s Invisible Bear is not necessarily sad or depressed (per se), but he does spend his days alone in his quiet, colorless home in a forgotten place, where no one comes to visit him. That is, he does until the colorful Madam Odette bursts into his life as a friendly neighbor and both their lives are forever changed for the better.

The Pink Umbrella by Amélie Callot and Geneviève Godbout is similarly about the transformative power of friendship over sadness. Café owner Adele finds the care that she gives her customers and community is returned when she finds herself in the midst of (emotionally and physically) rainy days. One café customer helps her find the sun during a period of severe gray weather.

There are many metaphors for sadness – lack of color, rainy days. And in What’s Up, Maloo? by skipper of sadness Geneviève Godbout, it’s a kangaroo who loses his hop. Maloo the kangaroo starts stepping everywhere instead. His animal pals look for ways to help Maloo to un-stop the hop, and find patience and support can help get a bounce back.

Some say grief is love persevering, which is a beautiful analogy. But for the purposes of this list, grief is a deep sorrow, usually caused by a great loss. A Garden of Creatures by Sheila Heti and Esmé Shapiro is a tender and moving picture book about a great loss and the big questions it poses. Featuring a little bunny and cat whose friend, a big bunny, passes away, the book is a perfect read for anyone struggling with grief and a non-traditional meditation on death that offers tranquility.

Grief is also at the heart of Rodney Was a Tortoise by Nan Forler and Yong Ling Kang, a book that perfectly captures the sorrow of losing a pet. But as devastating as Bernadette’s loss of her dear friend Rodney is, the book shows the importance of expressing kindness and empathy, especially when people are experiencing some of life’s most trying moments.

Completing our grief picture book trilogy is Many Shapes of Clay: A Story of Healing by Kenesha Sneed. Eisha’s mother helps her make a special shape out of clay that reminds her of her father. But as her day goes on, the piece of clay hardens and then eventually shatters into pieces when Eisha bumps into it. Eisha has to live with the loss, and work to make something new out of what is left behind. This is a very subtle book about grief, as well as a book about the joys and pain of the creative process.

Kids don’t always know what to do with their sadness, nor do the adults in their lives know how to respond. The Rabbit Listened by Cory Doerrfeld has lessons in sadness for all ages. Young Taylor doesn’t know who to talk to when feeling sad. All the animals Taylor approaches have their own reactions – they want to talk, they want to get angry. But only the rabbit, who simply listens, can provide Taylor with any comfort.

Eva Eland’s When Sadness Is at Your Door is similar, but suggests young readers treat a feeling of sadness as if it were a guest. Sadness – especially when it lasts a long time – can be confusing and overwhelming. This book suggests you give your sadness a name, maybe do some activities to do with it, like sitting quietly, drawing, or going outside for a walk. This is an excellent book that helps separate sadness from the self, and eschews the idea of “getting over it” or that sadness is, in itself, inherently bad.

And once you finish that, you can read the follow up, Where Happiness Begins, that anthropomorphizes happiness in the same fashion. The book gives happiness a shape, and show readers where they might find it (though it can be elusive).

Being sad or depressed can be a heavy emotion. And Whimsy’s Heavy Things by Julie Kraulis is about a young girl whose things keep weighing her down. Whether she tries to sweep them under the rug or set them out to sea, they keep returning to trip her up. Only by dealing with her heavy things one at a time does Whimsy’s fortune change.

A Shelter for Sadness by Anne Booth and David Litchfield also looks at depression through a figurative lens, and shares some similarities with Eva Eland’s work. In it, a boy creates a shelter for his sadness so that he can visit it whenever he needs to, and the two of them can cry, talk, or just sit. The book views sadness as something that needs to be tended and cared for as much as any friend.

Rachel Tomlinson and Tori-Jay Mordey’s A Blue Kind of Day is less fanciful and more straightforward in its depiction of childhood depression. Coen is depressed and his family members all think they know the way to cheer him up. But (like The Rabbit) only when they begin to listen can they hear what Coen needs as support.

While there are many emotions depicted in Big Feelings by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman – anger, fear, glee, anxiety – sadness is certainly one of the stars of the emotional show. And the adorable kids from the class first seen in All Are Welcome navigate their emotions together, partially by trying to empathize and see multiple points of view.

Finally, Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond and Daniel Minter may not be about sadness or depressions, but Blue Monday is a perfect opportunity to recommend this fascinating cultural history of the color blue. From Afghan painters grinding sapphire rocks to the slave trade’s connections to the demand for indigo pigment and the ways blue jeans are worn, Blue will make you think twice about what colors mean.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Susin Nielsen’s No Fixed Address is a very funny book that deals with some difficult issues. Felix is a twelve-year-old kid who lives in a camper van with his mom and has a knack for trivia. While the book chronicles his quest to hide his family’s poverty and compete on a national quiz show to earn them a windfall, it also documents his mother Astrid’s struggles with depression and how their poverty affects how she manages, looking at the economic contributors to mental health.

Natalie in The Science of Breakable Things by Tae Keller also has a mom with depression. And while Felix thinks winning a quiz show will solve most of his problems, Natalie leans into an egg drop competition for similar reasons. With the prize money, she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids – flowers that survive against impossible odds – and bring some hope into her life. The novel is a great read for any kid trying to grasp the nuances of depression and loneliness, especially in a parent or guardian.

Laura Tucker’s All the Greys on Greene Street also features a depressed mother – in this case it’s Olympia’s mother, who falls into a deep funk after Olympia’s father, an antique painting restorer, mysteriously leaves in the middle of the night. Olympia’s mom’s depression is depicted with honesty and sensitivity, and the book looks at family, friendship, and art – all set in 1981 Soho, New York City.

But – as you probably know – it’s not just parents who have depression. And Dunkin Dorfman, one half of the titular duo in Donna Gephart’s Lily and Dunkin, is a thirteen-year-old new in town with bipolar disorder. His best friend is a trans girl and together, they’re going to do their best to survive school, despite the odds stacked against them.

Lucy’s mother in Chasing the Milky Way by Erin E. Moulton also has bipolar disorder, and Lucy finds it a challenge in her efforts to become a world-famous robotics scientist. But despite her frustration, Lucy and her baby sister Izzy will go to great lengths to protect the mother they love in a empathetic portrayal of manic depression.

Delsie in Shouting at the Rain by Lynda Mullaly Hunt does not, as far as readers know, have bipolar disorder or depression, but she is having one cruel summer in Cape Cod. She’s dealing with the loss of a best friend, bullying, and her absent mother. But in time, Delsie learns to live with gratitude and in a way that helps others respond in positive ways.

YOUNG ADULT

Nothing is more emo than YA, so obviously there are tons of great novels that delve into sadness and depression. Exhibit A: The Year After You by Nina De Pass, in which Cara is consumed by grief and survivor’s guilt after she survives a tragic accident on New Year’s Eve – but her friend does not. Months later, at a boarding school in Switzerland where no one knows the accident happened, new classmates Ren and Hector try to break through the walls Cara has built and help her begin to forgive herself.

Do you need another novel about a young woman trying to outrun tragedy in her past written by someone named ‘Nina’? Try We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, a moving portrait of loss and loneliness, which one GoodReads reviewer said had her crying “in a park while staring into the unsympathetic rodent eyes of a squirrel hiding nuts for the winter.” Sounds perfect.

Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow is a difficult book that looks at self-harm, one method many teens sadly use to handle their grief and sadness. And protagonist Charlie’s life is filled with traumas – a dead father, abusive mother, life on the street – that can be hard to read, but her journey to put herself back together and find new outlets for her grief is inspiring.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (which is now also a movie!) is a romance between two very sad (read – trigger warning – suicidal) teens, dealing respectively with deep grief or bipolar disorder. But when Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the school’s bell tower, it’s unclear who saves whom. Together, they decide to discover the natural wonders of their state of Indiana and give them reasons to live – finding they can really be themselves with each other. But how long can that feeling last?

There’s a similar journey to an unknown land in Home Home by Lisa Allen-Agostini: Kayla is sent to Canada (!) from Trinidad to live with an estranged aunt after she is hospitalized for depression. Her mother sees it as the only solution (someone didn’t read When Sadness Is At Your Door!) and Kayla finds herself in the cold and confusing North. But Canada – in addition to frozen landscapes and Tim Hortons iced capps – also could feature the chance at a family that loves unconditionally, some new friends, and the promise of a hopeful future.

Julia in Erika L. Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a teenager moving through the grief of losing her older sister – the perfect daughter her parents had all their hopes pinned upon. Not only must she deal with her own devastation, she finds her mother is channeling her grief into criticizing her for all the ways she is not like her dead sister.

For a book about depression and – in particular – intergenerational mental illness, readers should check out How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox. Biz, who lost her dad when she was seven, has begun seeing her dad again. But she keeps this information – along with her many dark thoughts – from everyone in her life, so she seems like she’s just floating along, totally fine. Biz slowly begins to come undone, but the book explores the beautiful places loss can sometimes take people and how – ultimately – to return to the world.

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram documents a nerdy Persian American who never feels like he’s enough, as he takes his first-ever trip to Iran. He feels out of sorts, and his clinical depression is hard for him to explain to his grandparents. But things start to look up when he meets a sweet boy next door, Sohrab.

Not only is the content of Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker profoundly emo – the soundtrack is, too! One of the funnier novels about depression, the book features a seventeen-year-old Black girl in mostly white suburbia dealing with clinical depression (largely through listening to Sunny Day Real Estate).

Many of Heather Smith’s bittersweet novels have their moments of intense sadness, but we wanted to limit ourselves to one. That one book is The Agony of Bun O’Keefe, mainly because “agony” is in the title. But also, we love the 1980s Newfoundland setting and the found family Bun discovers after leaving her solitary life in an unsafe house – though those found family members she ends up rooming with all have their sad tales to tell, as well.

Unhappy reading, friends!

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Tundra Telegram: Books for a New Start

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we run through the issues streaming through readers’ minds, and suggest some books that will succeed in keeping you reading.

It’s a brand-new year, and what better way is there to start 2023 than with a new book series! Luckily for you readers, there were many books published in 2022 that have a sequel (or sequels!) coming this year. If you’re keen to hop into a new duology, trilogy, quadrilogy, or ongoing series, we have options for you for every category and genre.

So take a chance on something new and dive into a new saga. New year, new series!

PICTURE BOOKS

A curious cockroach first met readers this past year in Maggie Hutchings and Felicita Sala’s Your Birthday Was the Best!, in which the friendly insect crashes a kid’s party with hilarious (and sometimes stomach-churning results). That cockroach will be back in 2023, joining his hapless human child friend to class in Your School Is the Best! – and this time, he’s brought the whole family!

Speaking of school, Our Classroom Rules! by Kallie George and Jay Fleck brings back the good-natured forest creatures from 2022’s Our Playground Rules! to talk about kindness and community in the classroom – and how a few simple empathetic “rules” can make school a cool place for everyone to be.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

The year 2023 will be a big one for graphic novel series for the youngest readers. Maureen Fergus and Alexandra Bye’s rollicking pet comedy series Weenie featuring Frank & Beans will chase 2022’s Mad about Meatloaf with more food fun in The Pancake Problem. Whereas in the first book, dachshund Weenie conscripted his cat and guinea pig friends (Frank and Beans) in his quixotic quest to obtain some meatloaf, this book sees the trio battling a malfunctioning machine that makes flapjacks.

Comic readers and 80’s nostalgia fans were delighted by the return of Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield in graphic novel form last year with Sweet Valley Twins: Best Friends by Francine Pascal, Nicole Andelfinger,and Claudia Aguirre. They were a bit younger (now in middle-school), but dealing with those same school and sisterly concerns. In 2023’s Sweet Valley Twins: Teacher’s Pet, Elizabeth and Jessica take a page from Center Stage and find themselves competing for the leading role in their dance class.

Mason Dickerson’s Housecat Trouble was a true joy for cat lovers in 2022, as it featured a house with three cats – Buster, Nova, and Chauncey – some invisible spirits (that explains a lot, if you know cats) and tons of feline hijinks. Housecat Trouble: Lost and Found has our trio of cat friends discover a lost cat who may or may not be … a ghost? Spooky (but still adorable)!

For more of the creepy stuff, readers have Spooky Sleuths, a series begun in 2022 by Natasha Deen and Lissy Marlin in which friends Asim and Rokshar investigate strange phenomena in their town, X-Files-style. Rokshar, ever the skeptic, believes the paranormal activity can be explained by science, but Asim is not so sure, given how closely the events match Guyanese ghost stories. In 2023, readers have two new adventures to look forward to: Spooky Sleuths: Don’t Go Near the Water! and Spooky Sleuths: Fire in the Sky.

In the same creep-tastic vein is Kiersten White’s Sinister Summer series, in which the Sinister-Winterbottom siblings visit increasingly questionable summer vacation spots and end up solving a few mysteries along the way. This year will see the Sinister-Winterbottoms visiting an eerily normal summer camp where nothing is what it seems in Camp Creepy and far more bizarre science camp at the manor of Mr. Frank and Dr. Stein in Menacing Manor.

While the Sinister-Winterbottom siblings often encounter creepy circumstances, Travis Nichols’ The Terribles are kids who are literal monsters: a vampire, alien, mummy, kaiju and more. Plus, they all live on an island called Creep’s Cove (which could be the title of a Sinister Summer book). 2022’s The Terribles: Welcome to Stubtoe Elementary introduced readers to the monster gang and included a slew of comics, charts, and fun activities. A Witch’s Last Resort, out later this year, introduces a new witch and chronicles a class election for next school overlord!

For the geeks, 2022 also had much to celebrate, including T.P. Jagger’s new series Hide and Geek, in which the GEEKs (Gina, Edgar, Elena, and Kevin) – four nerdy lifelong friends – solve a cryptic puzzle left by a famous toymaker in an attempt to save their town. Spoiler alert: they succeed, but a blogger begins casting doubt on their puzzle-solving powers. So the GEEKs saddle up again to take on another tremendous treasure hunt in The Treasure Test.

If reading about a group of four kids sounds appealing, but video games are more your thing, Player vs. Player: Ultimate Gaming Showdown by M.K. England and Chris Danger (!) might be your bag. Four kid gamers (“The Weird Ones”) take on 63 other teams in an epic tournament of Affinity, a battle-royale-style game. This year, Player vs. Player: Attack of the Bots brings back the kid games, now gone pro and with their own streaming channel. Only one problem: one-fourth of their crew – Wheatley – has gone missing!

While the Mapmakers graphic novels by Cameron Chittock and Amanda Castillo might sound like a young reader’s intro to cartography, Mapmakers and the Lost Magic actually introduces fans to a group of magical protectors long thought lost, until Alidade finds a secret door that leads to Blue, a magical creature called a memri who may help her protect the Valley from the merciless Night Coats. 2023’s Mapmakers and the Enchanted Mountain has Alidade and her allies ready to restore magic to the rest of the world outside the Valley – starting with a hidden Mountain village.

YOUNG ADULT

Winnipeg politician and author Wab Kinew’s The Floraverse began in 2022 with Walking in Two Worlds, where readers met Bugz, an Indigenous girl living on the Rez who happens to be a dominant player in a massive multiplayer online game called (what else?) the Floraverse. The Everlasting Road (which hit stores just this week!) follows Bugz’s adventures in the ‘Verse, as she builds a weapon and virtual friend Waawaate, who fills the hole left by the death of her brother – with, as you might expect, problematic results.

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud introduced YA readers to an unforgettable duo of fugitives – one with the power to read minds, one with a way with weapons – running for their lives in a future England. The follow-up to the slam-bang, action-packed intro, The Notorious Scarlett and Browne, out later this year, brings the pair of renegades back. This time, they have to save their friends, who have been taken hostage, via a mission nothing short of impossible!

And The Night in Question by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson continues the adventures of Castle Cove’s mystery solving odd couple – Alice Ogilvie and Iris Adams – first seen in The Agathas. After cracking the case of Brooke Donovan’s death, the pair dig into a violent assault at their school dance which seems to be connected to the unsolved death at the same site of a film starlet decades prior.