Tag children's fiction

The book cover shows Merci sitting on the steps outside her home next to a bike with a cell phone in her hand. Her grandparents are looking out of a window towards her and smiling, and there is a green car with a driver and passenger in the background. There are palm trees and a bright orange-pink sunset on the horizon.

National Library Week with Honorary Chairperson Meg Medina

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The book cover shows Merci sitting on the steps outside her home next to a bike with a cell phone in her hand. Her grandparents are looking out of a window towards her and smiling, and there is a green car with a driver and passenger in the background. There are palm trees and a bright orange-pink sunset on the horizon.

By Jean B.

It’s time to celebrate libraries! We think every week is Library Week, but this annual event focuses attention on how libraries support and enrich our lives. Meg Medina observes:

“From book groups to lending sports equipment to providing a safe after-school hangout space and so much more, libraries support us wherever we find ourselves on the roadmap through life’s journey.”
In fact, libraries are there at life’s starting line, offering parents and caregivers of newborns, infants, and toddlers the opportunity to talk, sing, read, and play together in a positive environment. Early trips to the library may be a social lifeline for new parents as well as a fertile ground for growing confident, enthusiastic readers – it’s the very first chapter in a child’s educational experience!

“!Cuéntame!: Let’s talk books!” continues Medina, who is the Honorary Chairperson of National Library Week and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and it’s the perfect way to celebrate National Library Week 2024.

Let’s talk about Medina’s award-winning books for kids. Merci Suárez Changes Gears, winner of the Newbery Award in 2019, opens a window into the lively world of a Cuban American family and the confusion of starting middle school. We can all can relate to the uncertainty and change that comes with middle school, but Merci Suárez experiences more than the usual bumps. As a scholarship student at Seaward Pines Academy, Merci finds herself on the outside. Her life at Las Casitas, the three little pink houses that sit side by side and hold her extended family together in a maelstrom of love and drama, is clearly different from that of her classmates. Her family shapes her life every day, whether she is playing soccer with her Papi’s team, hanging out with her grandparents, Lolo and Abuela, or babysitting her wild twin cousins. All that togetherness!  It’s a blessing and curse for a sixth grader trying to figure out how she fits in. On top of that, her beloved Lolo is behaving in strange and worrisome ways, and nobody wants to talk about it with Merci.   

In this book and the two books that follow it – Merci Suárez Can’t Dance and Merci Suárez Plays it Cool – Meg Medina opens a conversation about a universal theme – dealing with change – but immerses us in a specific setting that reflects her own experience as a Cuban American. With Spanish words and phrases sprinkled throughout the story and wonderful descriptions of foods, celebrations, and rituals familiar to this community, we see common problems from a new perspective, one that is infused with Florida heat and Cuban spice. Merci advances a grade with each book in the trilogy and learns to navigate the whole range of middle school challenges, from cliques to crushes, while adjusting to changes at home, too, as her brother goes to college and her grandfather’s health declines.  

The image shows two girls facing each other, nose to nose, in front of a moving truck with boxes inside, with the book title written on the side of the truck. Fall leaves and an apartment building are in the background.

Not into middle school drama? Medina portrays strong Latina girls in tough situations with honesty, humor, and heart for other age groups as well.  In the sweet picture book Evelyn Del Rey is Moving Away, her young heroine faces the loss of her best friend and neighbor, but the bond of friendship proves more powerful than distance.  In the award-winning YA novel Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, Medina takes on high school bullying as experienced by Piddy Sanchez, a girl stressed by school and family issues.   

The book cover depicts the book's title on a locked, blue school locker.

Pick any of Medina’s books and you come away with a lot to talk about. The characters are real and their struggles and relationships are totally relatable. It’s everyday family life. At the same time, reading these stories told through a rich, cultural lens broadened my own experience and showed me something new in the everyday.    

“!Cuéntame!” Let’s have a conversation! Isn’t that what the Freedom to Read is all about?  

Merci Suarez Changes Gears is available in print, as an audiobook on CD, as a digital audiobook, and in e-book format.

Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away is available in print in English and Spanish and in e-book and e-audiobook formats, as well as in an animated adaptation on DVD.

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass is available in print.

Jean B. is a Children’s Instructor and Research Specialist at the Central Branch who loves reading books for all ages when she isn’t enjoying the outdoors.

A compilation of the seven book covers in Margaret Peterson Haddix's children's series, The Shadow Children.

The Shadow Children Series

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A compilation of the seven book covers in Margaret Peterson Haddix's children's series, The Shadow Children.

by Monae R.

Normally I would ask, “Have you ever wanted to stay home from school for a few days and just sleep or read or play video games? To be able to do absolutely nothing, minding your own business in your home?” However, the world just went through that exact thing. Some of us had to work, some of us did not. Some of us sat and read books that whole time and some of us played outside and celebrated.

Remember being stuck in the house, unable to go to the store, unable to get groceries. Now go one step further and imagine you could not open your windows to see the outdoors; you could not listen to music, the radio, or TV. Imagine you could not go anywhere, see anyone, or entertain yourself at all. You could only sit and hide, reading or quietly playing cards, until your family came home, and even then, you still had to hide away from them while you ate.

The Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix has an entirely new feeling and meaning now that we have experienced something similar. There is not a global pandemic or plague, but instead, the government has made it illegal for folks to have more than two children. Our main character, Luke, is on a journey to change that. He has spent 13 years as an illegal third child.

Luke’s mother, his father, his two brothers, and their farm are all he has ever known. He could run and play at the farm without anyone seeing him, with the forest surrounding his house so he could feel the breeze on his face, watch the leave change colors in the fall, feel the rain falling as it watered the crops. His farm was soon taken away. With nowhere to hide and nothing to shelter him from view, he was forced back inside, into the attic, into the dark. This was the last straw for Luke and he couldn’t bear it anymore. He needed a friend.

We follow his feelings as a third child, the relationships he develops, and the danger he flees after close encounters with the population police. Read to find out if he succeeds in making all third children free. Can a third child survive in the world when all they had was a poor family’s farm and a book that explained nothing of the world outside the attic?

Start With Book 1: Among the Hidden (also available in e-book and e-audiobook formats)

Then continue with the rest of the series. Have you read them all?

Book 2: Among the Imposters

Book 3: Among the Betrayed

Book 4: Among the Barons

Book 5: Among the Brave

Book 6: Among the Enemy

Monae is a Children’s Instructor and Research Specialist at HCLS East Columbia Branch.

The cover depicts three of the witchlings - one with a worried expression who is wringing her hands, one with a smug expression with arms crossed, and one wide-eyed, facing forward. There are buildings with peaked roofs and turrets in the background, and the eyes of the Nightbeast are superimposed over the starry night sky.

Summer Reading Adventures: Friendship Stories

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By Eliana H.

Some of you may have already collected your finisher prizes for our Summer Reading Adventure. If you have, congratulations! Great job reading and completing activities. It’s not too late to visit one of our branches to collect your prize if you haven’t. They are available through Thursday, August 31, as long as supplies last. If you’re still working on finishing those last few reads, I have a highlight for you from each of our elementary lists. This time, I’m focusing on friendship stories. 

Grades K-1: 

Amy Wu and the Warm Welcome by Kat Zhang (also available as an e-book)

The cover depicts an array of children and a white kitten, holding a gold and white banner with the book's title written in fuschia.

This book offers a beautiful beginning, showing ways to say “welcome” from around the world even before the title page. Amy is excited to see a new student join her class, but he doesn’t talk at all during the school day, even when she tries very hard to make him feel welcome. When she sees him light up and talk away to his little sister – in Chinese – she’s surprised to see how different he is! Amy thinks hard and comes up with an idea of another way to make him feel welcome. Check the book out to see if Amy succeeds, and be sure to explore the craft idea and note from the author.

Grades 2-3: 

How to Test a Friendship by Theanne Griffith

The book cover shows three students working on a science project involving a miniature ecosystem under a dome, with books and a microscope on a table in front of them. One of them holds an Erlenmeyer flask and another holds a pencil and a booklet that says "STEM notes." All three are wearing t-shirts with science motifs - two have rockets, planets, and stars, and the third has a diagram of an atom.

How to Test a Friendship, the first title in the series Magnificent Makers, introduces readers to third graders Pablo and Violet, best friends who are looking forward to being in the same class and studying science, their favorite subject. When new student Deepak appears and starts making friends with Violet, Pablo is not very excited. But the three suddenly find themselves transported to the Maker Maze when they solve a riddle in science class. They must complete challenges to return to their world, but they will only finish in time if they work together. Can Pablo set aside his hard feelings toward Deepak so that they make it home in time? Do they know enough to solve the puzzles? If your young scientist is feeling inspired, be sure to take a look the STEM activities in the back to try at home! 

Grades 4-5: 

The Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega 

The cover depicts three of the witchlings - one with a worried expression who is wringing her hands, one with a smug expression with arms crossed, and one wide-eyed, facing forward. There are buildings with peaked roofs and turrets in the background, and the eyes of the Nightbeast are superimposed over the starry night sky.

Readers who enjoy fantasy will love The Witchlings, offering another unique view of magic and the world by the author of Ghost Squad. It’s the night of the Black Moon Ceremony, when Witchlings are placed in their covens, and twelve-year-old Seven Salazar knows exactly where she wants to be: House Hyacinth, with her best friend Poppy. Instead, Seven’s worst nightmare comes true. She’s named a Spare, one of the three witches left over at the end of the ceremony, along with Thorn, who is new to town, and Valley, Seven’s long-time enemy. Spares are stripped of their magic and treated poorly, but Seven invokes the rarely used Clause of the Impossible Task. If she and the other Spares can accomplish the Impossible Task, they will complete their circle and become a true coven. When they learn they need to find and defeat the dreaded Nightbeast, Seven and her coven wonder what they’ve gotten themselves into. Little do they know, Seven, Thorn, and Valley will uncover even darker and more mysterious things lurking in their town of Ravenskill. They need to work together and learn to trust each other if they have any chance of success. Check out The Witchlings to discover whether they manage the impossible and overcome their own pasts and fears, as well as the dark powers working against them.

Be part of HCLS’ Summer Reading Adventures.

Eliana is a Children’s Research Specialist and Instructor at HCLS Elkridge Branch. She loves reading, even if she’s slow at it, and especially enjoys helping people find books that make them light up. She also loves being outside and spending time with friends and family (when it’s safe).