Deborah Hopkinson

The Way Past Winter quickly draws young readers into the magical world of a mysterious, frozen north, where Mila lives with her parents and her siblings, Sanna and Oskar. Their mother, who loves to spin tales of an ancient forest spirit called the Bear, dies giving birth to a baby daughter, Pípa. Five years later, devastated by grief, the children’s father walks into the snowy wilderness and isn't seen again.

Then Oskar disappears after a group of strangers visits their hut, but Mila is convinced he has not gone willingly. Mila and her sisters set out in their dog-drawn birch sleigh to track him, only to discover that other boys in the nearby town, including Sanna’s friend Geir, are missing, too. Bretta, the town’s jarl (a kind of ruler), believes the boys have been lured away by adventure and the promise of money. Most of the townsfolk agree—except for Rune, a mage, herbalist and storyteller. Rune tells Mila that Oskar and the others have been taken by the Bear, who becomes angry when trees are cut down. With no time to waste, Rune, Mila and Pípa set off on a dangerous rescue mission. To save her brother, Mila will have to muster all her courage to confront the Bear—and come to a new understanding of what it means to call the forest her home in order to guard and protect it for the future.

Author Kiran Millwood Hargrave paints her wintery world with poetic, lyrical prose. Her story’s complex magical elements never detract from the page-turning adventure and underlying themes of sibling relationships, responsibility and love of the natural world. The Way Past Winter is a winning and memorable combination of classical fantasy and a call for environmental activism.

In this luminous middle grade novel, Michael L. Printz Honor author Helen Frost mines family history to explore the little-known experiences of children in state-run psychiatric institutions in mid-20th-century America. Artistic and bright, Henry was born hearing but became deaf after an illness in early childhood. At first, Henry continues to speak to his loving older sister, Molly, as well as to his parents, but the teasing and bullying of others soon silence him.

When his parents seek professional help, a school for the deaf deems Henry “unteachable,” and he is sent instead to Riverview, a deplorable institution. There, Henry develops close friendships with two other boys; despite mistreatment, he manages to maintain his compassionate nature and his humanity. Henry’s life changes for the better when, after the U.S. enters World War II, a conscientious objector named Victor is assigned to Riverview.

Henry’s story unfolds in plainspoken yet evocative third-person free verse that brings the story’s setting to life. For instance, when he arrives at Riverview, Henry reacts most strongly to its awful smell, a combination that includes “something like potatoes / forgotten in a corner of the kitchen.” Victor’s portion of the narrative includes epistolary poems in sonnet form that add context to Henry’s experiences as well as to the time period. The relationship that develops between Molly and Victor—also told through letters—is especially lovely as the two young people work together to improve Henry’s life.

Although Frost’s subject is weighty, she handles it with skilled sensitivity. All He Knew is a significant and poignant exploration of a difficult moment in American history and serves as a loving tribute to the young people whose experiences it brings to light.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Helen Frost shares her personal connection to the story of All He Knew.

In 1940, when two-time Newbery Medalist Lois Lowry was 3 years old, her father made a home movie of her as she played on a beach in Hawaii, where Lowry’s family lived. Years later, while watching the film, Lowry realized the USS Arizona, the battleship that sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was visible on the horizon. The poignancy of the image stayed with the author and served as one of the inspirations for her book On the Horizon.

Each of On the Horizon’s three sections intertwine Lowry’s personal history with vignettes of sailors stationed at Pearl Harbor the day of the attack and of civilians in Japan, where Lowry moved with her family after the end of the war. Lowry’s desire to connect with and understand other people and their experiences unites the poems. In “Girl on a Bike,” for example, Lowry recalls the day she stopped outside a schoolyard to watch children playing. In an extraordinary coincidence, one of those children, a boy named Koichi Seii, grew up to become the Caldecott Medalist Allen Say. Say and Lowry never met in Japan, but years later, Say recalled seeing Lowry and her green bicycle outside his school that day.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Lois Lowry takes us behind the scenes of On the Horizon.

Lowry’s experiences—as a young child in Honolulu and a girl who grew up in Japan—provide her with a unique perspective on the major events that bookend World War II. But one of On the Horizon’s greatest strengths is that Lowry expands her gaze and incorporates the experiences of others. Although the USS Arizona was, that day on the beach, so far away as to appear “on the horizon,” Lowry employs a literary zoom lens to capture poignant portraits of the ship’s crew, including the members of the Navy band and commanding officer Captain Isaac Campbell Kidd. In “Captain Kidd,” Lowry links Kidd’s name to memories of her grandmother’s stories of pirates before revealing that, during the attack, Kidd ran to the bridge of the ship: “His Naval Academy ring / was found melted and fused to the mast. / It is not an imaginary thing, / a symbol of devotion so vast.”

Through deceptively plainspoken prose layered with imagery and linguistic artistry, On the Horizon’s remarkable poems are a powerful reminder of our shared humanity in times of conflict and war. Simply put, they are an extraordinary gift from one of America’s most distinguished writers.