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!

Tundra Telegram: Books That May Be Bad, But Are Perfectly Good At It

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we’re unapologetic about recommending books for topics that readers have on the brain.

This weekend, one of the world’s largest sporting events will be held. And every year, that sporting event features an intermission that boasts some of the biggest, most elaborate musical performances of the year (sometimes even overshadowing the game). This tradition goes back to the 1990s, when record-breaking musicians took over the intermission from marching bands.

This Sunday, February 12, Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman Rihanna will perform this show, so we’ve gone through our library of children’s and YA titles to suggest some perfect book pairings to match your favorite Rihanna single. Sit back and relax; we’re about to talk that talk.

PICTURE BOOKS

Umbrella“: The color of the brolly in Rihanna’s hit single isn’t described (because it’s largely metaphorical), but The Pink Umbrella by Amelie Callot and Geneviève Godbout matches the song perfectly. For it is raining more than ever in café owner Adele’s life, but her friends and customers let her know – in one way or another – they’ll always be her friend.

What’s My Name?”: Anoosha Syed‘s picture book That’s Not My Name! shares the song’s interest in knowing names and loving your own. And when Mirha’s classmates begin – after a little coaching – to pronounce her name correctly, she thinks to herself, They’re so amazing, they took the time to figure me out. (And, like featured artist Drake, Syed also hails from Toronto.)

Work“: Nobody tells Duck he has to work, but in Sonny Ross‘s Duck Gets a Job, career-focused Duck decides he needs a job in the city. Duck gets that job to make that bread (presumably to eat), but finds himself bored with the drudgery of spreadsheets, sitting in a cubicle, and filing reports. (Join the club, Duck!) Our feathered friend quits to find new work in another field and finds not all work makes him feel like dirt.

Shut Up and Drive“: Few picture books can match the feeling of bombing around in a hot rod like Rihanna’s ode to car culture more than Wheels, No Wheels by Shannon McNeill. Sure, the tractor, bicycle, and skateboard that a llama, cat, and turtle thieve from their farm may not be rides smoother than a limousine, but the farm animals and the book’s humor have momentum to spare.

Rude Boy“: There’s nothing ruder than selfishly claiming a row of bushes for your own and not letting any other animals live there. Especially when it’s winter! That’s why Hedgehog by Ashlyn Anstee is our choice for “rude boy.” He kicks out birds, squirrels, groundhogs (last week throwback) out of his hedge before things go a little “boom boom boom,” and he learns a few important lessons.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

B*tch Better Have My Money“: Gabby, Priya, and Mindy learn about both accounts payable and dogs in the graphic novel PAWS: Gabby Gets It Together by Nathan Fairbairn and Michele Assarasakorn. The trio combine their shared love of animals and shared inability to have pets of their own and turn it into a lucrative dogwalking business. Things are fun for a while, but like RiRi, they soon learn the dangers of combining friendship and money.

Diamonds“: Twelve-year-old Piper’s astronaut-slash-television-host hero frequently shouts the catchphrase “shine on” in the novel Shine! by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein. It’s a phrase which would not be out of place in this hit single. But Piper, newly arrived at Chumley Prep where every kid seems to be the best at something, does not feel bright like a diamond. In time, she discovers the brightest diamonds don’t shine just for themselves.

Stay“: I want you to stay, is what young Bea says when her parents divorce in The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead. But the sentiment is not directed to one parent or another, but rather her life, which is rapidly going through changes. That’s why she keeps a green notebook with the titular list – so she knows that when her dad remarries, when she gains a new stepsister, there are certain things that will always stay true.

Only Girl (in the World)”:  In Red Fox Road by Frances Greenslade, thirteen-year-old Francie feels like she’s the only girl in the world. Mainly because she finds herself stranded in the wilderness after a number of mishaps during a family vacation. Only her survival skills – not love – will keep her alive.

YOUNG ADULT

Disturbia“: For one of Rihanna’s spookiest songs, we recommend one of the scariest YA novels in recent years: There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins. Combining steamy romance and blood-soaked horror with equal aplomb (just like the song), the book follows Makani Young, new to her Nebraska town, as she tries to find a little romance while students at her high school die in increasingly gruesome ways.

Don’t Stop the Music“:  It may be hard to imagine a single Rihanna song making it onto the subject of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. But the playlist is infinite in this late-night love story in which two music fans trawl NYC’s bars and clubs to find a legendary band’s secret performance, so by definition, it will not stop.

Love the Way You Lie“: Okay, technically this is an Eminem song, but nevertheless it showcases Rihanna and is a great companion to YA novel No Filter and Other Lies by Crystal Maldonado. Fat, brown, bisexual Kat creates a fake Instagram account for “Max” in a moment of weakness, populating it with photos of her thin, white friend Becca. Kat begins to thrive in her fake online persona. But when the truth is revealed, will Kat’s life be ruined? No matter what, readers will very much love the way the messy and very human Kat lies.

We Found Love“: What more hopeless place is there than 1950s Red Scare America for two lesbians to find love? That’s the setting of Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, in which Chinese American Lily Hu falls for white American Kathleen Miller in a Chinatown lesbian bar. While their romance blossoms, anti-Chinese and homophobic sentiment threatens to end their connection at every turn.

Love on the Brain“: If romance and grey matter are what you’re looking for, you need Alexene Farol Follmuth‘s My Mechanical Romance, in which two robotics team members fall for each other and find they soon have more than transistors and college applications on their minds.

We’d love to hear more Rihanna book recommendations from you, so suggest your picks in the comments!

Tundra Telegram: Books That Push the Envelope

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we address the topics that correspond to our readers’ concerns and deliver some appropriate books that have our stamp of approval.

Yesterday, December 7, was National Letter Writing Day, a day to celebrate the art of handwritten correspondence. Whether it’s a thank-you note, a message to update a friend or family member (and find out what’s new with them!), or a missive to the big man in red at the North Pole, yesterday was a great day to sit right down and write someone a letter.

We’ve got a great collection of books for every age all about written correspondence. Pen pal communications, love letters, messages written to people who may never read them: this list has it all when it comes to letter writing. P.S. Not only will we recommend these titles, we’ll try to include who is writing to whom – and why!

PICTURE BOOKS

I Do Not Like Yolanda by Zoey Abbott is an excellent picture book to start our letter journey because Bianca, the book’s main character, loves writing letters – everything about them: the stamps, the addresses, the pictures she can draw on them. She writes multiple letters a week, to everyone from her Uncle Kenta to her Sri Lankan pen pal. The only thing she does not like about writing letters is when she has to go to the post office to mail them and encounters Yolanda, her most dreaded post office employee. But Bianca soon learns first impressions can be as variable as mail delivery times.

A pivotal letter changes everything in The Bug Girl by Sophia Spencer (who is also the title character), Margaret McNamara, and Kerascoët. Seven-year-old Sophia is bullied at school for liking insects. Sophia’s mother writes to an entomological society looking for a bug scientist to be a pen pal for her daughter, and she’s overwhelmed by the response: letters, photos, and videos flood in and scientists tweet hundreds of times using the hashtag #BugsR4Girls to encourage Sophia’s interest in bugs. It’s the power of the written letter in action!

Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers also demonstrate the power of the written message in their modern classic The Day the Crayons Quit. Eager to do some coloring, Duncan opens his crayon box only to find a series of “Dear John” letters. All the crayons have written to say they’ve quit – though all for their own particular reasons – in this ode to drawing, writing letters, and labor action.

Author Troy Cummings has written a fun trilogy of letter-writing picture books. The unusual part is that these letters are paw-written, as they’re penned by Arfy, a dog. In Can I Be Your Dog?, homeless Arfy writes cover letters to a series of people in an effort to find a forever home. In I Found a Kitty!, he seeks the same for a cat he discovers in a sewer pipe (!). And with Is This Your Class Pet?, Arfy writes letters to the teachers and principal of the school in which he’s a reading buddy after he finds a pet turtle gone astray. These books are essential reading for letter and animal fans.

We can believe a dog writing letters, but a dragon? Well, it happens in Dear Dragon: A Pen Pal Tale by Josh Funk and Rodolfo Montalvo. George writes regularly to his pen pal Blaise to talk sports, pets, and school. But George doesn’t realize his friend Blaise is a dragon, and Blaise doesn’t realize George is a human kid. Unintentional catfishing with mythical creatures? Count us in!

The Thank You Letter by Jane Cabrera is about writing letters of gratitude. In particular, it’s about Grace, who – after her birthday – decides to write letters to thank her friends and family for all their kind gifts. Realizing she has so much to be thankful for, she adds a letter to her teacher for helping her learn to write and one for her dog for wagging his tail. Grace soon finds this gratitude is reciprocated by the community, as she receives letters back from so many of her addressees.

What’s better than one thank-you letter? Ten Thank-You Letters, which also happens to be the name of a book by Daniel Kirk. Pig is trying to write a thank-you letter to his grandma when he’s interrupted by his friend Rabbit, who wants to play. Rabbit, inspired by Pig, begins to write a flurry of thank-you letters of his own – to everyone from the crossing guard to the President (shades of Grace!). His tenth thank-you letter is written to Pig for being such a great friend. (Awwww.)

For a book that’s both about letter-writing and the holidays, check out Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein by Amanda Peet (yes, that Amanda Peet), Andrea Troyer, and Christine Davenier. Rachel Rosenstein is determined to celebrate Christmas. The fact that her family is Jewish is not going to stop her, since she’s writing Santa a letter to explain her situation (on top of dropping in on him at the mall). In the end, though Rachel loves the trappings of Christmas, she also gains a greater understanding of her own family’s traditions.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Technically they are postcards in The Collected Works of Gretchen Oyster by Cary Fagan, but they count as written letters! Even better, they’re letters with a mystery attached. Hartley Staples is having some family troubles at home when he starts to notice handmade postcards all over his small town, all signed “G.O.” Soon Hartley becomes obsessed with these cryptic messages and the person responsible for them.

You already know who the letter recipient is in Susin Nielsen‘s Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom. The question is: does People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive (1997, 2006) write back? Violet’s parents have recently split up, and she lives with her mom, dragged along on her awkward quest for love as Violet faces her own struggles with anger management. When Violet’s mom starts dating someone named Dudley Wiener (!), Violet and her friend Phoebe embark on a campaign to lure Mr. Clooney.

The entire middle school seems to be writing letters to Autumn in Dear Student by Elly Swartz. See, Autumn has become the anonymous voice of an advice column in her school newspaper, which is fun until she finds herself in the middle of a problem that puts two of her friends on the opposing sides of a conflict. Can she provide fair advice, given her personal connection? Can her identity remain a secret? This is a book that digs into the ethics of letter responses.

YOUNG ADULT

Perhaps we don’t publish Jenny Han’s most famous letter-based YA romances, but we have plenty of quality YA literature featuring messages in envelopes. Even romances! For instance, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan‘s Dash & Lily series are all about romance and the written word. In Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (now a delightful Netflix series) it’s a red notebook full of challenges on a bookstore by which Dash and Lily flirt before they ever meet face-to-face. But by the third book, Mind the Gap, Dash & Lily, our lovestruck odd couple are writing each other from across the Atlantic Ocean, as Dash studies at Oxford University. (Twelve Days of Dash & Lily doesn’t have much letter writing content, to be honest, but it’s part of the series.)

An enthusiastic English teacher’s assignment is to blame for the letters in Sarah Henstra‘s We Contain Multitudes. Closeted jock Kurl and nerdy and out Jo are thrown together in English class and forced to write an old-fashioned letter to each other every week. The unlikely pair become friends, sharing their experiences of homophobia, bullying, and familial abuse with one another, then something more in this emotional queer romance.

Again, not so much a series of letters as entries in a journal, Dear Martin by Nic Stone features Justyce McAllister, a Black teen facing challengers from police violence to toxic masculinity who turns to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In his journal, he addresses his questions and concerns to the late Dr. King in an effort to see if King’s philosophies still have relevance in contemporary America, and these letters are interspersed throughout Justyce’s story. And if you like that, check out the follow-up Dear Justyce, in which incarcerated teen and friend from the neighborhood Quan writes letters to Justyce about his experiences in the juvenile justice system.

Write on, young readers!

Holiday Spotlight: Random House Children’s Books

Here at Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, we’re lucky to work with so many different lists. This holiday season, we’ll be highlighting each one with a dedicated post to help you find the perfect gift (or your next read). Today’s post is all about Random House Children’s Books.

Burn Our Bodies Down
By Rory Power
352 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780525645627 | Delacorte BFYR
Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relatives to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along. But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for. Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there? The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares
By Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
288 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593309605 | Knopf BFYR
16-year-old Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on her favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. Dash, in a bad mood during the holidays, happens to be the first guy to pick up the notebook and rise to its challenges. What follows is a whirlwind romance as Dash and Lily trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations all across New York City. But can their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions, or will their scavenger hunt end in a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?

Dear Justyce
By Nic Stone
288 Pages | 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781984829665 | Crown BFYR
Release date: September 29, 2020
In the highly anticipated sequel to her New York Times bestseller, Nic Stone delivers an unflinching look into the flawed practices and silenced voices in the American juvenile justice system. Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University . . . and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center. Through a series of flashbacks, vignettes, and letters to Justyce – the protagonist of Dear Martin – Quan’s story takes form. Troubles at home and misunderstandings at school give rise to police encounters and tough decisions. But then there’s a dead cop and a weapon with Quan’s prints on it. What leads a bright kid down a road to a murder charge? Not even Quan is sure.

Find Fergus
By Mike Boldt
36 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781984849021 | Doubleday BFYR
The hilarious illustrator of I Don’t Want to Be a Frog brings picture book fans a super-silly, interactive story that will have children giggling from start to finish. Follow huge, loveable Fergus and see all the many ways in which he is TERRIBLE at playing hide-and-seek, such as standing behind a VERY tiny tree (“Found you, Fergus! That was too easy!”) or trying to camouflage in a giant crowd of bunnies and squirrels (“Try bears, Fergus. Bears!”). But wait! The game isn’t over yet! The last two pages fold out into a giant panoramic look-and-find scene, where Fergus is well and truly hidden, and young readers can have fun looking for him and lots of other details in the the crowd. There are hours and hours of play value in this adorable book. Children will want to come back to it again and again.

Glory on Ice: A Vampire Hockey Story
By Maureen Fergus
Illustrated by Mark Fearing
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781524714512 | Knopf BFYR
After centuries alone in his old castle, Vlad is ready to try something new. When he hears the local hockey team gushing about how they’ll crush and destroy their opponents in the next game, he knows he’s found the activity for him! Vlad immediately gives the game his all, but he soon realizes that super-human powers don’t mean much in hockey without a mastery of the basics. After weeks of practice, he’s finally ready for the big game . . . but can a hundreds-of-years-old vampire really learn new tricks? This hilarious, energetic picture book encourages teamwork, perseverance, and a love of hockey that will last a lifetime, even for an immortal being.

Max and the Midknights: Battle of the Bodkins
By Lincoln Peirce
272 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593125908 | Crown BFYR
Max didn’t expect knight school to be so tough. Luckily, she has her best friends – the Midknights – at her side. But when Byjovia is under attack, the Midknights will have to face beastly creatures, powerful spells, and their greatest foe yet–themselves? Lincoln Peirce, author of the New York Times bestselling Max & the Midknights, brings more laughs, more adventures, and more silliness to Battle of the Bodkins, book two in the Max & the Midknights series.

Serpentine
By Philip Pullman
Illustrated by Tom Duxbury
80 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593377680 | Knopf BFYR
This companion to the His Dark Materials series and The Book of Dust offers a tantalizing new glimpse of Lyra and her dæmon, Pantalaimon. The world-changing events of The Amber Spyglass are behind them, and Lyra and Pan find themselves utterly changed as well. In Serpentine, they journey to the far North once more, hoping to ask the Consul of Witches a most urgent question. This brand-new story, a beguiling must-read for Pullman fans old and new, is a perfect companion to His Dark Materials and a fascinating bridge to The Book of Dust.

The Cousins
By Karen M. McManus
336 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780525708001 | Delacorte BFYR
Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know each another, and they’ve never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they’re surprised . . . and curious. Their parents are all clear on one point – not going is not an option. This could be the opportunity to get back into Grandmother’s good graces. But when the cousins arrive on the island, it’s immediately clear that she has different plans for them. And the longer they stay, the more they realize how mysterious – and dark – their family’s past is. The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn’t over – and this summer, the cousins will learn everything.

The World Needs More Purple People
By Kristen Bell and Benjamin Hart
Illustrated by Daniel Wiseman
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593121962 | Random House BFYR
What is a purple person? Great question. I mean, really great! Because purple people always ask really great questions. They bring their family, friends, and communities together, and they speak up for what’s right. They are kind and hardworking, and they love to laugh (especially at Grandpa’s funny noises)! A purple person is an everyday superhero! How do you become one? That’s the fun part! Penny Purple will lead you through the steps. Get ready to be silly, exercise your curiosity, use your voice, and be inspired. Looking to reach beyond the political divide of red and blue, Kristen Bell and Benjamin Hart have created a hilarious and joyous read-aloud that offers a wonderful message about embracing the things that bring us together as humans. This book will inspire a whole generation to paint the world purple!

Wild Symphony
By Dan Brown
Illustrated by Susan Batori
44 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593123843 | Rodale Kids
Travel through the trees and across the seas with Maestro Mouse and his musical friends! Young readers will meet a big blue whale and speedy cheetahs, tiny beetles and graceful swans. Each has a special secret to share. Along the way, you might spot the surprises Maestro Mouse has left for you – a hiding buzzy bee, jumbled letters that spell out clues, and even a coded message to solve! Children and adults can enjoy this timeless picture book as a traditional read-along, or can choose to listen to original musical compositions as they read — one for each animal — with a free interactive smartphone app, which uses augmented reality to play the appropriate song for each page when a phone’s camera is held over it.

Cozy Up with These Holiday Romances

‘Tis the season to cuddle up with a mug of hot chocolate and a cute holiday read. You’ll have to make the drink yourself (sorry), but luckily, we have the book recommendations! Check them out below and make sure to pick them up from your favourite local bookstore!

All I Want for Christmas
By Wendy Loggia
240 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593179833 | Underlined
Bailey Briggs is counting down the days to Christmas: she lives for holiday music, baking cookies, going on snowy sleigh rides,and wearing her light-up reindeer ears to work at Winslow’s bookstore. But all she really wants this year is the one thing she doesn’t have: someone special to kiss under the mistletoe. And she’s 100 percent certain that that someone isn’t Jacob Marley – athlete, player, and of questionable taste in girlfriends – and that Charlie, the mysterious stranger with the British accent, is the romantic lead of her dreams. Is she right? This will be a December to remember, filled with real-life Christmas magic . . . and, if she stays on Santa’s nice list, a wish that just might come true.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares
By Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
288 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593309605 | Knopf BFYR
16-year-old Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on her favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. Dash, in a bad mood during the holidays, happens to be the first guy to pick up the notebook and rise to its challenges. What follows is a whirlwind romance as Dash and Lily trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations all across New York City. But can their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions, or will their scavenger hunt end in a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmW5GO6btMM

It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories
Edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman
Foreword by Mayim Bialik
320 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780525646167 | Knopf BFYR
A Jewish boy falls in love with a fellow counselor at summer camp. A group of Jewish friends take the trip of a lifetime. A girl meets her new boyfriend’s family over Shabbat dinner. Two best friends put their friendship to the test over the course of a Friday night. A Jewish girl feels pressure to date the only Jewish boy in her grade. Hilarious pranks and disaster ensue at a crush’s Hanukkah party. From stories of confronting their relationships with Judaism to rom-coms with a side of bagels and lox, It’s a Whole Spiel features one story after another that says yes, we are Jewish, but we are also queer, and disabled, and creative, and political, and adventurous, and anything we want to be. You will fall in love with this insightful, funny, and romantic Jewish anthology from a collection of diverse Jewish authors.

Let It Snow
By John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle
368 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781101998618 | Speak
An ill-timed storm on Christmas Eve buries the residents of Gracetown under multiple feet of snow and causes quite a bit of chaos. One brave soul ventures out into the storm from her stranded train, setting off a chain of events that will change quite a few lives. Over the next three days one girl takes a risky shortcut with an adorable stranger, three friends set out to win a race to the Waffle House (and the hash brown spoils), and the fate of a teacup pig falls into the hands of a lovesick barista.

New Year’s Kiss
By Lee Matthews
256 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593179857 | Underlined
Tess and her opinionated older sister Lauren are spending the week after Christmas at the snowy Evergreen Lodge in Vermont and they aren’t happy about it. Their stern grandmother, who owns the holiday resort, is not known for her warmth and good humor. But when shy, straight-laced Tess meets Christopher in the lobby, things are suddenly looking up. And when she decides to get out of her comfort zone and create a bucket list of things to accomplish before the New Year-like singing in public and skiing a black-diamond slope-Christopher is happy to help, even as he keeps a secret that could turn everything upside down. When the ball drops, will Tess and Christopher share a magical kiss-or will Tess start the new year off alone?

What Light
By Jay Asher
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780448493640 | Razorbill
Sierra’s family runs a Christmas tree farm in Oregon – it’s a bucolic setting for a girl to grow up in, except that every year, they pack up and move to California to set up their Christmas tree lot for the season. So Sierra lives two lives: her life in Oregon and her life at Christmas. And leaving one always means missing the other. Until this particular Christmas, when Sierra meets Caleb, and one life eclipses the other. By reputation, Caleb is not your perfect guy: years ago, he made an enormous mistake and has been paying for it ever since. But Sierra sees beyond Caleb’s past and becomes determined to help him find forgiveness and, maybe, redemption. As disapproval, misconceptions, and suspicions swirl around them, Caleb and Sierra discover the one thing that transcends all else: true love.

Tundra Book Group