Holiday Spotlight: DK 2023

Here at Penguin Random House Canada, we’re lucky to work with so many different publisher 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 DK.

An Anthology of Intriguing Animals
By DK
224 Pages | Ages 7-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781465477026 | DK Children
The animal kingdom is so much bigger than young minds can fathom and there is always more to learn. An Anthology of Intriguing Animals is a stunning animal encyclopedia for young readers to explore, with reference pages packed with fascinating information, little learners will be captivated as they discover the facts, stories and myths behind their favorite animals. Whether it’s where the slow-motion sloth lives, how the plodding pangolin protects itself from predators, or which animal the Ancient Egyptians thought rolled the Sun across the sky, children can learn all sorts of fun animal facts from the storybook descriptions.

An Anthology of Our Extraordinary Earth
By Cally Oldershaw
224 Pages | Ages 7-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780744083903 | DK Children
The world is so much more complex than young minds can fathom, from molten-hot rock and smoldering volcanoes to icy glaciers and bubbling springs. This book about the Earth for kids aged 7+ unlocks all the mysteries of our living, breathing planet. An Anthology of Our Extraordinary Earth looks at our constantly changing planet, with striking images and scientific ideas that are easy for children to understand. Starting at the center of the Earth, the book examines each layer in forensic detail: from Earth’s metallic core, drilling through Earth’s tough crust until emerging out onto the planet’s surface, with its lush green rainforests, sparkling oceans, and snow-capped mountains, before sailing up into Earth’s airy atmosphere.

Dear Rebel
By Rebel Girls
420 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781953424471 | Rebel Girls
More than 125 extraordinary teens and women share their advice, experiences, and the secrets of their success – in their own words. Through letters, poems, essays, self-portraits, and more, the authors tackle topics like overcoming obstacles, discovering your passion, and dreaming big. Learn how Ms. Marvel actor Iman Vellani connected with her roots through her character. Read about how March for our Lives co-founder Jaclyn Corin found her voice as an activist. Follow mountaineer Carla Pérez on the final 100 meters to the top of Mount Everest. This rich collection of first-person stories has something for everyone, inspiring young readers to try new things, face their fears, and be themselves.

Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Everything
By DK
400 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780744084702 | DK Children
Packed with striking photography and the topics kids love most, this is the fundamental guide to the world around you. The world’s greatest record-breakers, most remarkable animals, inspiring history-makers, and cutting-edge technology are all here, in one utterly unputdownable kid’s encyclopedia. Like the hugely successful Eyewitness series itself, Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Everything includes all the topics children want to read about. Each page is illustrated with vivid photography and filled with facts ideal for children aged 9+. 

LEGO Marvel Visual Dictionary
By Simon Hugo and Amy Richau
160 Pages | Ages 7-11 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780744084610 | DK Children
Jump into the action-packed LEGO Marvel multiverse with DK’s latest Visual Dictionary – with an exclusive LEGO Marvel Minifigure. Discover everything you need to know about the latest sets, vehicles, and minifigures. See every detail of the Guardians of the Galaxy’s spaceship, explore Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, examine the advanced vehicles of Wakanda, discover Spider-Man’s most dastardly villains, and find out about your favorite LEGO Marvel minifigures – from Black Panther to The Scarlet Witch. Meet all the iconic LEGO Marvel characters and learn about their allies, villains, skills, vehicles, and locations.

Pokémon Festive Calendar
By DK
48 Pages | Ages 5-7 | Paperback
ISBN 9780744097993 | DK Children
Count down to the festive season with this collection of 24 mini books, activities, and crafts! Packed with Pokémon story books, Alola-themed guides, fun puzzles, activities, riddles, and crafts, this is the perfect gift for fans of all ages. Create 3D Poké Balls, make your own decorations, and learn how to draw some of your favorite Pokémon. With 24 awesome surprises inside, there’s something for each December day leading up to the festive season, making this the perfect calendar treat for all Pokémon Masters in training!

Pop-Up Peekaboo! Marvel Spidey and his Amazing Friends
By DK
12 Pages | Ages 0-3 | Board Book
ISBN 9780744090505 | DK Children
Help Spidey keep New York City safe and find his friends one by one, including your little one’s favorite characters: Miles, Ghost Spider, Iron Man, Black Panther, and Ms Marvel. Little hands can lift big flaps and see five peekaboo surprises pop up from the pages, and explore themes of friendship, teamwork, and bravery. The lively, read-aloud rhymes encourage literacy and early learning, while the surprise pop-up scenes will delight curious preschoolers. With the help of parents and caregivers, children will have fun turning the sturdy board book pages, guessing what’s hiding under each flap, and then lifting the flaps to reveal Spidey and his friends, and play peekaboo! Ideal for interactive preschool play, Pop-Up Peekaboo! Marvel Spidey and his Amazing Friends will appeal to both parents and children and is certain to keep little ones entertained time and time again!

The LEGO Holiday Games Book
By DK
80 Pages | Ages 7-11 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780744084658 | DK Children
Build in some time for festive fun with the whole family! With more than 50 all-new winter holiday themed games and activities, there is something to keep everyone entertained during the whole festive season. Grab this book and your LEGO bricks and get ready for a jolly time at ho-ho-home with your friends and family! Comes with 60 bricks to help you play the games in the book. 

The Minecraft Ideas Book
By DK
200 Pages | Ages 7-11 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780744084672 | DK Children
Spark your imagination with incredible build ideas inspired by the world around you. Explore landmarks, natural wonders, and inventions. From the Great Wall of China and the Great Barrier Reef, to steam trains and the International Space Station, get suggestions for how to build them all in Minecraft – and discover fascinating facts about them, too. The Minecraft Ideas Book is packed with all kinds of imaginative build ideas, including a cross-section of a volcano, a fabulously fun fairground, a Mount Everest base camp, a rainforest with canopy bridge, and much, much more. Why not step back in time to build the Titanic or a Roman chariot race or fast-forward to the future and build a sustainable city? Anything is possible! What will you build first? Find building techniques, hints, and tips throughout, such as block hacks, planning tips, and ideas for customizing. Meet the expert builders and discover where they get their ideas from. See the Minecraft world – and the real world – as you’ve never seen it before!

Weird and Wonderful Nature
By Ben Hoare
192 Pages | Ages 7-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780744085112 | DK Children
Why do Mexican jumping beans jump? How do sea cucumbers defend themselves? What causes the northern lights? This book is filled with facts about the most surprising and curious plants, animals, rocks, and phenomena in nature. Children aged 7-9 can read stories of more than one hundred unique animals, plants and phenomena and learn about the weird and wonderful side of the natural world. Weird and Wonderful Nature is the third installment of the DK Treasures series, exploring the many bizarre animals and plants that are uniquely adapted to their way of life.

Tundra Telegram: Books For That Time of the Month

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we sense the subjects flowing through readers’ minds and bleeding into the wider news cycle and suggest some books that won’t leave readers cursing. Just great books: period.

This weekend, the movie that so many readers have been waiting for since 1970 hits theaters across North America. Judy Blume‘s classic coming-of-age novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, has been adapted into a film by Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), and starring Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, and even one of the Safdie Brothers (?). The book has long been beloved (and just as often banned or challenged in schools and libraries) for its frank talk about menstruation and other hallmarks of female puberty.

To celebrate the film adaptation, we wanted to recommend more books that focus on the physical and hormonal changes young people experience in early adolescence. Many of these books highlight girl’s experiences, but we’ve included a few books about puberty for boys – and for nonbinary kids – as well. (Please note: the following book descriptions talk frankly about sex and body parts, so if that’s not your cup of tea, venture no further!)

PICTURE BOOKS

We’ll admit; it’s not the easiest thing to find picture books about puberty, but we’ve found a couple that fit the bill. The first of these is Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder. While not explicitly about puberty, the book is more a joyous celebration of all the different human bodies that exist in the world. The book highlights the many skin tones, body shapes, hair types, and more in a cheerful love-your-body picture book for preschoolers. While it may not be about puberty, it certainly celebrates the results of puberty!

Though it may now be a little dated (and not as inclusive as it should be), the 2011 picture book Who Has What?: All About Girls’ Bodies and Boys’ Bodies by Robie H. Harris and Nadine B. Westcott nonetheless talks about all the things boys and girls might find on their bodies. Structured through a story about two siblings – Nellie and Gus – on a family beach vacation, the book answers questions young kids may have about their bodies in a positive, reassuring way.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

There are many of middle-grade books that look deeply into puberty, given that its readers are often going through that change (or just about to) – and some of those books are nonfiction! Exhibit A: Puberty Is Gross but also Really Awesome by Gina Loveless and Lauri Johnston. This a puberty guide that doesn’t shy away from the smelly, hairy, sticky, and confusing parts of puberty – but also celebrates the many good things of adolescence, as well.

The Canadian duo of Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth are the go-to team for modern kids’ books about sexuality, and their new book You Know, Sex is no exception. In bright comic book colors, the book sets the world of sex education in social justice, covering not only the big changes of puberty -hormones, reproduction, and development – but also things like power dynamics, pleasure, and how to be a decent human being. Told through the story of four different middle-schoolers, there are chapters on body autonomy, disclosure, stigma, harassment, pornography, trauma, masturbation, consent, boundaries and safety, all of which makes space for trans, nonbinary, and intersex bodies.

And Growing Up Powerful, a Rebel Girls guide by Nona Willis Aronowitz and illustrated by Caribay Marquina, isn’t in stores just yet – it publishes on May 9, 2023 – but it helps guide girls through the many changes of puberty: from physical body changes to things like social anxiety and school-related stress. The book is chock-full of helpful advice, Q&As with experts and regular girls around the world, as well as fun quizzes hoping to give tween girls the reference they need to navigate this tricky time. Subjects ranging from breasts, hair growth, the changes in genitals, menstruation, and more – and the book is inclusive of genderfluid and transgender youngsters.

Though it’s an older book, The Downside of Being Up, sprung from the mind of Alan Lawrence Sitomer, remains one of the few middle-grade novels to look at the adolescent issue of inappropriately timed erections (if you couldn’t guess from the title). While it’s a mostly lighthearted and funny read about a topic rarely covered in literature, it nevertheless depicts how cruel kids can be during adolescence and vividly depicts the unceasing awkwardness of puberty.

Speaking of inappropriately timed erections, Susin Nielsen‘s Tremendous Things has fewer than Sitomer’s novel (and we’re pretty sure the title doesn’t reference them), but nevertheless, the novel follows awkward ninth-grader Wilbur as he tries to escape a humiliating incident in middle school, when his time-capsule letter (which talk a lot about a body part he calls “Jeremiah”) is shared with the entire school. Tremendous Things covers that part of adolescence of moving through humiliation while staying true to yourself – in this case, during a band trip to Paris, France.

Instead of one story about getting your period, how about sixteen? Calling the Moon: 16 Period Stories from BIPOC Authors is an anthology edited by Aida Salazar and Yamile Saied Mendez that collects short fiction and poems around the topic of menstruation, exclusively from authors who are Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color. With stories from superstars like Ibi Zoboi, Erin Entrada Kelly, and Christina Soontornvat, the first times can come on the basketball court, during a lakeside field trip, or even at the start of one’s first fasting Ramadan.

An eighth grader starts a podcast to protest the unfair dress code at her middle school in Carrie Firestone‘s feminist revolution Dress Coded. You don’t need us to tell you school dress codes often originate in adult male discomfort with the body changes that puberty brings. And when Molly, Olivia, Liz, and friends realize this, they take to the (digital) airwaves to rebel. In fact, one of the catalysts for their rebellion is when one girl is reprimanded for showing off her shoulders after she uses her sweater to hide a period stain on her jeans!

Finally, 14 Hollow Road by Jenn Bishop mixes the changing friends, changing bodies, and changing emotions of those puberty years with an actual natural disaster: a tornado! Maddie’s world is already falling apart the evening of the sixth-grade dance when her crush Avery starts to slow-dance with someone else, and then the tornado strikes and destroys both her and Avery’s homes. This leaves the two now co-habiting in the same house of some kind neighbors, and Maddie must deal with the sticky whirlwind of puberty with her crush in the next bedroom over! Talk about awkward!

YOUNG ADULT

Puberty and the changes associated with it can be uncomfortable to discuss, but not with Mayim Bialik, star of Blossom, The Big Bang Theory, and Jeopardy! With Girling Up: How to Be Strong, Smart and Spectacular, Bialik uses her PhD in neuroscience to demonstrate to young readers how they grow from a girl to a woman biologically, psychologically, and sociologically – covering periods, sexuality, stress, hormones, and much more. And the follow-up, Boying Up: How To Be Brave, Bold, and Brilliant covers vocal changes, body hair, toxic masculinity. In our opinionation, these books are great basic guides to puberty.

In the same nonfiction handbook vein, but in comic book form is Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan. Covering everything from relationships and friendships to gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, and rejection, Let’s Talk About It looks at all the changes young people undergo in adolescence to reassure readers when they feel their emotions and bodies are beginning to feel not normal – as a comic book!

Most readers know The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe as a twisty thriller featuring the daughter of a con woman who targets criminal men (and soon to be a film starring Millie Bobby Brown). When Nora is taking hostage during a bank robbery (alongside her ex-boyfriend and current girlfriend), she must use all her street smarts to survive. What gets covered less often is the fact that Iris (Nora’s girlfriend) has endometriosis, and is experiencing her (painful) period during the hostage crisis. Hot take: more bank heist stories should feature menstrual cups in the plot.

Though Jandy Nelson‘s I’ll Give You the Sun is a coming-of-age story about Jude and her twin brother Noah – how close they are at 13 and how distant at 16 – the novel indicates how the hormonal and emotional changes of puberty propels that separation. (This is especially true as they start to develop crushes on the same boys!) It’s also one of the few books on our list that features the changes of puberty through the eyes of a queer character.

Menstruation is one of the most common natural occurrences a body can have, but is still stigmatized, which is where the provocative Blood Moon by Lucy Cuthew comes in. Frankie, a lover of physics and astronomy, gets her period during her first sexual experience with a quiet heartthrob. But when the incident becomes a gruesome online meme, Frankie has to fight to reclaim her reputation from the online shame and stand up against a culture that says periods are dirty.

Tundra Telegram: Books To Help You Level Up

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where Wii we plumb readers’ minds and try to Switch you on to some books that are Peachy.

You’d have to be hiding in a drainpipe to not know that the long-anticipated Super Mario Brothers Movie graced movie theatre screens across North America yesterday. Though the world’s most popular video game has been adapted into film before (we’ll never forget you, Bob Hoskins), excitement for this new animated film has been so massive, you’d think it ate a red mushroom.

To mark the occasion, we’re recommending some books about video games. Whether it’s about making games, playing them, or finding yourself inside one – no Dry Bones about it, we have books for all ages that are the perfect match for gamers.

PICTURE BOOKS

To get to Mario, you need to start with the first home video game console, and that was created by Ralph Baer, the subject of the picture book biography Blips on a Screen by Kate Hannigan and Zachariah OHora about Ralph Baer, a pioneer in the video game revolution. The book tells how a refugee from Nazi Germany used his tech skills to make video games you could play in your own home a reality – and without Ralph, there might never have been a certain heroic Italian American plumber.

Do Not Eat the Game! is a hard instruction to follow when your video game is full of mushrooms and turnips, but it’s also the name of a fun picture book by Matthew McElligott. Full disclosure: the book is about a board game, rather than a video game. But it is about competition, playing well with others, and being a good loser. Plus, the kid’s opponent is a monster (not unlike Bowser), so there are plenty of parallels.

Finally, we only have the audiobook rights, but the American Girl book Courtney Changes the Game by Kellen Hertz is all about a gamer girl. Set in 1986, at the height of arcade popularity, protagonist Courtney is the best gamer at the arcade, and is frustrated there aren’t more girl characters in video games. When a school project allows her to create her own video game, she develops a girl who can handle whatever the bosses throw her way – something Courtney struggles with in real life.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

If only young Courtney in 1986 could have read 2023’s Rebel Girls Level Up: 25 Tales of Women in Gaming and Tech. The book highlights the women designing games, leading gamer communities, and paving the way for more women to enter the gaming and tech industries. This includes people like Mabbel Addis, the first female video game designer (back in 1964!), and Aya Kyogoku, who directed Animal Crossing: New Leaf, among others.

How about a book written by an actual video game developer and writer? My Video Game Ate My Homework by Dustin Hansen, is about a thirteen-year old kid who is failing in his science class, but when he and his friends magically wind up in a virtual world, he excels in battling all sorts of digital creatures and solving a number of puzzles in order to get home. (This is, as they say, something for which he has trained his entire life.)

A book series in that same vein but fictional is the Girls Who Code books by Stacia Deutsch, Jo Whittemore, and Michelle Schusterman. Published in partnership with the organization Girls Who Code, the books follow four girls: Lucy, Sophia, Maya, and Erin – strangers at first – who form a strong friendship in a new computer coding club at school. (Though sadly, while they code everything from apps to the tech at the school play and even participate in a hackathon, they don’t create a video game.)

If reading about a group of four kids with some connection to video games is your bag, then Player vs. Player: Ultimate Gaming Showdown by M.K. England and Chris Danger should be, too. Four kid gamers (“The Weird Ones”) take on 63 other teams in an epic tournament of Affinity, a battle-royale-style game. And out this summer is Player vs. Player: Attack of the Bots, a book that brings back the kid gamers, who have since gone pro and set up their own streaming channel. Only one problem: one-fourth of their crew – Wheatley – is missing. In another proverbial castle, one might say.

YOUNG ADULT

Winnipeg politician and author Wab Kinew was inspired by video games like Minecraft and Fortnite to build his immersive Floraverse series. In Walking in Two Worlds, readers meet Bugz, an Indigenous girl living on the Rez who happens to be a dominant player in a massive multiplayer online game. The Everlasting Road, the follow up, 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. (It’s a book that tackles video games and grief more elegantly than Luigi’s Mansion.)

Another YA series that looks at the push-and-pull of the virtual gaming world is Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller‘s Otherworld, in which gamers can leave your body behind to enter into a virtual reality game so addictive users never want to leave. Of course, in the remaining books in the trilogy – OtherEarth and OtherLife – young gamers Sam and Kat discover the threats inherent in the VR gaming system, and escape The Company, who would do anything to keep those threat secret!

Warcross and Wildcard by Marie Lu explore the nightmarish possibilities of immersive gaming that involves millions of players. Teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down Warcross players who bet on the hugely popular game illegally. But when she is hired by the game’s creator, young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, to hack into the International Warcross Championship to uncover a security problem, she digs up – you guessed it – a dark conspiracy the likes a Koopa could never dream of.

For something a bit more optimistic, there’s Game On, a charming YA anthology edited by Laura Silverman all about games. The fifteen stories include Nina Moreno‘s fan favorite adorable love story about two girls who find each other via a farming, Animal Crossing-esque video game. Just reading about it makes my heart go for a speed run.

Tundra Book Group