National Network for Equitable Library Service

Kelly's mom doesn't understand all of the reasons why red is the best color. Through minimal text and elegant illustration, Kelly shows her mom why juice tastes better in the red cup, red pyjamas keep the monsters away at night, and red boots take bigger steps.

Anna and her family have only one hope left to escape certain doom. It’s 1936 and life is becoming dangerous for the Jews of Krakow. As incidents of violence and persecution increase day by day, Anna begs her father to leave Poland, but he insists it’s impossible. How could he give up his position as an acclaimed clarinetist in the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra? When Anna and her father barely escape from a group of violent thugs, it becomes clear that the family must leave. But how? There seems to be only one possibility.

An exciting new middle reader series from a debut author. All twelve-year-old Jaden wants to do is be the best at Cross Ups, the video game he and his friends can’t stop playing. He knows he could be—if only he didn’t have to hide his gaming from his mom, who’s convinced it will make him violent. After an epic match leads to an invitation to play in a top tournament, Jaden and his friends Devesh and Hugh hatch a plan to get him there.

Best Friends Forever. Harry may be four and three-quarters and Walter may be ninety-two and a half, but that doesn’t stop them from being best friends. Harry loves to go next door to play games with Walter and draw pictures together. And when the snow falls, Walter clears a path to Harry’s house so that they can visit every day. But one day, a For Sale sign appears on Harry’s lawn. Harry is devastated that he and Walter will no longer be neighbors.

Charlie loves the bright red purse that his grandmother let him have. One day, he decides to take it to school. First his father, then his friends, and even the crossing guard question him about his “strange” choice. After all, boys don’t carry purses. They point out that they, too, have things they like, but that doesn’t mean they go out in public wearing them. But Charlie isn’t deterred.   Before long, his unselfconscious determination to carry a purse starts to affect those around him.

Life in the high Arctic is beautifully captured in this classic picture book, read aloud in digital form by award-winning Inuit author Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak. The year is 1955 and Arvaarluk and his friends watch as Rocky Parsons lands his plane on the ice in Repulse Bay, a tiny community “smack dab on the Arctic Circle.”  Having never seen trees before, the children try to guess what the six green spindly things are that Rocky delivers.

Even Joshua Bell makes mistakes, but there is always a second chance. As a young student of the violin, Joshua Bell learns about an international competition to be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He chooses a piece of music, which his teacher suggests may be too difficult, but Joshua is determined. It’s a piece of music he loves. At the competition, Joshua experiences the usual jitters. Once his name is called, he strides to the stage and begins to play, but almost immediately, he makes a mistake. As he is about to walk off the stage, he asks the judges if could try again.

Thomas would do anything to make his mother come back. On his fifth birthday, Thomas’s mother left, and he hasn’t seen her since. The last thing he remembers is her making a delicious dish of poutine for his birthday. Into the concoction of French fries, gravy and melted cheese curds, she stuck five green candles for him to blow out. On the day of this twelfth birthday, Thomas comes up with the idea of setting a Guinness world record for the biggest poutine in the world. Maybe then, his mother will come back and his emotionally distant father will pay attention to him.

The stories of three young people who experience the tumult—in three eras—as new religions are about to be born. Dina is a slave, a weaver for the royalty of Ancient Egypt. Summoned to the royal chamber, Dina learns she will move south with the Queen and the Pharaoh to a bountiful oasis, but far away from her family and her Jewish faith. When Moses, a Hebrew who has deied the Egyptians, comes to visit, Dina must make a choice between the predictable life of a slave, or an uncertain one that promises more by following Moses into the desert.

Thirteen-year-old October Schwartz is new in town, short on friends, and the child of a clinically depressed science teacher. Naturally, she spends most of her time in the Sticksville Cemetery, which just happens to border her backyard. And that backyard just happens to be the home of five dead teenagers, each from a different era of the past: there’s the dead United Empire Loyalist! The dead escaped slave who made her way north via the Underground Railroad! The dead quintuplet!