When my kids are having a tough day, I want nothing more than to offer them a hug and a sympathetic ear—but sometimes, comfort from a well-meaning mom is the last thing they want. They’d rather be alone for a while, finding their own kind of comfort in a book. And I’m okay with that.
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This is obviously a lie. I am not okay with it at all. Who turns down a mom hug?!
Still, I feel a lot better when I think of my kids reaching for a story that recognizes their tough emotions and reminds them that they’re not alone. Or maybe, I think, they’ll grab something funny and weird that distracts them from the tough stuff and invites them to find a little joy in the world. This month, I’ll be placing some of these new titles strategically around my house so that my young readers can find them on their next tough day and have a good laugh, a good cry, or a little bit of both.
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Neil Sharpson, Help! I’m Being Eaten by a Bear!
Illustrated by Dan Santat
(Dial, November 3)
Recommended for ages 3 to 7
Author Neil Sharpson and illustrator Dan Santat, the collaborators behind last year’s beloved picture book Don’t Trust Fish, have returned this month with another very funny story about an animal to watch out for. When the book’s hapless narrator travels to Alaska, he steps off the plane and almost immediately bumps into one of the five most common Alaskan things: a large, hungry bear. The pamphlet he’s received at the airport (“What to Do if You Meet a Bear”) is no help at all; the bear is determined to eat him, and a wild chase ensues. Throughout the adventure, Sharpson and Santat deliver literary quips and visual gags with perfect comic timing. Kids will demand to hear this book read aloud a thousand times, and fun-loving adults will be happy to oblige.
Avi Steinberg, The Jumble
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, November 3)
Recommended for ages 4 to 8
From kindergarten teacher and New Yorker cartoonist Avi Steinberg comes a Freaky Friday-style tale of a kid and a dog who accidentally switch places. When a class of schoolchildren collides with a group of pups at the park, the teacher and the dog walker pick up the wrong leashes, sending human child George away with the dogs and furry brown Romper off to school for the afternoon. Handwriting, math, and snack time at doggie daycare all look a little different from what George is used to, but he tries his best. Romper tries, too (he is good at fetching basketballs but less good at art). It’s a fun, kid-friendly conceit, and Steinberg’s clever illustrations really make this picture book pop.
Gideon Sterer, The Island
Illustrated by Julia Sarcone-Roach
(Knopf, November 24)
Recommended for ages 4 to 8
When I first saw The Island, I fell in love with Julia Sarcone-Roach’s moodily gorgeous paintings of stormy seas, shadowy caves, and unexplored landscapes. Gideon Sterer’s text is equally lovely, offering young readers a safe harbor for the times when they struggle with tough emotions. The child at sea in this book doesn’t want to visit the island where he always sails when life feels sad and overwhelming, but he ends up there anyway, wandering alone. One day, however, he discovers that he is not entirely alone, and that the island is not just a scary place full of shadows and beasts. It’s a place where he can explore and experience his emotions fully, and it possesses a hopeful magic of its own. The Island keeps emotional truth at its center, giving young readers comfort without smoothing over the roughness of the sea.
Eleanor Spicer Rice, Undercover Conversations: Eavesdrop on the Natural World (Your Hidden Life #3)
Illustrated by Rob Wilson
(MIT Kids Press, November 10)
Recommended for ages 7 to 10
What sound does a fish make when it farts? Do trees have secret gossip sessions? Can baby snakes hear each other’s heartbeats before they’ve even hatched? In Undercover Conversations, the third in a fun nonfiction series for middle grade readers, science writer Eleanor Spicer Rice answers these fascinating questions and many more. Rice takes curious young readers on a tour of the natural world that’s hiding in plain sight, focusing on the ways that plants and animals communicate and connect. The kid-friendly text is accompanied by Rob Wilson’s funny illustrations and by inspirational interviews with real-life scientists.
Grant Snider, The Year I Stopped Drawing
(Amulet, November 10)
Recommended for ages 8 to 12
I’m really looking forward to this illustrated novel in verse from cartoonist and writer Grant Snider. It’s narrated by seventh grader Adam, whose world is turning upside down both at home and at school. His father is struggling with alcohol addiction, his parents’ marriage is on the rocks, and familiar childhood friendships are changing as puberty sets in. Adam has always coped with the world by drawing—his artwork on yellow legal pads and sticky notes illustrates the novel—but now there’s a new girl in school who’s praised for her artwork, and Adam feels his identity as an artist slipping away. In both comics and poetry, Snider has a knack for authentically depicting the ups and downs of kids’ emotions.
Kip Wilson, Backpack, Boy, Berlin
Illustrated by Matt Schu
(Candlewick, November 3)
Recommended for ages 8 to 12
Ten-year-old Don Heath, Jr. is an American diplomat’s son who’s spent his life traveling around the world for his father’s work. Now, in 1938, the family has moved to Germany, where it doesn’t take Don long to notice the danger that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party pose to local families and to the world beyond Berlin. When war breaks out, Don finds himself caught up in espionage work: His tutor, Mildred Harnack, asks him to help pass secret intelligence from the German resistance movement to his parents at the U.S. Embassy. Based on real historical people and events, this fascinating illustrated novel in verse will appeal to adventure-loving kids who dream of making a difference.
Jaclyn Moriarty, The Accidental World-Slip of Astrid Verity (Kingdoms and Empires #6)
(Levine Querido, November 3)
Recommended for ages 8 to 12
Australian author Jaclyn Moriarty writes unique, wildly creative books that never shy away from a deep emotional truth or an excellent joke. Her stories for middle grade readers take place in the refreshingly inventive fantasy world of the Kingdoms and Empires; they form a loose series but can also be read as stand-alone novels. Feel free to start with this one, in which ten-year-old Astrid is magically shunted from her world into ours and must find her way back home with help from her new friend Echo, a real-world kid from Sydney. Fans of Moriarty’s previous middle grade novels will appreciate the elaborate world-building and the returning characters who pop up like long-lost friends.
Jimmy Liao, Our Starry Starry Night
(Chronicle, November 3)
Recommended for ages 8 and up
Originally published in Taiwan in 2009, Our Starry Starry Night is a long and luminous picture book for middle grade and young adult readers. Through evocative full-color illustrations and minimal text, readers meet a girl who feels alone in the world. She desperately misses her grandparents and the woodland cottage where she used to live with them. Now she lives in the city with her parents, who are always fighting, and none of her friends at school feel truly close. Then a boy who seems just as alone as she is moves in nearby, and the two children begin to build a friendship and dream of a kinder world. Touches of surrealism—or even magic—in author-illustrator Jimmy Liao’s detailed artwork add intriguing layers to the story. Readers of any age who dream of being understood and loved will find a home in these pages.
Pippa Dunn, The Sign of the Raven
(Viking, November 10)
Recommended for ages 12 and up
I’m excited to read Pippa Dunn’s YA speculative fiction debut, The Sign of the Raven, which takes place in an imagined version of nineteenth-century London in which an autocratic president has come to power after the assassination of Queen Victoria. In daylight hours, sixteen-year-old Ashlyn Threadneedle works as a messenger for the government of the New British Republic. At night, she has the ability to escape into the Stream, the world of dreams that lucid dreamers like Ashlyn can learn to navigate. When Ashlyn learns of a government plot to seize control of the Stream, she and her fellow lucid dreamers must act to protect their minds, their freedom, and their country’s future.
Talia Tucker, Ghosted
(Feiwel & Friends, November 10)
Recommended for ages 14 to 18
Talia Tucker’s new YA novel combines humor, horror, and romance in a package that sounds both fun and fresh. High school senior Keziah has been ghosted by plenty of dates, but when the connection she feels with transfer student Guy doesn’t stop him from ghosting her, too, she decides to ghost him right back by haunting him with secrets from his past. Keziah teams up with a girl named Gigi to make Guy’s life a living nightmare, all the while contending with her own literal demon (a sleep paralysis demon who she’s named Steve) and with her growing feelings for Gigi.
