I hope you’re enjoying your fall! The new books I have for you this month are not season-specific at all, so if you’d like a break from books about pumpkins and falling leaves I’ve got you. The closest we get is a book set during a harvest festival, but it takes place in India in January!
Picture Books
“Hugs for Pug” by Ethan Long
Our first option is perfect for young readers ready to tackle a book on their own! Even though the book only uses a couple dozen words, most of them monosyllabic and rhyming, the story is one hundred percent relatable and engaging. Pug is ready for hugs, but his family is not. They’re all doing other things and when he barks his frustration at the lack of snuggles, he’s reprimanded. He retreats alone to the yard, until his family invites him back in for all the hugs! Pug’s experience will resonate with all the little ones that have ever heard “not right now” and they will delight in being able to read the sight words all by themselves.
“Thank You, Everything” by Icinori
Ready for a book with “thank you” in the title, that releases in November and is NOT a Thanksgiving book? This book starts with the narrator waking up and thanking various items in the house as he goes through his routine. Thank you alarm clock, bed, glass of water. Then he has a treasure map, and it’s thank you map, and thank you possibility! He embarks on a fantastical journey—thank you parachute and thank you tree to land on. With a simple structure and color scheme, the authors take us on a fascinating adventure that centers gratitude. I can’t wait to share this with my boy so we can practice walking in gratefulness and seeing where it takes us!
Chapter Books
“Take It From the Top” by Claire Swinarski
Eowyn and Jules are long-distance besties who meet up every year at their theater summer camp. But this year, everything feels different. Jules has been avoiding Eowyn, and now Eowyn is adding anxiety about their friendship onto all her other stress, like her increasing stage fright, missing her deceased mom and feeling like her dad and older brother don’t have any time for her. But when the two of them are cast as Galinda and Elphaba, they’ll have to learn how to work together again. This is told in dual perspectives and timelines, with Eowyn narrating the present in first person, and Jules’ story being told in the past in third person. Not only is middle school friendship drama always relevant, but this is a great choice for Wicked fans with the movie coming out this month.
“V. Malar: Greatest Host of All Time” written by Suma Subramaniam and illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan
Malar is a girl living with her parents on their farm in a small village in South India. They’re preparing for the upcoming harvest festival and a visit from extended family. Malar’s aunt and uncle and two cousins are visiting all the way from Seattle in the United States, and Malar is determined to be the perfect host. Malar has never met her cousins, and things get off to a rocky start as cultures collide. Yet with enough patience and compassion, family can become friends. It’s refreshing to read from the perspective of a Tamil girl hosting her American cousins instead of the other way around, and readers will learn all sorts of things about life and festivals in coastal India.
