Young Reader

Ten stories, edited by Ellen Oh, cofounder of We Need Diverse Books, begin with Matt de la Peña’s terrific, subtle basketball story “How to Transform an Everyday Ordinary Hoop Court Into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium.” This unusually strong collection of short stories for 4th- to 7th-graders continues with authors you know, like Grace Lin and Jacqueline Woodson (her story broke my heart, she keeps doing that), and others you may not know yet. Ages 9–13. - Ga

The Newbery Honor book The War That Saved My Life, one of the best children’s books I’ve ever read, does not need a sequel, but this turns out to be a most pleasing one all the same. Grades 5–8. - Ga

Travelling by train, Rydr is 12 when she leaves Palm Springs and 13 before she reaches Chicago. Her unemotional narration grows on us. This journey gives Rydr, a damaged child, what she never had—a community, stretching from the overworked Amtrak employee whose charge she is, to the snack bar attendant who allows her to steal food. There’s also the boy who acquaints her with Ginsberg and gives her his cherished signed copy of Howl (and her first kiss), and the writer she helps with crosswords who recognizes—in the child’s generosity, intelligence, and fierce determination—another writer. When she leaves the train, we believe, without knowing how, that Rydr will be okay. Grades 6 and up. - Ga

Unforgettable characters, plot twists that will make your head spin, a world rendered in elegant detail—you will fall in love with every page of these stories. Megan Whalen Turner writes vivid, immersive, heartbreaking fantasy that will leave you desperate to return to Attolia again and again.  —Leigh Bardugo, author of the Six of Crows duology

With sharp wit and lyrical writing, this atmospheric mystery (think Louise Penny or A Brief History of Montmaray) perceptively deals with anti-Traveller sentiment in 1938 Britain. The novel is narrated by Julia Beaufort-Stuart, the 15-year-old granddaughter of the cash-poor but still well-respected late earl of Strathfearn. Grades 8 and up. - Ga

Fifteen-year-old Will has to find the person who killed his older brother and kill him. That is the rule. He grabs his brother’s gun and takes the elevator down from his mom’s eighth-floor apartment. As he descends, the car stops on each floor and a person from his past steps in and speaks. These people—all dead—have been killed by the cycle of gun violence and poverty that ensnares Will. The author’s stark, fluid words are to be read in a single gulp, and the last line is killer, or hopefully not. Ages 12 and up. - Ga

Perfect pacing again (Mr. Henkes) as an unlikely friendship cracks into the open in this amusing-for-preschoolers (and amusing for the adults who read to them) picture book. A surprisingly moving journey in a seemingly simple story. And funny. Did I mention that? Ages 3–6. - Ga

Follow along as we gently, dreamily behold each of the elements that make a house a home, from the front door “once a colossal oak tree” and the bricks “once mud that oozed around roots” to the window that “was sand once…melted to glass.” Misty, almost velvety, watercolors reveal both the history and the now of this home, as we come to see how our own house fits into the world outside our door. A cozy bedtime read. Ages 3–7. - Michelle

Much more than a tongue twister, this sweet and joyful picture book astounds and astonishes with each successive read aloud. Wary for just the briefest moment, the dog and the hog leap into play, whirling and reeling around each other and right off the pages. Has there ever been a more perfect word pairing—or animal pairing—than greyhound and groundhog? Ages 2 and up. - Michelle

Here’s a triptych of picture books by verbal-visual stuntman Jon Agee. These are each one-joke books, but they are very, very good jokes. Ages 3–8. - Ga