Nancy Brashear and Carolyn Angus As reviewers, we read extensively in all genres and subgenres of books for children and young adults and send each other “you-must-read-this” recommendations. By the end of the year, these lists are long so, as it always seems to be, it was challenging to agree on 20 books for Looking Back at 2024 Fiction. ![]() The Beginning (Orris and Timble #1). Kate DiCamillo. Illus. by Carmen Mok. (2024). Candlewick. An unusual friendship begins when Orris, a rat who lives in solitude in a nest behind a hole in the wall of an abandoned barn, hears a cry for help and finds a young snow owl, Timble, with his foot caught in a mousetrap. While talking about “The Mouse and the Lion,” Orris pries open the trap. Timble takes flight only to return wanting to hear the end of the fable. (PreK Up) ![]() Being Home. Traci Sorell. Illus. by Michaela Goade. (2024). Kokila. After saying goodbye to the city, a young girl sets out with her mother on a long road trip across the country to the land of her ancestors that she chronicles with drawings in a journal. Goade’s stunning mixed-media illustrations take on a rosy hue as they are warmly greeted by what was once her “faraway family” and the community of their new home on a Cherokee Nation Reservation. (glossary) (PreK Up) ![]() The Boy Lost in the Maze. Joseph Coelho. Illus. by Kate Milner. (2024). Candlewick. Seventeen-year-old Theo, who wants to locate his unknown father, writes poetry about the Greek mythological hero Theseus for an English project. In chapters written in multiple poetic forms from the viewpoints of Theo, Theseus, and the Minotaur, Coelho recounts the journeys of Theo and Theseus to find their fathers as well as the Minotaur’s story of being misunderstood as a monster. (author’s note on various interpretations of the story of Theseus) (Gr 9-12) ![]() Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody (Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody #1). Patrick Ness. Illus. by Tim Miller. (2024). Candlewick. In this hilarious middle school story, after Principal Wombat appoints monitor lizards Zeke, Daniel, and Alicia to the unpopular position of Hall Monitor, Zeke comes into conflict with Pelicarnassus, the school bully. As this son of an international supervillain dons a giant robot pelican suit and, wielding lasers, diabolically sets out to destroy the animal-diverse middle school, Zeke must find his inner heroism to save it. (Gr 3 Up) ![]() Ferris. Kate DiCamillo. (2024). Candlewick. Love and humor abound in DiCamillo’s middle grade novel in which Emma Phineas (“Ferris”) Wilkey learns the meaning of Grandmother Charisse’s saying “Every good story is a love story” as she deals with troubling events in her unconventional family during the summer before fifth grade. Enlisted to help the ghost her grandmother sees nightly find peace and be reunited with her loved one, Ferris comes up with a plan that involves and reunites the entire Wilkey family. (Gr 3 Up) ![]() The First State of Being. Erin Entrada Kelly. (2024). Greenwillow. In August 1999, 12-year-old Michael Rosario’s biggest worry is increasing his stash of food for the possible worldwide Y2K malfunction of computers. But that is before he, Gibby, his sitter, and Mr. Mosley, the apartment custodian, meet strange teenager Ridge, whose EGG spatial teleporting device malfunctions so he cannot return to his own timeprint of 2199 until it is fixed. Their lives all intertwine in ways that must not change the future while they live in the present, “the first state of being.” (Gr 3 Up) ![]() The Gale. Mo Yan. Adapted by Guan Xiaoxiao. Trans. by Ying-Hwa Hu. Illus. by Zhu Chengliang. (2024). Simon & Schuster. A seven-year-old boy accompanies his grandfather, Yeye, to the meadow to cut satintail grass for the first time. Soon the boy is chasing birds and crickets and taking a nap, but Yeye awakens him and they struggle to get the heavily-laden wheelbarrow home as a fierce gale overtakes them (beautifully portrayed with movement-filled acrylic images), scattering their harvested grass. Returning empty-handed, the boy learns the importance of perseverance. (translated from Chinese; excerpt from the original novella) (PreK Up) ![]() Here & There. Thea Lu. Trans. by Thea Lu. (2024). Eerdmans. Dan is the owner of a café in a small coastal town that he never leaves. Aki lives on a boat sailing from place to place. Both feel lonely at times. This beautifully crafted picture book ends with their lives connecting, at least for a time, with a dramatic double gatefold picturing a special day in which the café is filled with Dan and Aki sharing a meal and stories with others. (translated from Chinese) (PreK Up) ![]() The House Before Falling into the Sea. Ann Suk Wang. Illus. by Hanna Cha. (2024). Dial. Kyung, a young Korean girl, comes to understand the importance of her family’s home in the southeastern town of Busan, “the house before falling into the sea,” as a safe haven for refugees fleeing more than 200 miles from the north. Cha’s emotive mixed media illustrations complement Wang’s narrative in this picture book set during the Korean War (1950-1953). (author’s and illustrator’s notes, questions to consider, glossary, meanings of names) (PreK Up) ![]() Kareem Between. Shifa Saltagi Safadi. (2024). Putnam. Safadi’s evocative verse novel tells the coming-of-age story of Syrian American Kareem, a seventh grader who, after making some poor decisions in an attempt to get a chance for a spot on the football team, struggles to fit in and make friends, to stand up against racist bullying at school, and to deal with family problems related to the “Muslim Travel Ban” executive order on travel from predominately Muslim countries signed by President Donald J. Trump in 2017. (author’s note) (Gr 6 Up) ![]() Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II (Operation Kinderspion #1). Adam Gidwitz. (2024). Dutton. When Jewish 11-year-old Max leaves Berlin for England in 1939 on the Kindertransport, he finds himself traveling with two mischievous and snarky spirits only he can see and hear on his shoulders: Stein, a Jewish dybbuk, and Berg, a German kobold. Determined to return to Berlin, Max comes up with a clever plan to do so by becoming a spy for the British. (author’s note, bibliography) (Gr 3 Up) ![]() Olivetti. Allie Millington. (2024). Feiwel and Friends. In this imaginative mystery told in alternating chapters from the viewpoints of 12-year-old Ernest Brindle, a loner and a lover of words, and Olivetti, the family’s old manual typewriter that has been replaced by a laptop, Tapestries, memories composed by Beatrice (Mom), live on in Olivetti. When Beatrice disappears, Olivetti realizes that these memories are vital to finding her and breaks the typewriter code as a “protector of memories” to communicate with Ernest by typing out Beatrice’s stored words. (Gr 6-8) ![]() The Spaceman. Randy Cecil. (2024). Candlewick. As a tiny spaceman steps out of his tiny spaceship onto what he thinks is a rather “ordinary planet,” he expects to have another ordinary day at his job of collecting, labeling, and filing soil samples before moving on to the next planet. But then a winged creature comes along and flies away with his tiny ship. In giving chase, the little alien encounters various creatures, including a potential best friend, and considers staying on this “extraordinary planet”—Earth. (PreS Up) ![]() Telephone of the Tree. Alison McGhee. (2024). Rocky Pond. Through a first-person narrative of spare, lyrical passages, almost-11-year-old Ayla reveals how much she misses her best friend, Kiri, who is far away, and cannot wait for her to come home. After friends and strangers start talking to their loved ones on the old-fashioned dial telephone that appeared in her tree, Ayla begins to accept that Kiri is “gone forever” and can finally begin to heal from the loss of her dead friend with the help of a supportive family and community. (author’s note) (Gr 3 Up) ![]() Ten Little Rabbits. Maurice Sendak. (2024). Harper. With a wave of a wand, a young magician makes rabbits appear one by one from his top hat. Then overwhelmed by 10 little rabbits, he makes them vanish one by one until there are none. The magician takes a bow, dons his hat, and departs from the stage with a satisfied smile. “ALL DONE.” The illustrations, done in the pen-and-ink style of Sendak’s mini Nut Shell Library books, were photographed from a pamphlet originally published in 1970 for a museum fundraiser. (PreS Up) ![]() Tree. Table. Book. Lois Lowry. (2024). Clarion. In this moving intergenerational story, 11-year-old Sophia (Sophie) Winslow’s best friend is 88-year-old Sophie Gershowitz. Learning that the elder Sophie’s son is coming to take her to see a doctor because she has been forgetting things, young Sophie worries about losing her best friend. As she attempts to protect Sophie Gershowitz by prepping her for upcoming cognitive testing, young Sophie discovers more about her friend and making memories through the stories she tells of her childhood in WWII Poland. (Gr 3 Up) ![]() Thunder City (Mortal Engines). Philip Reeve. (2024). Scholastic. In this action-packed stand-alone steampunk novel set in the world of Traction Cities where towns devour each other to survive, Tamzin Pook, renowned fighter of Revenants (non-human killing machines) in Mortmain’s Amusement Arcade, is enlisted by Miss Torpenhow, Max Angmering’s former history tutor, to help rescue him from a Paris prison cell guarded by a Revenant so that he can save the peaceful mobile town of Thorbury from destruction following the assassination of his father, the mayor. (Gr 6 Up) ![]() Twenty-four Seconds from Now . . .: A LOVE Story. Jason Reynolds. (2024). Caitlyn Dlouhy. In Reynold’s unique crafting of a YA romance story, high school seniors Neon Benton and Aria Wright, are planning to celebrate the two-year anniversary of their relationship by making love for the first time. Told from Neon’s point of view, complete with honest, heartfelt, and humorous advice from family and friends about sex, the book begins with “right now” while he is having a panic attack in Aria’s bathroom before the story backtracks in 24 “before” segments (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months) to finally return to “now” and the next twenty-four seconds. (Gr 9-12) ![]() Two Together. Brendan Wenzel. (2024). Chronicle. “Two together headed home. / Cat and dog. / Bell and Bone. / For a moment. / For a day. // Two together on their way.” The style of Wenzel’s expressive multi-media artwork that complements his spare, rhythmic text with its repetitive refrain of “Two together. . .” changes to represent the different perspectives of Bell and Bone as they explore the various sights, smells, and sounds they experience on a day full of adventuring before returning home together. (PreK-Gr 2) ![]() When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary. Alice Hoffman. (2024). Scholastic. When We Flew Away begins with ten-year-old Anne Frank’s family living in the Netherlands and follows her to age 13 during the insidious transformation of that country from neutral to deadly as Hitler orders Jews to concentration camps. Anne pursues her identity as a writer, while negotiating relationships and losses amidst the Holocaust when the Frank family is forced into hiding. (Gr 3 Up) Nancy Brashear is Professor Emeritus of English at Azusa Pacific University, in Azusa, California. Carolyn Angus is former Director of the George G. Stone Center for Children’s Books, Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorsThese reviews are submitted by members of the International Literacy Association's Children's Literature and Reading Special Interest Group (CL/R SIG). Archives
January 2025
Categories
|