Christmas is one of the most magical times of the year for families who celebrate it. Whether gathering together from across great distances or meeting nearby, the spirit of Christmas runs deep. One of the most important sentiments of the holiday is the act of giving to one another. Time, food, attention, and presents are all things that can be exchanged in the spirit of the Christmas holiday. This book list includes religious and secular titles for children ages 4-7 that highlight the act of giving gifts at Christmas and inspire other acts of kindness, as well. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
Babushka
By: Dawn Casey
Illustrated by: Amanda Hall
After Babushka feeds and warms the three wise men, she decides to see baby Jesus on her own. Along the way, she meets children in need and gives them the presents she planned to give to Jesus.
When the Bond family sends a letter to the North Pole asking Santa how they share the spirit of giving on their upcoming trip to New York City, Baby Santa, and his reindeer host them on a day of helping others while seeing the sights.
A family of pigs decides that they will make their gifts for Christmas rather than buy gifts this year. But the littlest pig struggles to come up with an idea.
In this celebration of the joy of giving, one snowy Christmas Eve, a king buys some soft, red cloth to make the perfect Christmas gift for his daughter. Little does he know that the left-over cloth will be used to make presents for many more of the kingdom’s inhabitants, right down to the last teeny bit of cloth, which is made into a scarf just right for a mouse.
As Nick does last-minute Christmas shopping, he sees several Santas and overhears one retelling the legend of Saint Nicholas, which he takes to heart as he examines his own attitudes towards gift-giving.
Disappointed when a gift he wished for all year seems quite puny on Christmas morning, young Roland wishes for bigger and bigger gifts before learning a valuable lesson about being careful what you wish for.
It’s Christmas! There will be carols and candy canes and sparkling presents under the tree! But what about children whose families have no presents to give? Kind-hearted Drew wants to help them—but how? A magical story of how one little boy got a very special giving bag from Santa—and how his Christmas wish came true.
When an ordinary cat learns that a king has been born in his stable, he grows sad because he has no gift to give, as the other animals do.
Thanksgiving is a time when families and friends come together to share food and laughter as the days are getting shorter and colder. Beginning as a celebration of the welcome early European settlers received from Native Americans, Thanksgiving maintains the sentiment of sharing one’s bounty with others. Each home has its own unique traditions, but there are many shared behaviors across the United States, as well. No matter how the holiday is celebrated, the essence is the same: giving thanks for all that one has in their life. This book list includes titles for children aged 4-7 and shows how people give thanks at Thanksgiving and throughout the year. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
When Tuyet finds out that her Vietnamese family is having duck rather than turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, she is upset until she finds out that other children in her class did not eat turkey either.
In rhyming text, when the whole family and guests show up for the big dinner at Grandma’s house, it becomes clear that the house is much too small to hold them all.
I am Thankful
By: Suzy Capozzi
Illustrated by: Eren Unten
Throughout a Thanksgiving Day filled with family and fun, a child finds opportunities to be thankful.
Illustrations and simple, rhyming text reveal a family’s preparations for their Thanksgiving feast, with everyone pitching in to help—including Baby, who sleeps quiet as a mouse.
When he is invited to five Thanksgiving dinners, Turkey accepts all of his friends’ invitations but wonders if he has room in his stomach for all that food.
Latinx voices are important contributors to the fabric of American life. Spanning many countries, people from Latinx backgrounds have a rich and varied history and culture. Latinx Heritage Month, which occurs from September 15 through October 15, is when Americans come together to recognize and celebrate the many contributions of Latinx people. No matter their background, readers of all ages can learn something new about their community members through this book list. These books are specifically geared toward readers ages 8-12 and feature both factual and fictional characters of Latinx heritage. Each story reflects a piece of the Latinx community and provides a means of connection and understanding for all. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
Bold, graphic portraits and beautiful poems present famous and lesser-known Latinos from varied backgrounds who have faced life’s challenges in creative ways.
When his family’s restaurant and Cuban American neighborhood in Miami are threatened by a greedy land developer, thirteen-year-old Arturo, joined by Carmen, a cute poetry enthusiast, fights back, discovering the power of poetry and protest through untold family stories and the work of José Martí.
Twelve-year-old María Luisa O’Neill-Morales (who really prefers to be called Malú) reluctantly moves with her Mexican-American mother to Chicago and starts seventh grade with a bang—violating the dress code with her punk rock aesthetic and spurning the middle school’s most popular girl in favor of starting a band with a group of like-minded misfits.
In 1960s New York, fifth-grader Ruthie, a Cuban-Jewish immigrant, must rely on books, art, her family, and friends in her multicultural neighborhood when an accident puts her in a body cast.
Eleven-year-old Margarito, a big fan of wrestling known as lucha libre, begins to suspect that he has a close connection with his favorite luchador, El Angel de La Guardia, the Guardian Angel.
Eleven-year-old (nearly twelve) Celi Rivera, who is a mix of Black-Puerto Rican-Indigenous Mexican, is secretive about her approaching period and the changes that are happening to her body. She is horrified that her mother wants to hold a traditional public moon ceremony to celebrate the occasion. She must choose loyalty to her life-long best friend, who is contemplating an even more profound change of life or the boy she likes.
Red Panda and Moon Bear, magical defenders of their community, battle ghosts, evil robots, alien invaders, and time portals, all before Mami and Papi get home.
Cuba, 1961: Two years after the communist revolution, Lucia still leads a carefree life, dreaming of parties and her first crush. But when the soldiers come to her small town, everything begins to change. Suddenly the revolution hits home. Freedoms are stripped away. Neighbors disappear. Her friends feel like strangers. And her family is being watched. As the revolution’s impact becomes more oppressive, Lucia’s parents make the heart-wrenching decision to send her and her little brother to the United States—alone. Suddenly plunked down in Nebraska with well-meaning strangers, Lucia struggles to adapt to a new country, a new language, a new way of life. But what of her old life? Will she ever see her home or her parents again? And if she does, will she still be the same girl?
In the Dominican Republic, a boy who dreams of playing professional baseball in the United States crosses paths with a young environmentalist from Minneapolis who is passionate about saving bees.
Mexican-American Stef Soto is hoping to break free from her overprotective parents and embarrassing reputation from her family’s taco truck business, but she soon learns that family, friendship, and the taco truck are important and wonderful parts of her life.
A collection of short stories featuring Latin Americans allows readers to experience life through their eyes, celebrate their victories, and see their hardships.
Eleven-year-old Eddie Aguado is convinced that winning the 14th Annual Arne Hopkins Dock Fishing Tournament (once he actually learns how to fish) will bring him closer to his dad, who died when Eddie was only five.
Human culture is built around communities big and small. Whether a community is made up of people who live near one another or composed of those who share a cultural heritage or background, these groups sustain one another. Sometimes, it is hard to see where one community ends and another begins, and other times it is much more obvious. For the most part, people are involved in more than one community at any given time, and it is through the positive efforts of these groups that society can grow and flourish. This book list is intended for readers aged 8-12 and includes a selection of fiction and nonfiction titles, highlighting a small sampling of communities around the world. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
A Japanese American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an internment camp during World War II, and his ability to play helps him after the war is over.
Describes how children can help their communities in different ways, from tending a community garden and training service dogs to volunteering to help people with disabilities and mentoring younger students.
What is a community? Who are the leaders in communities? Which languages are most spoken in the world? This series encourages geographical inquiry with an interactive, investigative, and visual approach to a wide range of core curriculum topics.
Describes the different types of communities found around the world, from small farming villages to cities, and explains how each community uses energy, finds food and water, and disposes of waste.
Explore the regions of the world’s oceans known for their coral reefs and learn about the life forms that dwell there. First-person accounts from scientists answer important questions about reef communities.
This title looks at offshore fishing. Around the coast of much of North America, fishing stocks have greatly declined as a result of overfishing, pollution, and global warming. Nova Scotia, in the northeast of Canada, once had a huge fishing industry. In 1753, people from Germany, Switzerland, and France came from Europe to set up a colony at Lunenburg on the coast. They soon set up a fishing and shipbuilding industry. The community grew until about 1980 when the fishing industry largely stopped. Since then, the community has had to reinvent itself. It is still largely based on the old industries, but tourism is as important.
What do you do online? What digital communities do you belong to? Learn how your digital activity makes you part of a digital community in this timely book and examine what it means to be a part of an online culture and digital society.
Cycling rules the road in Amsterdam today, but that wasn’t always the case. In the 1970s, Amsterdam was so crowded with vehicles that bicyclists could hardly move, but moms and kids relied on their bicycles to get around the city. Pedal Power is the story of the people who led protests against the unsafe streets and took over a vehicles-only tunnel on their bikes, showing what a little pedal power could do! Author and illustrator Allan Drummond returns with the story of the people that paved the way for safe biking around the world.
The strength of a community often is determined by the resources available where it is located. This resource discusses both human-made resources (such as dams, bridges, roads, buildings, and industry) as well as renewable and non-renewable natural resources (including soil, water, forests, and energy). The text further explores how such resources affect a community’s health as well as the prosperity and opportunities of its members. Young readers will begin to understand the economics of how resources affect trade and industry. This insightful text also introduces the idea that controversies exist about ways to use resources without environmental damage.
Mustafa By: Marie-Louise Gay
Reviewer: Uma Krishnaswami
Simple, elegant, and deeply child-centered, this is the story of how Mustafa, a child refugee from an unnamed country in crisis, finds a friend in his new home. The country he arrives in is unnamed as well. The setting is urban, offering the relief of a green park safe enough for a child to venture into on his own. The delight of this book lies in its close adherence to its small hero’s perspective, both in the choice of words and in the finely rendered multi-media illustrations. The new world is so different from the one Mustafa has left, and there is so much here that seems incomprehensible. Slowly, his terrible experiences of war and brokenness find expression when he draws in the sand. Drawings become the vehicle as well for the first overture of friendship from a girl who is only named on the very last two-page spread. At first Mustafa hesitates to respond and that, too, is perfectly pitched. Every detail is placed with painstaking intention, leaving plenty of room for interpretation by a child reader. It seems no coincidence that music is an element of both Mustafa’s initial invisibility, his foreignness, and his ultimate recognition. Clear, simple dialogue, repetition, and a child’s eye for the small details of setting lead cumulatively from confusion and distrust to the healing warmth of friendship. Gay manages to shine a loving light on many facets of a new immigrant’s experience—not only on how children cope with the traumas of displacement but also where the ingredients of comfort might be found.
Debut author Kat Shepherd writes fast-paced series books with the goal of making reading a joyful experience for every kid. A former classroom teacher, Kat has also worked as a deli waitress, a Hollywood script reader, and a dog trainer for film and TV. She has graciously taken time out of her busy writing schedule to talk with us about herself and her recent publication The Shadow Hand.
Your debut novel, The Shadow Hand, Book 1 in the Babysitting Nightmares Series, hit bookshelves this past summer and it’s getting rave reviews. Can you tell us a little about the book and why you chose to write a spooky adventure series?
I write the kinds of books I loved to read growing up and still love to read now. I loved scary books, mysteries, adventures, and comedies, and it was important to me to be able to offer those same kinds of books for all kinds of readers.
BABYSITTING NIGHTMARES is a middle grade series about four best friends who must confront a new supernatural threat with each new babysitting job. THE SHADOW HAND is the first book, and it follows the story of Rebecca Chin, a really practical, together kid who considers herself a pretty expert babysitter. She’s sitting for her favorite baby, Kyle, when there’s a freak storm and the power goes out. The baby seems completely fine, but the locked window in his bedroom is suddenly open, and there’s moss on the windowsill… in the shape of a hand. And that’s just chapter one.
The creep factor escalates from there into a fun, fast-paced read full of scares and suspense, but the girls’ friendship is the true heart of the story. Think Goosebumps meets The Baby-Sitters Club. Book 2, The Phantom Hour, hits shelves on January 29, 2019.
What is your secret to making your stories appealing, even to the most reluctant readers?
I think that reading and literacy is a fundamental right for all people, and to deny anyone that right is morally wrong. I believe really strongly in listening to and respecting kid readers, and everything I write comes directly from that core mission. Before I started writing fiction, I was a classroom teacher and educational consultant. I spent a lot of time working with “reluctant” readers. Educators are now starting to call these kids undiscovered readers, because they haven’t yet discovered those books that excite them and keep them turning the pages. In working with these undiscovered readers, I found that the books they did gravitate towards tended to be series books, scary books, and books with short chapters and cliffhanger endings. So as a writer, it is my goal to meet them where they are and try to create something that gives them what they have asked for. I put a lot of care into finding the right balance in creating fun reads that still give readers some really meaty ideas to think about.
I think it can be very tempting for adults to want to limit what kids read or to expect kids to read only books that nourish them in very specific ways. However, just as eating a wide variety of foods helps keep us happy and healthy, so does reading a wide variety of books, because different kinds of books nourish us in different ways. I usually have a good four or five books I’m reading at any given time. Some are serious books, and some are much lighter. If I were only allowed to read the serious books with awards on their covers, I would spend far less time reading than I do now. I might even stop reading altogether. Because I would think to myself, “If being a reader means I’m only supposed to spend time with these kinds of books, then I just must not be a reader.” If you turn reading into work, then you’ve already lost. Because how many people want to spend their free time going to work?
What book can readers expect to see from you next?
Book 2 of Babysitting Nightmares, The Phantom Hour, will be in stores on January 29, 2019. In this installment, Clio Carter-Peterson has taken a job babysitting for the Lee family, who has recently moved into the long-abandoned Plunkett Mansion. The family is lovely, and history-loving Clio is fascinated by the beautiful old building, but soon doors start closing behind her, objects move on their own, and messages appear from beyond the grave. With help from her friends, Clio soon discovers that the mansion’s dark past might be the reason behind these frightening events, and the girls must work together to put old spirits to rest before it’s too late. This book is more of a classic spooky read than Book 1, and I think scary story fans will love the thrills and chills I’ve thrown in. I even scared myself a few times while I was writing it!
My second book series, The Gemini Mysteries (Bonnier/Yellow Jacket), debuts with The North Star on March 5, 2019. It’s an interactive mystery series set in the Twin Cities, where I live. Twins Zach and Evie Mamuya and their best friend, Vishal Desai, tag along with the twins’ crime reporter mom when she gets a call that a priceless diamond necklace has been stolen just before a high-profile auction. That’s when they meet Sophia Boyd, a new girl at school who is certain she knows the identity of the thief. The four young teens must follow the clues, which are hidden in the illustrations at the end of each chapter, to catch the culprit and find the necklace or risk it being lost forever. It’s an action-packed story that’s full of twists and turns, and I can’t wait to share it with readers everywhere.
Your website states you are a writer and an educator? Are you currently doing both? If so, what grade/subject do you teach?
I had been working as an educator right up until we moved to Minnesota, but I switched to writing full-time in September, 2017. I was a fourth and fifth grade classroom teacher from 2000 to 2009, and after that I worked as a homeschool teacher, tutor, and educational consultant for third through eight graders. The middle grades are one-hundred percent where my heart lies; those are my people. Fifth grade is my absolute favorite, and I think it is just the perfect age for teachers.
I honestly loved every subject I taught. I’m a naturally curious person, and I loved sharing that excitement and curiosity with my students. My classroom library was epic: I knew how to work those Scholastic points, so I had just about every book a kid could want, and if I didn’t, I would use my own money to buy it for the classroom. I loved helping kids grow into joyful readers, and I was also passionate about teaching them how to research and craft a written argument; I think that is vitally important. But I think my very favorite subject to teach was math. I didn’t learn to love math—and I mean deeply, deeply love the elegance and brilliance of math—until I started teaching it. I want every student to learn to love math as passionately as I do.
While living in Southern California, you and your husband hosted weekend writer retreats. How did the idea come about?
My husband and I are both connectors; we love creating community, and we have the kinds of minds that enjoy pulling together disparate ideas and figuring out how to make them work. On an adventure one day we discovered this former lodge and church camp that was about a four-mile-hike from civilization, and the new owners were eager to bring new folks in to enjoy this magical spot. We had always wanted to put together a creative writing retreat, and it was a fun challenge to adapt what we wanted to do with the limitations of a remote location: no laptops, no wifi, and an honest-to-goodness mule train if you wanted to bring in anything heavier than you could carry in your backpack. Living in Los Angeles can be exhausting; it’s a huge city with constant demands on your time and attention. We had a lot of friends who wanted to dedicate more time and attention to creating, but they were so busy with the daily grind that they weren’t able to focus on it in the way that they wanted to. Getting out in the woods and away from everything was the perfect antidote to that, and it really helped folks refill the creative well.
We’re hoping to host retreats again up in our new home state of Minnesota, so once we get settled up here we’ll be looking for a spot! I just found out our next-door-neighbor owns a little camp of cabins up north somewhere, so that might be the perfect place to start. The key will just be getting our California friends up here to make it happen!
Besides books and education, what other passions do you have, and will we see those passions featured in future publications?
I love animals, and the way that plays out in my own life is through the volunteer work I do with zoos and on behalf of homeless pets. I first started volunteering in zoos when I was in college, and I’ve gotten to work with a lot of interesting animals. Of those I got to work with directly, my favorites were tigers and small primates, although I did form a pretty strong bond with an Andean condor. I love zoos, and volunteering with them has allowed me to see how much thought and care goes into each animal’s welfare.
My passion for zoos and their role in animal care and conservation comes out a lot in my Gemini Mysteries series. In Book 1, The North Star, Sophia is working to raise money for a new gibbon exhibit. Gibbons are often known as ‘the singing apes’ for their incredible calls, and I have been lucky enough to get to sing with gibbons myself. It is one of my favorite memories, and I was so excited to be able to give readers a chance to fall in love with these special primates, just as I have, and just as Sophia does. This series also lets me raise awareness about palm oil plantations, which are responsible for the rapidly declining populations of a whole host of animals, including gibbons and their even more critically endangered cousins, orangutans. I had never heard of palm oil until one of my students told me about it a few years ago, and I love being able to use what I learned from her to help educate other people. For instance, there’s an amazing app from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo that lets you do a barcode scan of any product at a store and find out where it stands on sustainable palm oil use. It has made a significant change to my shopping habits, so any companies who still haven’t joined the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) please take note. (You better step it up, @wholefoods and @traderjoes!)
Dog rescue is a huge part of my life, because I believe it is our duty to care for our pets the same way we care for other loved ones in our lives. My husband and I always have a foster dog in our house in addition to our own two dogs, and I’ve also done other types of volunteer work with rescues and shelter intervention programs. I particularly love shelter intervention programs, which are gaining ground in major cities. Many pets end up in shelters not because they are unwanted, but because their owners are unable to keep them for financial or other reasons. Shelter intervention programs help keep pets home with the families that love them by intervening before pets are turned in. They offer low-cost vet care, free obedience training, legal help with landlord issues, and even free pet food. I love that they help both people and animals by addressing the root of the problem and working to fix it. I do have a character in the Gemini books that rescues dogs, and it’s fun to share a little bit of my passion through her.
Because the stories I write tend to be spooky or action-packed with lots of peril, I rarely include dogs in my books. There’s a reason for this! As a reader I get SO WORRIED if there is a pet in a scary story, and I would be totally preoccupied that something bad was going to happen to it. I don’t want my readers to have the same worries, so pets in my stories are rare for that reason. However, I have found a way to slip my own dogs into a few of my stories, and I promise that I’ll never let anything bad happen to a dog in my book!
If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be?
Believe it or not, the title always comes last for me. I usually don’t come up with one until I’ve finished writing the book and had the chance to look at it as a whole. So, I hope I’ve still got a ways to go until I get to the point where my life is ready for a title. Ask me again in fifty years!
Babysitting Nightmares Book 2: The Phantom Hour (Macmillan/Imprint) hits shelves 1/29/19! Gemini Mysteries Book 1: The North Star (Bonnier/Yellow Jacket) debuts 3/5/19!
Want to keep up with Kat? Website:http://www.katshepherd.com Twitter: @bookatshepherd Instagram: @authorshep
Haunted houses, werewolves, monsters, sinister beings. What is lurking in the closet? Where are the voices coming from?
Why is it that we love spooky novels so much? They keep us up all night, sometimes in terror yet sometimes because we can’t stop reading them. And, it’s not just adults who love scary novels. Some of the most reluctant readers gravitate towards them. A good scary novel can not only be entertaining, but it can also teach plot/sequence of events and predicting.
The 18 novels we have included in our list have brave protagonists in challenging and scary situations. While some may not be for the faint of heart, each represents hours of suspense for middle grade readers.
Practically-perfect twelve-year-old Victoria Wright must lie, sneak, and break the rules when her investigation of the disappearance of her best–and only–friend, Lawrence, reveals dark secrets about her town and the orphanage run by the reclusive Mrs. Cavendish.
Zach, Alice, and Poppy, friends from a Pennsylvania middle school who have long enjoyed acting out imaginary adventures with dolls and action figures, embark on a real-life quest to Ohio to bury a doll made from the ashes of a dead girl.
After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different, ancient, and wild. And it wants something terrible and dangerous from Conor. It wants the truth.
When a mysterious wasp queen invades his dreams, offering to “fix” Steve’s new baby brother, Steve thinks his prayers have been answered. But, he may be dangerously wrong.
When twelve-year-old Joy’s pet frog gets away, she, her brother, and their elusive friend Poppy sneak onto the grounds of the town’s asylum and discover mysteries that only reinforce Joy’s beliefs that there are supernatural forces at work in the town of Spooking.
Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and secrets of the cursed house.
In 1899, a twelve-year-old rat catcher on North Carolina’s Biltmore estate teams up with the estate owner’s young nephew to battle a great evil and, in the process, unlocks the puzzle of her past.
When eleven-year-old Olive and her distracted parents move into an old Victorian mansion, Olive finds herself ensnared in a dark plan involving some mysterious paintings, a trapped and angry nine-year-old boy, and three talking cats.
Moving into an inherited mansion in Maine with their mother and stroke-afflicted father, three siblings uncover a mystery involving hidden passageways, family rivalries, and healing waters.
Lucy is sure there are wolves living in the walls of her house, although others in her family disagree, and when the wolves come out, the adventure begins.
When eleven-year-old Juniper begins to suspect something is wrong with her mother and father, she and her friend Giles discover they have been selling their souls, pieces at a time, to a silver-tongued creature in a terrifying fairy-tale underworld.
Phears, an evil ghost, wants eleven-year-old Max to help him capture the ghosts of two children whose parents once trapped him, and he sends a Berserker Ghoul to possess Max and convince him to obey.
In the nineteenth century, ten-year-old Florence Crutchfield leaves a London orphanage to live with her great-uncle, great-aunt, and sickly cousin James, but she soon realizes the home has another resident, who means to do her and James harm.
In this twist on “Hansel and Gretel,” two middle schoolers find themselves in a new charter school filled with a mysterious abundance of food at mealtimes and sinister teachers up to no good.
During a long car trip, best friends Quinn and Kara explore the strange and creepy goings-on at a remote Nevada inn when Kara’s family stops for the night.
The story of Wilbur the pig and his friendship with Charlotte the spider, as they live together on a farm.
Art: Use pipe cleaners to create spider webs.
Reading: By reading the inside flap of other E. B. White books, discuss with children if other books by E. B. White share themes that are present in Charlotte’s Web.
Science: In the story, Charlotte the spider teaches Wilbur about the life and life cycle of a spider. Using books from the library, compare the spider’s life and life cycle to other insects, including worms, caterpillars, etc.
Social Studies: Charlotte’s Web is a story about friendship. While Wilbur and Charlotte would appear to have very little in common, they become friends. Discuss with children how even though people have differences, referencing people from different countries or regions, they can still be friends.
Technology: Help children learn good research skills by researching the book’s author, E. B. White.
