“Why is that new girl on our new horse?” Norrie asks her best friend, Hazel, as the two arrive at Edgewood Stables, where they ride and help out around the barn along with their friend, Sam. It turns out that the new girl is Vic, who used to ride at tony Waverly Stables. The four preteens form the heart of the wonderful ensemble cast in graphic novelist Faith Erin Hicks’ Ride On, a lively tale of horses and friendship.
Vic has begun riding at Edgewood after falling out with her best friend at Waverly, and she and Norrie get off to a dramatically rocky start. Passionate Norrie reacts to the newcomer with a short fuse, declaring that Waverly is Edgewood’s rival (an opinion that no one else, particularly shy, reserved Hazel, seems to share). Vic, meanwhile, tells Norrie she’s not looking to make friends at Edgewood; she just wants to be left alone to ride.
The story of Vic and Norrie’s relationship includes twists, turns and plenty of emotional fireworks that feel immediate and authentic. Hicks captures the angst and confusion that so often characterize the early teen years as interests change and friendships blossom and wane.
Hicks’ sharp, focused illustrations enliven character interactions by zeroing in on facial expressions, especially Norrie’s cavalcade of wide-eyed, accusatory looks as she feels increasingly threatened by Vic. Onomatopoeia punctuates various scenes, such as a large, bright yellow “FWUMP!” when Vic falls onto her bed in frustration. Hicks skillfully uses color to spotlight characters within panels: Vic’s blue-tinged braids, Norrie’s pink polo shirt and Sam’s blue and gray hoodie all stand out against the browns and blacks of Edgewood Stables and its horses.
Of course, those horses are also at the center of the story. Ride On contains plenty of riding action informed by Hicks’ childhood as a “horse girl,” as she explains in an author’s note. Hicks movingly conveys the love between riders and horses, as well as the nerves and challenges experienced by both during competitions.
Ride On will leave readers eager for more of Hicks’ animated tales and ready to jump in the saddle themselves.
Faith Erin Hicks’ graphic novel is a love letter to “horse crazy” kids and a lively portrait of how friendships can blossom and wane during early adolescence.
Moving halfway around the world to a new country where everyone speaks a new language would be a challenging experience for just about anyone. But for 10-year-old Zhang Ai Shi and her parents, leaving Taiwan means a chance for a better life in the United States, a place known in China as “the beautiful country.”
In the fall of 1980, Ai Shi’s family moves into a cramped one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Her parents use their life savings to purchase a fast-food restaurant, but it’s a struggle to make their business venture succeed. The restaurant is repeatedly vandalized, and Ai Shi’s classmates at school often make racist comments toward her. Ai Shi and her family all work hard, but money stays tight, and Ai Shi misses the friends and traditions she left behind in Taiwan. Even her birthday and Christmas are disappointing. Will Ai Shi ever feel at home in America?
With In the Beautiful Country, debut author Jane Kuo draws on her own experience of immigrating to the U.S. during the 1980s to create a moving story of family, heartbreak and, in time, hope. She portrays her young protagonist’s feelings of being torn between two cultures while capturing snapshots of the Zhang family’s journey and everyday lives.
Free verse written from Ai Shi’s perspective strikes the perfect balance between approachable and lyrical. As she contemplates her new life, Ai Shi wonders whether something can be ugly and beautiful at the same time. “And a person, / can a person feel two different emotions, / can a person be both grateful and sad, / at exactly the same time?” By embracing what they have, instead of dwelling on what they lack, Ai Shi and her family eventually realize that when they’re together, supporting one another, they’re truly home.
Debut author Jane Kuo draws on personal experience to create this moving story of a young girl who immigrates to the U.S. during the early 1980s.
Readers, prepare to meet the most memorable middle grade protagonist of 2022. Twelve-year-old Olive Miracle Martin, the instantly endearing hero of Hummingbird, is, in her own words, a “joy-kaboom.” After being homeschooled due to a medical condition called osteogenesis imperfecta (sometimes known as brittle bone disease), Olive begins attending Macklemore Middle School, where local legend tells of a magical, wish-granting hummingbird. Will finding the hummingbird make Olive’s deepest wish come true?
Author Natalie Lloyd brings a uniquely personal perspective to Olive’s story, imbuing her extraordinary hero with unforgettable warmth, honesty and heart.
You and Olive both have osteogenesis imperfecta. In what other ways are you alike? How are you different? Initially, I was very hesitant to write about a character who had the same disability that I do. I really wanted Olive’s story to be about more than her body, so I tried to smoosh the “bone stuff” to the background. But the more I revised Hummingbird, the more I realized that Olive’s disability is naturally a source of conflict for her, like it is for me. My disability informs how I move through my daily life and the world, and how I exist in my body. It’s only one part of the big constellation of my life, but it’s still a part. So we do have that Big Thing in common, Olive and I.
But we share other things too. Olive and I are both creative, and we both love love. We’re both ardent fans of Dolly Parton and Judy Blume. We both think that one true BFF can make all the difference in helping you feel like you belong. And we’re both a little weird. If I were a character in a book, I would be somewhere between Anne Shirley and Luna Lovegood, and Olive falls on that spectrum too. Even though I’ve always been a bit shy, I love theater. Olive is the same way. She puzzles over the dichotomy of wanting to stand out (in her heart-shaped sunglasses and bedazzled wheelchair) and wanting to blend in and be “normal.”
As far as our differences, Olive has a gentle boldness and assertiveness that I would like to have. Her confidence is still growing, of course, but she’s not afraid to ask hard questions and love completely, and I adore that about her.
Tell us about the word fragile and the role it plays in this story. Like Olive, being described as “fragile” has been commonplace for me for as long as I can remember. In a literal sense, it’s true. My bones break easily; my body is fragile. And yet, even though that’s true, there has always been a part of me that bristles at that description. Because I know there is so much more to me—to everybody—than a body.
In 2019, I had a hard reckoning with the word fragile. I walked through the kitchen late one night to check a door and slipped in dog drool. I heard the snap in my thigh before I hit the ground and knew I’d broken my femur. That’s supposed to be the strongest bone in a human body, but my femurs have always been fragile. It’s a painful break and a long recovery, so I felt like my world was paused again because of my fragile places.
I had tried so hard to lean into all the other aspects of who I’d become: I was a writer (which still feels like a dream come true). I was independent. I am married to a kind and wonderful man whom I describe as Gilbert Blythe with sleeve tattoos, and I loved the life we’d built. And then something in me broke, again, and I needed help with everything. I told my husband that I felt broken all over, and he said, “Your leg is broken. You aren’t broken.” It helped me get a grip on Olive’s whole story. She starts out on a mission to prove to everybody she’s not fragile. But really, the only person she ever has to prove that to is herself.
“So much of what I write comes down to how much I love and miss people. Every story is a love story.”
Olive’s narration sometimes shifts from prose into verse. How did this choice come about? What role has poetry played in your life? I wasn’t planning to write any element of Olive’s story in verse, but a whole draft came out that way. I showed it to my brilliant editor, Mallory Kass, and told her that something about it felt really freeing and right for this story, so we looked closely at the text together. I realized the places the verse felt the most important to me was when Olive was reflecting on her body. Those thoughts about her body—how it’s fragile, different and changing—break, just like her bones do. Mallory encouraged me to try writing the story with both forms, and it was the exact blend I wanted. I could lean into Olive’s humor a little easier and explore her world more fully in prose, but verse felt like the right carrier for her weightier thoughts about herself.
Poetry factored big into my middle school era. I wrote some terribly cringey poems that my parents still have. I also got a book of Emily Dickinson poems that’s still on my bookshelf. Back then, I mostly loved Dickinson’s work for its cadence and moodiness. I also loved how she compared big feelings (like hope) to ephemeral things in nature (like “a thing with feathers”). Middle school is also when I wore out Dolly Parton cassette tapes, singing “Eagle When She Flies” to my audience of Popples and Care Bears.
Between Emily and Dolly, I fell in love with poetry, and I still adore it. I used to say that I ate poems for breakfast, by which I mean: I would read a Mary Oliver poem every morning. I still try to do that. It makes my heart feel awake. And of course, I love folk and alt-country, singer-songwriter music—poetry with a banjo in the mix.
Olive’s grandfather is a well-known birder, and it’s a passion he shares with his granddaughter. Did your research include delving into birds and birding? If so, what are some of your favorite things that you learned? There’s a subtle connection Olive and I have: While my granny wasn’t a birder, she was obsessed with birds. She could name a bird by its song, and I always thought that was such a cool way to be connected to the world. I enjoy reading about birds and watching them, too.
“I’m smitten with the idea of big magic existing in a small creature.”
Sometimes when I see a hummingbird, I gasp. I know they aren’t uncommon but they feel special to me. I like their bejeweled feathers and buzzy wings. Reading about them was especially fun as I wrote this book. Here are some fun facts: Most hummingbirds weigh about as much as a nickel, they can fly backwards, and—this is my favorite—they remember human faces. There are also lots of legends and folklore connected to hummingbirds. I’m smitten with the idea of big magic existing in a small creature.
Olive’s story feels inextricable from its setting, and I think many readers will wish they could visit Olive’s fictional hometown of Wildwood, Tennessee. Why was creating such a strong sense of place important to you? Do you have any recommendations for real-world spots that might feel a little like Wildwood? It’s fun to create a town in a novel because I get to pack it full of spots I love. But I definitely understand the need to see the real inspiration. Some of my favorite go-to towns for inspiration in Tennessee are Lenoir City, Signal Mountain and Sweetwater. I also like to visit towns in the Blue Ridge Mountains, like Franklin and Hendersonville in North Carolina, when I need some fodder. If readers are ever able to visit the Smoky Mountains, I highly recommend it. That would give them a good idea of the scope of Olive’s natural world. It’s a misty, magical place full of woods and babbling brooks. And birdsong. And ghost stories. And a hummingbird, or two.
Hummingbird beautifully depicts so many different characters’ relationships to faith and spirituality. Was this an element of the book from the beginning? What was the most challenging part of incorporating it? Olive’s spirituality was always threaded through the book. The biggest challenge in writing about her faith was this: I want every reader, regardless of what they believe, to feel safe in my books. Olive’s personal wrestling with her faith is connected to mine. I’m a person of faith, but when bones break and I’m in pain (or when someone I love is in pain), obviously that’s hard to process. One of my favorite attributes of Southern fiction is how faith and folklore collide; it felt right for Olive to interact with both. And it felt right—and true—that the people Olive loves all have different relationships to faith, too.
“You get to take up as much space as you want on this planet in exactly the body you are in. You deserve to move through the world with joy and confidence. Your experience matters.”
Your books often include elements of magic, and Olive herself loves fantasy and fairy tales. What draws you to incorporating this into your work? What’s magical to you? I think we all write what we love to read, and I was once (and always) a queen in Narnia. I adored books like Roald Dahl’s Matilda and Lynne Reid Banks’ The Fairy Rebel and stories where magic was a flicker in a very real world. I’m still drawn to that gentle magic in books. Deep down, I love that the world is sometimes un-figure-out-able.
It sounds cheesy, but the best magic for me is love. There are certainly moments of little magic in every day: birds singing, dogs that snuggle, sunsets smeared on a mountain sky, cherry popsicles on a hot day, a perfect song lyric. But there’s no magic like love, like hearing the voice of someone you love. Like hugging someone you love and have missed. So much of what I write comes down to how much I love and miss people. Every story is a love story.
What did you learn about yourself from writing Olive’s story? I don’t want to spoil anything, but what Olive and I both learned is reflected in the last line of the book. And while my first hope for readers is that Hummingbird gives them joy-kabooms, I also hope that it’s found by anyone who needs that last-line reminder.
And I also learned this: You get to take up as much space as you want on this planet in exactly the body you are in. You deserve to move through the world with joy and confidence. Your experience matters. One thing I love about the KidLit community, and all the readers, writers, teachers, librarians and publishing people who abide in it, is our determination to create safe spaces where kids get to grow into their most authentic selves. It’s a deep honor to be a little part of that world.
With Moonflower, National Book Award-winning author Kacen Callender (King and the Dragonflies) creates a surreal, dreamlike wonder of a novel.
Twelve-year-old Moon, who is Black and nonbinary, longs to leave the world of the living, where they have “a hard time being happy.” Every night, they transcend their body and travel to the spirit world, a place where new lives are created, old lives are reincarnated and some lives are just in between. Humans ordinarily can’t enter the spirit world, so Moon is invisible to the spirits that dwell there, but the more time Moon spends there, the more visible they become.
Moon is determined to find a way to stay in the spirit world forever. They learn that a mysterious being known as the Keeper might be able to help them do so. Should Moon trust the Keeper—or could the Keeper have ulterior motives?
Moonflower is a captivating story, and Callender’s respect for young readers is clear on every page. The novel poses a big question: What is the purpose of being alive? The expansiveness of Callender’s story invites readers to ponder their own responses as they journey through fantastical worlds alongside Moon. Callender delicately balances awe and astonishment with the reality that human existence is often painful, but life is ultimately worth living.
Callender dedicates their novel to “the younger me who didn’t want to be in this world anymore” and to “anyone who has also wanted to leave this world.” Moonflower is the rare novel that meets young readers in what might be their darkest moment and leads them, with honesty and empathy, back toward the light.
Moonflower poses a big question—what is the purpose of being alive?—then invites readers to ponder their own responses as they follow protagonist Moon’s fantastical journey.
From the very first page of Natalie Lloyd’s Hummingbird, the unforgettable spirit of 12-year-old Olive Miracle Martin shines.
Olive has been home-schooled because she has a medical condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, which causes her bones to break very easily. Olive is filled with joy-kabooms (“joy and excitement all mixed together”) as she confesses that her “prayer, and wish, and wildest hope” is to attend Macklemore Middle School.
Olive’s parents agree that it’s time for her to try attending traditional school. There, she is soon swept up into a grand adventure: the search for a legendary hummingbird said to grant a wish to whomever finds it. The only problem is that everyone else in Olive’s small town of Wildwood, Tennessee, is on the hunt too. Nonetheless, Olive is certain she can locate the creature. When she does, she plans to make the biggest wish of all.
Lloyd situates Olive amid a large cast of characters and several memorable settings. Olive shares a warmly supportive home with her blended family, whose cottage is deep in the supposedly haunted Piney Woods near “a mountain town full of folktales.” Macklemore Middle School is an equally enchanting place that features unusual therapy animals (a sloth named Bon Jovi and a llama named Edna) and an aviary converted to a library.
At Macklemore, Olive makes new friends and takes an instant liking to her creative, encouraging teacher, Mr. Watson. Eventually, she auditions for the school play, a production based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson called “Hope Like Features.” These scenes link the novel’s avian motifs with the mix of wonder and isolation that deep-thinking Olive experiences throughout the novel.
At times, Lloyd’s prose shifts into lines of free verse poetry, and these moments are often among the novel’s most powerful. “Fragile is what I’ll always be. I get that. / But I am / a thousand other things, too,” Olive reflects. “I’m / whole constellations / of wonders and weirdness / and hope.”
Like Olive, Lloyd also has osteogenesis imperfecta, and she writes about living with a serious medical condition with sensitivity. Readers will quickly understand Olive’s frustrations and desires: There’s no ramp to the stage where she longs to perform, and when she drops her tray during her first visit to the school cafeteria, she wonders whether attending Macklemore might have been a mistake.
Hummingbird is a rare novel, as exceptional as the magical hummingbird at its center. Lloyd’s writing will bring to mind some of the most beloved creators of children’s literature, such as Kate DiCamillo and Judy Blume. With exceptional style and empathy, Hummingbird exquisitely addresses weighty themes in a jubilant yet realistic way, broken bones and all. As Olive herself declares, “Nobody can stick this bird in a tree. . . . I am born to fly!”
With exceptional style and empathy, Hummingbird exquisitely addresses weighty themes in a jubilant yet realistic way. This is a novel as rare as the magical bird at its center.
Young sleuths searching for great mystery novels know exactly what they’re looking for: engaging characters, a suspenseful story, a satisfying resolution and a touch of heart. They’ll find all that and more in these two middle grade books.
Duet
If the animal menagerie of Deborah and James Howe’s classic Bunnicula series had included a goldfinch, the result might have been something like Duet. Like Bunnicula and its sequels, Duet features an animal narrator. Mirabelle is a young goldfinch who helps her favorite people find answers to perplexing questions.
Mr. Starek has retired from teaching piano lessons, but he makes an exception for Michael, a sixth grader whose musical talent is matched only by his stubbornness. Mirabelle has kept Mr. Starek company from the trees outside his windows since the recent death of his sister, Halina, and now the little yellow bird delights in singing along while Michael practices a series of pieces composed by Frédéric Chopin, including the technically challenging and exquisitely beautiful Ballade in F Minor.
As Mirabelle searches for a way to join Michael at an upcoming competition, Michael and Mr. Starek are joined by Emily, a former protege of Mr. Starek’s. Emily used to teach Michael piano, but now she’s studying music history at the conservatory. Together, the trio search Halina’s house for a rare, hidden piano known as a Pleyel, one of two types of pianos on which Chopin composed. However, Halina was a hoarder, which Broach depicts with empathy and understanding, and the house contains more secrets than anyone suspects.
Masterpiece Adventures author Elise Broach fills Duet with evocative details of Mirabelle’s avian life, including adventures with her brothers, the welcoming of new siblings to her family’s nest and a harrowing description of a thunderstorm. Broach also incorporates a number of intriguing and memorable stories about Chopin and his artistic friends. Her writing is peppered with fun vocabulary (appurtenances, daguerreotype), and Duet includes an author’s note that explains how the conclusion of the novel’s mystery connects to fascinating real-life events.
At one point, Emily acknowledges her limitations as a pianist, providing a refreshing and mature balance to the other musicians’ focus on perfect performances as their primary goal. Music, Duet suggests, can be enjoyed by everyone—including goldfinches. Find a recording of Chopin’s ballades and let Broach sweep you away on wings of word and song.
Chester Keene Cracks the Code
Chester Keene appreciates his routine more than your average sixth grader. Every day after school, until his mom gets off work, he plays laser tag and knocks down pins at his mother’s best friend’s bowling alley. His routine does not include finding an envelope with his name on it that contains two riddles bearing the numbers one and four. And it especially does not include being joined at his solo lunch table by the outgoing Skye, who’s holding riddles number two and three.
Chester thinks the clues must have been left by his absent father, whom Chester has long been convinced is a spy. What if the riddles are Chester’s dad’s way of communicating that he’s in trouble and needs Chester’s help? As Chester and Skye decode the puzzles, which seem intentionally designed to require them to work together, they form a friendship. When they overhear a group of bowlers plotting a heist, they begin to wonder whether stopping the crime could be the key to rescuing Chester’s dad. But could Chester’s reliance on careful observation be leading him astray?
Readers who pay close attention to detail will be rewarded not just with the solutions to the riddles, which involve puns, number games and creative thinking, but also the answers to the novel’s larger mysteries, such as why Chester and Skye have been brought together in the first place. The revelation of the riddles’ true purpose takes Chester Keene Cracks the Code in a direction that’s as fitting as it is initially unexpected. Maybe what Chester longs for most is actually closer to him than he realizes.
Diversity is a part of Chester’s world in quiet ways: Both Chester and Skye are biracial, and Skye encourages Chester to “break free of traditional gender roles” and embrace his inner warrior princess. Chester’s town’s various small businesses, including the bowling alley, evoke a small-town, working-class setting. His solitary habits and reliance on down-to-the-minute schedules also suggest a neurodivergence that acclaimed author Kekla Magoon leaves unspecified.
Chester Keene Cracks the Code is a heartwarming puzzle mystery whose narrator has multiple codes to crack: the code of the riddle messages, the code of friendship, the code of handling a bully and the code of family.
Join young detectives on quests for answers that may be hiding in plain sight.
Sometimes when tragedy strikes, a family draws closer, weaving itself into a tightly intertwined bulwark against heartache. Other times, however, tragedy can drive family members apart as they try to avoid feeling—let alone expressing—their grief.
The titular 11-year-old protagonist of Zoraida Córdova’s heartfelt and imaginative Valentina Salazar Is Not a Monster Hunter would never have predicted the latter outcome for her family. As far back as Valentina can remember, the Salazars have been dedicated monster rescuers, scooping up magical beings that stumble into this dimension and sending them back to the realm of Finisterra before monster hunters can find and perhaps kill them.
However, in the eight months since their father died on a mission gone horribly awry, the Salazars have been trying to live a more ordinary life. Their mother moved the family to upstate New York, took a job in the city and retired their tricked-out camper van, the Scourge, to the garage. Everyone has adjusted pretty well to the changes, but Valentina can’t stop wishing she could repair her family’s close bonds and get them all back to doing what they were born to do.
A viral video provides the opportunity Valentina needs: A boy discovers an unusual-looking egg and believes it to be a dragon egg. Millions of viewers are watching online as the egg seems ready to hatch at any moment, but Valentina knows it’s a recipe for disaster. After all, her father often liked to say that “people liked the idea of magical beasts, but if they knew the truth? They wouldn’t be able to handle it.” Valentina convinces her siblings to climb back into the Scourge and race to the egg before any TV reporters or monster hunters get there—and before something terrible happens.
Córdova sends her characters on a delightfully detailed wild ride of a road trip. As they visit foreboding and fantastical locales, Valentina and her siblings encounter monsters of all stripes, from sinuous, threatening beasts to creatures so cute and fluffy you’ll wish they were real. Monsters appear in the most unexpected places, as do humans scarier than any mythical creature.
Valentina Salazar Is Not a Monster Hunter swirls fantasy, adventure, comedy, action, coming-of-age and even a few hints of romance into a magical, memorable elixir of a story. Córdova makes a powerful case for friendship, imagination and hope as she reminds readers that “not everything that looks like a monster is monstrous.”
This heartfelt elixir of a story combines fantasy, adventure, comedy, action and coming-of-age for an unforgettable wild ride.
Dhonielle Clayton is a bestselling YA author, the chief operating officer of the nonprofit organization We Need Diverse Books and the founder of Cake Creative Kitchen, a multimedia development company. If Clayton’s talent has a ceiling, her first middle grade novel, The Marvellers, reveals that she hasn’t reached it yet.
The Marvellers is the stuff that middle grade fantasy fans’ dreams are made of. The first book in a planned series, it’s the story of Ella Durand, the first Conjuror to attend the Arcanum Training Institute, a magical school that floats high in the clouds. Clayton spoke with BookPage about creating a fantastical world that balances playfulness and delight with analogs to real-life injustices, anchored by a protagonist certain to join the likes of Percy Jackson and Aru Shah in the hearts of middle grade fantasy readers.
The Marvellers is your first foray into middle grade. What was it like to create a story for this readership?
Middle grade fiction is my first love. I’m a former elementary and middle school librarian as well as a secondary school teacher, so those books have always had my heart and reminded me of why I love books.
I feel so excited to get to write for a younger audience because I believe that this is the developmental time period when imaginations are cultivated and grown. I was surrounded by these readers in my library every day and they inspired me as I was creating the world of The Marvellers. I tried to reconnect with the middle grade reader I used to be, diving headfirst into all the magic and all the whimsy.
Can you give us a little introduction to Ella and where she’s at when we meet her?
Ella is an eternal optimist who is very invested in making friends and determined to contribute to her community. She is the young person I wish I had been at her age, but instead I was a grumpy, fussy sourpuss and a mildly reclusive kid—more like Harriet the Spy and Turtle Wexler of The Westing Game than anything else. If I could’ve been left to my own devices rather than having to deal with the community, I would’ve gladly curled up with a book and ignored everyone.
But Ella is the ultimate lovebug and an extraordinary global citizen. If you don’t have friends, she’ll always offer you a branch of friendship. No matter the bad weather, she’s going to look for the sunshine.
Ella faces a huge challenge at the start of the book: She straddles two worlds and functions like a tiny bridge between them. The Marvellian world is uneasy about Conjuror integration into their cities and their school, because for over 300 years they’ve been afraid of how magic manifests in the Conjuror world. Conjure folk remain hurt by and suspicious of Marvellers, leaving many Conjurors torn about whether they should even share space with a group of people who have actively kept them out and ostracized them.
Ella is caught in this emotional, political and social tangle, not unlike how my parents dealt with being the first generation of Black Americans to integrate segregated schools in the American South. Ella must be steadfast and actively hold onto her joy when so many wish to take it from her.
“I hope Ella’s struggle reminds young readers that there’s something marvelous about them, and the sooner they embrace that universal truth, the better.”
The way that characters treat Conjurers in the book parallels prejudices in our world, especially racism and anti-Blackness. Why was this important to you? How did you balance giving young readers of color a fantastical escape and also representing their own experiences with injustice?
The thematic question at the heart of The Marvellers and its universe is the conflict and tension between two groups of magical people. I wanted this complex and nuanced conflict to parallel anti-Black racism, especially anti-Black racism rooted in the deep-seated prejudice against descendants of the chattel slave trade system so as to include the disapora of trafficked West Africans. I wanted to use magic and fantasy to discuss how anti-Blackness isn’t superficial, but rather an insidious system that penetrates and poisons every aspect of a society, magical or real.
However, this thematic subtext is all lingering just beneath a big story about a magic school. I was very conscious of the story’s balance, of making sure to tell the truth and confront the darker and more uncomfortable realities of queer and BIPOC kids in environments like these while also making sure those kids still just get to have a magical escape.
Each member of Marvellian society has a unique magical talent known as a Marvel, and Ella spends much of the book wondering where her own talents fit in. What would you say to young readers who are trying to discover or embrace what makes them special?
I hope Ella’s struggle reminds young readers that there’s something marvelous about them, and the sooner they embrace that universal truth, the better. My grandmother told me that it only mattered what I liked and how I felt about myself, and everything else was nonsense and not my business. I hope young readers can be excited about what makes them unique, because the magic system of this world celebrates that.
“Creating the setting of the Arcanum Institute was the most fun I’ve had while working on a book because I got to add in all the things I wish I’d had at a real school, as both a student and a teacher.”
The Arcanum Training Institute teaches students from all over the world. How did you research the various magical traditions that readers will see represented?
I did a ton of research to build the world of The Marvellers, from spending time in libraries, to traveling, to working with cultural experts from all around the world. It was important to me that all children could find their place in this universe and have the ability to self-insert and imagine themselves as a young Marveller headed to study in the skies or as a Conjuror trying to make their way.
I kept an entire notebook of research about global cultures and theorized what their marvels might be based on their unique folkloric traditions as well as their customs, food and history. I hope that through the series, I’ll be able to learn more and continue to add more inclusivity to this big world.
The world of the novel is bursting with quirks and amazing details. Can you tell us about developing this complex setting? What aspects or elements were the most fun? Were there any challenges you had to solve along the way?
Creating the setting of the Arcanum Institute was the most fun I’ve had while working on a book because I got to add in all the things I wish I’d had at a real school, as both a student and a teacher. The first step was to make a complex map, laying out where everything was and its purpose, plus infusing it all with magic and wonder.
I had the most fun while creating the Paragon Towers and the Dining Hall. I wanted each tower to be a feast for the imagination and embody a particular sensory category in unexpected ways. The Taste Tower would be filled with delicious things to taste and the Sound Tower would display every instrument you could think of and have amazing sound labs. The Dining Hall was a place where I could just have fun, play with food and ensure that the diversity of the student body was reflected in the menus and magical food trucks.
I’m wrestling with my biggest challenge now, because the Arcanum Institute never looks the same way twice, so as I work on the sequel, I have to start redoing my map and changing up the look of the school.
“My grandmother told me that it only mattered what I liked and how I felt about myself, and everything else was nonsense and not my business.”
Speaking of the Dining Hall, The Marvellers contains so many imaginative descriptions of food, from dancing dumplings to flying hummingbird cakes. Why is food such an important part of the magic of this world? What’s the most magical thing you’ve ever eaten? What’s the most magical thing you’d like to eat, but haven’t yet (or maybe can’t, because of the laws of this universe)?
I believe that food is a connector between groups of people, and I wanted to use food in this magical universe to bring people together and showcase how diverse and wonderful it could be. I was a kid who was afraid of a lot of different foods, so I wanted to animate the food in a way that might encourage a young reader to seek out cuisines from different cultures and expand their taste buds.
The food I grew up eating, made by Black American women from North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi, felt magical to me. Comfort is magic, and that’s what the food I ate growing up gave me. However, when I first had Jamaican food and food from New Orleans, it felt magical because of flavor combinations I’d never experienced before.
If the laws of the universe could bend to my will, I’d actually want to try all of the different kinds of jollof rice and have a real-life jumping jollof rice competition like the one in the book.
The Marvellers beautifully showcases the joy of learning alongside and from people who are different from yourself. What writers whose genre or category is different from yours have you learned a lot from? What about creators in other fields, like artists or musicians?
If you pay close attention to the text of The Marvellers, I’ve included many Easter egg names of people whose work has had a fundamental impact on me as a writer. I included them as literary love letters to these people (but also to make them laugh and feel seen).
As for some writers outside of my current publishing categories who have taught me a lot, I’d have to say Jesmyn Ward, Kiese Laymon, Donald Quist and Robert Jones Jr. on the adult literary side. Their work is teaching me a lot about line-level work and a deep resistance to the white gaze in modern work.
I’m also very influenced by music and musicians and their ability to be storytellers in a different format. I love what Beyoncé has done with both visual and musical mediums. I watch her as a creator who constantly and consistently understands the assignment to continually challenge her medium, which showcases the depth of her creativity.
Author photo of Dhonielle Clayton courtesy of Jess Andree.
The Arcanum Training Institute, where students master fantastical abilities as they float high above the clouds, is the setting of bestselling author Dhonielle Clayton’s first middle grade novel, The Marvellers. Take a peek at some of the wonders that await as Clayton reveals her inspirations, Easter eggs and more.
Donovan didn’t mean to leave the book on the kitchen table. Gideon hadn’t planned to ask the new boy, Roberto, to be his partner for their school project. And Rick didn’t know that the courage Oliver displayed on their latest adventure would make him realize “just how deeply he loved Oliver.” In acclaimed author David Levithan’s Answers in the Pages, these boys’ stories—separate but inextricably connected—intertwine to explore the impact of a book challenge in a small community.
When Mr. Howe passes out copies of a book called The Adventurers to Donovan’s fifth grade language arts class, Donovan accepts one without much thought and leaves it on the kitchen counter after reading the first chapter. It’s only when his mom asks him about the book and then goes to see the principal the next day that Donovan begins to realize something might be amiss. The situation spirals quickly as Donovan’s mom begins a campaign to remove the book from the curriculum because of its supposedly inappropriate themes.
Answers in the Pages unfolds in three skillfully balanced threads: There’s Donovan’s first-person narration, as well as amusing chapter-length excerpts from the fictional Adventurers novel, which follows the exploits of Rick and Oliver as they make daring escapes, track down evildoers and save the day. Finally, third-person chapters introduce Gideon and Roberto, two boys who don’t quite know where they fit in among their peers until they find each other. Each thread would be compelling on its own, but Levithan pulls them together in the book’s conclusion to create an ending even more moving than the sum of its individual parts.
As long as books have been written and published, efforts have been made to restrict the ability of readers—particularly young readers—to access them. With nuance and grace, Answers in the Pages explores the dramatic impact that such restrictions can have on the readers who need those books the most. Notably, the novel refuses to villainize Donovan’s mom, instead depicting her actions as the result of a misplaced sense of care. “I know you’re on my side,” Donovan tells his mom. “Just not this one time. This one time you thought you were on my side, but you got it wrong.”
Answers in the Pages is an uplifting portrait of the strength it takes to fight for your story. It’s an important book with an essential perspective on a vital, timeless question.
David Levithan's Answers in the Pages entwines three narrative threads to explore the wide-reaching impact of a book challenge in a small community.
Bree, a middle school math enthusiast, has just moved to Palmetto Shores, Florida, with her dad so he can attend a technology training program. Bree’s friendship with her new neighbor Clara helps alleviate the nerves of attending a new school, but disaster strikes on the first day of classes: Nearly every elective, including the math puzzles course Bree had looked forward to, is full. Bree’s only option is Swim 101. The problem? Bree is scared of pools and doesn’t know how to swim.
It turns out that Palmetto Shores is utterly obsessed with swimming, from the fancy prep school that always wins the state championship, to the diner whose menu is full of pool puns (“Sea Biscuits,” “Orca Julius”), to Bree’s own Enith Brigitha Middle School, named after the woman who became the first Black athlete to win an Olympic medal in swimming. Bree’s new friends, Clara and Humberto, along with her neighbor Miss Etta, convince Bree to face her fears and learn to swim. When Bree turns out to have a natural talent for racing, she joins the swim team with Clara and begins to embrace the water, developing a passion for the way competing makes her feel. But faced with stiff competition from Holyoke Prep, mounting tension among the team and a busy schedule that prevents Bree’s dad from attending meets, Bree’s newfound love of swimming may fizzle as quickly as it sparked.
Featuring a countdown-to-competition plot, well-developed and relatable characters and expressive, inviting art, Swim Team delivers an energetic, heartfelt look at an exciting sport, as well as crucial context about its history. As Bree learns, racism and segregation directly impacted Black people’s access to public pools. Although this meant many Black people were denied the opportunity to learn to swim, it also created a stereotype—voiced by Bree herself at one point— that “Black people aren’t good at swimming.” While Swim Team includes a few minor inaccuracies that may be distracting to readers who swim competitively, its depiction of swimming’s joys and challenges is spot on.
Swimming is only part of the story. Author-illustrator Johnnie Christmas, best known for illustrating Margaret Atwood’s Angel Catbird graphic novels, creates an affectionate portrait of Bree and her friends, a group of kids who love their sport, long to win and get up to some funny hijinks along the way. Christmas conveys the enthusiasm that Bree and her teammates have for working hard, improving their abilities and supporting one another, excellently portraying the way that sports can serve as channels for personal growth and lasting relationships.
Swim Team captures the fun of an athletic endeavor that can—and should—be enjoyed by everyone.
This energetic, heartfelt graphic novel captures the joys and challenges of a sport that should be—but hasn’t always been—freely enjoyed by everyone.
While out for a walk with a dog, a goat, a piglet and some ducklings—a typical occurrence for the daughter of two veterinarians—11-year-old Oriol meets a poet named Gabriela Mistral. Like Oriol, Gabriela speaks both English and Spanish, and she offers to teach Oriol to express her thoughts through poetry.
Oriol has a lot on her mind, including grief over her grandmother’s death, disappointment with her family’s recent move from Cuba to California, frustrations at school, and hope that someday she, too, will become a veterinarian. When Oriol’s parents are asked to care for Chandra, a pregnant elephant at the wildlife ranch, Oriol quickly bonds with the creature and is thrilled when Chandra gives birth to twins. But a famous movie actor has a shocking plan for the baby elephants, and Oriol must combine her love for animals and her newfound abilities as a poet if she is to right the grievous wrong.
Oriol narrates Singing With Elephants in conversational verse that often incorporates Spanish words and phrases, the meaning of which is always clear from context: “Una mezcla, la poeta suggests / let us mix our languages together.” Newbery Honor and Pura Belpré Award-winning author Margarita Engle frequently employs alliterative imagery (“windy whispers,” “hug me / with hums”) and repetition. Vivid metaphors drawn from the natural world become a way to talk about the nature of poetry itself, such as when Mistral tells Oriol that “poetry is like a planet,” explaining how “each word spins / orbits / twirls / and radiates / reflected / starlight.” Language, Oriol discovers, can be used for both nefarious and benevolent ends, and “grief and joy / have a way / of taking turns / in the vast / spinning / galaxy / of verses.”
A lengthy author’s note provides information about the life and legacy of Gabriela Mistral, a Chilean poet who is the only Latin American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Engle also includes the original Spanish text of one of Mistral’s lovely children’s poems, “Animales,” and an English translation by the science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin.
Singing With Elephants will have young readers humming with delight and ready to champion a righteous cause.
A young girl must use her newfound poetic gifts to save a family of elephants in this novel in verse from the Newbery Honor author of Echo.
Twelve-year-old Sai is an assistant to master mapmaker Paiyoon. Sai loves her job and is good at it, but she has a secret mission: to save enough money to escape her home kingdom of Mangkon, where prospects for the future are inextricably bound up with family lineage. But on Sai’s 13th birthday, she will not receive a ceremonial lineal, the chain of golden links that symbolize her ancestry, because her family has no history—at least, not one to celebrate. Her father is a con man, and much of Sai’s skill for duplicating maps and charts stems from helping her father with forgeries.
As Sai’s birthday approaches, the queen issues a new directive: Now that Mangkon has finally achieved peace for the first time in 20 years, it’s time for the kingdom to rededicate itself to exploration. Master Paiyoon asks Sai to accompany him on a southbound ship, which will journey past the 50th parallel, also called the Dragon Line.
Sai soon discovers that everyone on board the ship has a secret, including Master Paiyoon, Captain Sangra and the charismatic Miss Rian, who earned her lineal through wartime heroism. As the voyage gets underway, Sai learns that even the queen’s mission is built on a secret. A rich prize awaits any crew who can locate the elusive Sunderlands, a remote and inaccessible continent where, according to legend, Mangkon’s long-departed dragons now dwell.
In 2021, author Christina Soontornvat received two Newbery Honors for in the same year, one for a novel, the other for a work of nonfiction—a first in the award’s centurylong history (E.L. Konigsburg previously received a Medal and an Honor in 1968, while Meindert de Jong received two Honors in 1954, but all four awards were for fiction). Soontornvat returns to high fantasy to create the Thai-inspired world of The Last Mapmaker, a standalone tale into which she seamlessly incorporates themes of colonialism and environmentalism.
Sai, whose first-person narration keeps the action moving faster than a ship under full sail, is a complicated and compassionately flawed character. It’s easy to sympathize with her dual struggles to identify whom she can trust and reconcile with her family’s past.
If The Last Mapmaker has a fault, it’s a too-quick resolution. Readers who grow invested in Soontornvat’s characters will wish they had just a little more time to spend with them. On the whole, however, the novel is a compelling quest narrative brimming with adventure, surprises and betrayal.
With action that moves faster than a ship under full sail, The Last Mapmaker is a Thai-inspired fantasy brimming with adventure, surprises and betrayal.
What makes someone a hero, 12-year-old Danny Timmons wonders, and what makes them a coward? It’s 1943 in Foggy Gap, a small town in western North Carolina. Danny’s father is away, fighting in Europe, and Danny’s mother has taken over his father’s role as editor of the town newspaper. She’s also due to give birth soon. As if all this wasn’t enough for one boy to handle, Danny’s friend, Jack Bailey, goes missing.
Ali Standish’s Yonder follows Danny’s search for Jack, whom Danny has idolized ever since Jack jumped into a flooded river to rescue young twin girls. Jack’s mother is dead, and his World War I veteran father physically abuses him, so Jack has gotten by with help from Danny’s parents as well as from Lou Maguire, Danny’s former best friend. In happier times, Lou shared her love of Nancy Drew mysteries with Jack and Danny. Now, despite the difficulties between them, Danny and Lou team up to investigate Jack’s disappearance.
Yonder invites readers into a multilayered story that frames Danny’s cares and concerns on the World War II homefront as a microcosm of much larger events happening in the world. The story moves back and forth in time as Danny’s memories illuminate past events as well as the tangled web of relationships among Foggy Gap’s residents. In addition to the Timmons, Bailey and Maguire families, readers also meet the wealthy Pittmans, whose son, is a cruel bully, and the Musgraves, Foggy Gap’s only Black family, who are driven out of town by Mr. Pittman.
Although the action ramps up as Danny and Lou’s search for Jack intensifies, the novel’s flashback scenes sometimes disrupt rather than enhance its narrative pace. Nonetheless, Standish manages the many threads of her story well, thoughtfully exploring a number of nuanced themes, including friendship, loyalty, prejudice and the horrors of war. Yonder is filled with ample period details, such as rationing, scrap metal drives and President Roosevelt’s “fireside chat” radio broadcasts.
Danny is an introspective protagonist who poses provocative questions about fear and courage. “If I didn’t stand up for my best friend,” he reflects, “how could I hope to stand up for a neighbor, or a classmate, or a stranger when the time came? If I couldn’t confront the small injustices, how could I fight the bigger ones?” These timeless questions will resonate with readers as they realize that they have more in common with Danny than they might have initially thought.
In Ali Standish’s Yonder, Danny tries to solve his friend’s disappearance while grappling with questions of fear, courage and heroism on the WWII homefront.
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