Hello, Universe

Hello, Universe
Author: Erin Entrada Kelly
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2017-03-14
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0062414178

Winner of the Newbery Medal “A charming, intriguingly plotted novel.”—Washington Post Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe is a funny and poignant neighborhood story about unexpected friendships. Told from four intertwining points of view—two boys and two girls—the novel celebrates bravery, being different, and finding your inner bayani (hero). “Readers will be instantly engrossed in this relatable neighborhood adventure and its eclectic cast of misfits.”—Booklist In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways. Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted and feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and secretly lonely, and she loves everything about nature. Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so he can concentrate on basketball. They aren’t friends, at least not until Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well. This disaster leads Kaori, Gen, and Valencia on an epic quest to find missing Virgil. Through luck, smarts, bravery, and a little help from the universe, a rescue is performed, a bully is put in his place, and friendship blooms. The acclaimed and award-winning author of Blackbird Fly and The Land of Forgotten Girls writes with an authentic, humorous, and irresistible tween voice that will appeal to fans of Thanhha Lai and Rita Williams-Garcia. “Readers across the board will flock to this book that has something for nearly everyone—humor, bullying, self-acceptance, cross-generational relationships, and a smartly fateful ending.”—School Library Journal

BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom

BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom
Author: Carole Boston Weatherford
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 59
Release: 2021-02-23
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 153622166X

In a moving, lyrical tale about the cost and fragility of freedom, a New York Times best-selling author and an acclaimed artist follow the life of a man who courageously shipped himself out of slavery. What have I to fear? My master broke every promise to me. I lost my beloved wife and our dear children. All, sold South. Neither my time nor my body is mine. The breath of life is all I have to lose. And bondage is suffocating me. Henry Brown wrote that, long before he came to be known as Box, he “entered the world a slave.” He was put to work as a child and passed down from one generation to the next — as property. When he was an adult, his wife and children were sold away from him out of spite. Henry Brown watched as his family left bound in chains, headed to the deeper South. What more could be taken from him? But then hope — and help — came in the form of the Underground Railroad. Escape! In stanzas of six lines each, each line representing one side of a box, celebrated poet Carole Boston Weatherford powerfully narrates Henry Brown’s story of how he came to send himself in a box from slavery to freedom. Strikingly illustrated in rich hues and patterns by artist Michele Wood, Box is augmented with historical records and an introductory excerpt from Henry’s own writing as well as a time line, notes from the author, and a bibliography.

Queen of the Sea

Queen of the Sea
Author: Dylan Meconis
Publisher: Walker Books US
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2019-06-25
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1536204986

Cult graphic novelist Dylan Meconis offers a rich reimagining of history in this beautifully detailed hybrid novel loosely based on the exile of Queen Elizabeth I by her sister, Queen Mary. When her sister seizes the throne, Queen Eleanor of Albion is banished to a tiny island off the coast of her kingdom, where the nuns of the convent spend their days peacefully praying, sewing, and gardening. But the island is also home to Margaret, a mysterious young orphan girl whose life is upturned when the cold, regal stranger arrives. As Margaret grows closer to Eleanor, she grapples with the revelation of the island’s sinister true purpose as well as the truth of her own past. When Eleanor’s life is threatened, Margaret is faced with a perilous choice between helping Eleanor and protecting herself. In a hybrid novel of fictionalized history, Dylan Meconis paints Margaret’s world in soft greens, grays, and reds, transporting readers to a quiet, windswept island at the heart of a treasonous royal plot.

The Cricket in Times Square

The Cricket in Times Square
Author: George Selden
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2014-02-25
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1466863625

After Chester lands, in the Times Square subway station, he makes himself comfortable in a nearby newsstand. There, he has the good fortune to make three new friends: Mario, a little boy whose parents run the falling newsstand, Tucker, a fast-talking Broadway mouse, and Tucker's sidekick, Harry the Cat. The escapades of these four friends in bustling New York City makes for lively listening and humorous entertainment. And somehow, they manage to bring a taste of success to the nearly bankrupt newsstand. Join Chester Cricket and his friends in this classic children's book by George Selden, with illustrations by Garth Williams. The Cricket in Times Square is a 1961 Newbery Honor Book.

The Book of Boy

The Book of Boy
Author: Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2018-02-06
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0062686224

A Newbery Honor Book * Booklist Editors’ Choice * BookPage Best Books * Chicago Public Library Best Fiction * Horn Book Fanfare * Kirkus Reviews Best Books * Publishers Weekly Best Books * Wall Street Journal Best of the Year * An ALA Notable Book A young outcast is swept up into a thrilling and perilous medieval treasure hunt in this award-winning literary page-turner by acclaimed bestselling author Catherine Gilbert Murdock. The Book of Boy was awarded a Newbery Honor. “A treat from start to finish.”—Wall Street Journal Boy has always been relegated to the outskirts of his small village. With a hump on his back, a mysterious past, and a tendency to talk to animals, he is often mocked by others in his town—until the arrival of a shadowy pilgrim named Secondus. Impressed with Boy’s climbing and jumping abilities, Secondus engages Boy as his servant, pulling him into an action-packed and suspenseful expedition across Europe to gather seven precious relics of Saint Peter. Boy quickly realizes this journey is not an innocent one. They are stealing the relics and accumulating dangerous enemies in the process. But Boy is determined to see this pilgrimage through until the end—for what if St. Peter has the power to make him the same as the other boys? This epic and engrossing quest story by Newbery Honor author Catherine Gilbert Murdock is for fans of Adam Gidwitz’s The Inquisitor’s Tale and Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and for readers of all ages. Features a map and black-and-white art by Ian Schoenherr throughout.

Echo

Echo
Author: Pam Muñoz Ryan
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2015-02-24
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0545576504

Newbery Honor Book New York Times Bestseller This impassioned, uplifting, and virtuosic tour de force from a treasured storyteller follows three children, in three different times and places, whose lives mysteriously intersect. Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo. Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, Echo pushes the boundaries of genre, form, and storytelling innovation to create a wholly original novel that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck.

Dust Off the Gold Medal

Dust Off the Gold Medal
Author: Sara L. Schwebel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2021-08-23
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1000417638

The oldest and most prestigious children’s literature award, the Newbery Medal has since 1922 been granted annually by the American Library Association to the children’s book it deems "most distinguished." Medal books enjoy an outsized influence on American children’s literature, figuring perennially on publishers’ lists, on library and bookstore shelves, and in school curricula. As such, they offer a compelling window into the history of US children’s literature and publishing, as well as into changing societal attitudes about which books are "best" for America’s schoolchildren. Yet literary scholars have disproportionately ignored the Medal winners in their research. This volume provides a critically- and historically-grounded scholarly analysis of representative but understudied Newbery Medal books from the 1920s through the 2010s, interrogating the disjunction between the books’ omnipresence and influence, on the one hand, and the critical silence surrounding them, on the other. Dust Off the Gold Medal makes a case for closing these scholarly gaps by revealing neglected texts’ insights into the politics of children’s literature prizing and by demonstrating how neglected titles illuminate critical debates currently central to the field of children’s literature. In particular, the essays shed light on the hidden elements of diversity apparent in the neglected Newbery canon while illustrating how the books respond—sometimes in quite subtle ways—to contemporaneous concerns around race, class, gender, disability, nationalism, and globalism.

The Perilous Gard

The Perilous Gard
Author: Elizabeth Marie Pope
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1974
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780618150731

In 1558 while imprisoned in a remote castle, a young girl becomes involved in a series of events that leads to an underground labyrinth peopled by the last practitioners of druidic magic.

Newbery Medal Winners Three-Book Collection

Newbery Medal Winners Three-Book Collection
Author: Christopher Paul Curtis
Publisher: Yearling
Total Pages: 864
Release: 2020-06-30
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0593375246

Three Newbery Medal winners—Christopher Paul Curtis’s Bud, Not Buddy, Clare Vanderpool’s Moon Over Manifest, and Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me—come together in this collection that’s perfect for catching up on old favorites and discovering new ones. Whether you’re looking for an escape or eager to catch up on some summer reading, the three award-winning titles in this collection will stay with you. Titles featured include: · Bud, Not Buddy: It’s 1936, in Flint, Michigan, and a motherless boy named Bud decides to hit the road to find his father in this Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning classic from Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963. · Moon Over Manifest: Armed only with a few possessions, Abilene Tucker jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was. What she discovers sends her and some new friends on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt. · When You Reach Me: Shortly after a fall-out with her best friend, sixth grader Miranda starts receiving mysterious notes that seem to predict the future. If that's the case, then Miranda has a big problem—because the notes tell her that someone is going to die, and she might be too late to stop it. Turn to this three-book collection for the classics you remember and the stories you’ll never forget.

This Promise of Change

This Promise of Change
Author: Jo Ann Allen Boyce
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2019-01-08
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1681198533

In 1956, one year before federal troops escorted the Little Rock 9 into Central High School, fourteen year old Jo Ann Allen was one of twelve African-American students who broke the color barrier and integrated Clinton High School in Tennessee. At first things went smoothly for the Clinton 12, but then outside agitators interfered, pitting the townspeople against one another. Uneasiness turned into anger, and even the Clinton Twelve themselves wondered if the easier thing to do would be to go back to their old school. Jo Ann--clear-eyed, practical, tolerant, and popular among both black and white students---found herself called on as the spokesperson of the group. But what about just being a regular teen? This is the heartbreaking and relatable story of her four months thrust into the national spotlight and as a trailblazer in history. Based on original research and interviews and featuring backmatter with archival materials and notes from the authors on the co-writing process.