What worked: I loved this Christmas picture book! Beautifully illustrated portrayal of a young Black girl and her family's annual Christmas traditions. The illustrations do a great job of showing the family, including the love the young girl has for her grandmother. There's so...

What worked: Intriguing true story of Virginia Hall. She refused to accept that women couldn't do the same things as men at a time when it was frowned on. Her story is one of courage, tenacity, and the strong determination to do what others said she couldn't. ...

What worked: Satisfying conclusion to a new plus-sized superheroine. I loved the further antics of Faith and her friends. In this sequel, Faith is trying to deal with her grandmother going into an assisted living facility while making sense of her nemesis Colleen's return to school. In the first book,...

What worked: Strong, inspiring historical of two enslaved children's escape from a plantation to a hidden place in the swamps. This story is based loosely on The Great Dismal Swamp, a place where previously enslaved runaways sought freedom until the end of the Civil War. I didn't know about this...

Seventeen-year-old Joy Abara, a Hali commoner, and Felix Hamdi, a royal playboy are Kindreds. They come from totally different backgrounds but share one thing. At birth, they were linked together as Kindreds. They share all their thoughts and also intense feelings. Joy knows she can never be anything more than...

Beautifully illustrated biography of Luz Jimenez. I totally love books that show people that are part of my own Mexican heritage. This picture book is the perfect addition to not only school libraries, but personal ones as well. Luz Jimenez's story is told with the...

This sequel picks up right where THE RAVENS ends. Scarlett Winter is now president of Kappa Rho Nu, the exclusive sorority house at Westerly College. It's also the place of the most powerful coven of witches. Only instead of Scarlett starting her presidency off with a bang, one mishap after...

What worked: Powerful recollections of Congressman John Lewis and his role in the civil rights movement. What I loved was how readers see what happened after President Johnson signed The Voter Rights Act in 1965 and how hard it still was for all, mostly Black Americans, to exercise their rights...

Finley decides that the prestigious New England prep school she's attending is nothing like she'd pictured. She tries hard to fit in and doesn't. After she is very creative on her town's website to impress her snobby classmates, she goes back home. Only Arthur, a fellow classmate, and his British...

Lily is seventeen-years-old and lives in Chinatown in the early 1950s. She's the dutiful daughter and tries hard to do the right thing. Only she feels and questions what is expected of her. When Lily finds an ad announcing a male impersonator playing at the Telegraph Club, she's intrigued. And...

Echo is the first in her family to not only go to college but an Ivy League one. The first thing she realizes is that Dartmouth College isn't like the pamphlet promised. Even though she was valedictorian of her high school Cleveland, college is harder than she thought. Echo is...

What worked: I love these graphic novels that touch on historical parts of history without being boring. In this novel, readers are introduced to Maggie Higgins, one of the first news correspondents as she's recording what happened at the beginning of the Korean War. My...

When Hannah turns seventeen, she wakes up to her body changing into some kind of mystical being. Her mother freaks out at the change and rushes off, leaving Hannah and her older brother Gabe, vowing to find help. Only she doesn't return. Every morning, Hannah is transformed into a different...

One hundred and eleven-year-old Eleonora, 'Leo' ends up causing a disaster in town when she tries to hunt her first prey. Not only do her actions cause one ghost to appear, but she unwittingly unleashes an evil presence. Now not only does she has to prove to her mother vampire,...

What worked: Reluctant vamp queen meets Veronica Mars in this fast-paced, engaging new paranormal series from author Marlene Perez. In this story, Tansy has to come to terms with being the new California vamp queen. Her boyfriend Vaughn has been ghosting her and suddenly shows...