We have new books coming in all the time with them on display right as you enter the Trove. Here’s some of our recent favorite new titles!

For Wee Ones

Finn’s Fun Trucks: Firefighters by Finn Coyle & Srimalie Bassani
Birth to 3 Years-Old
Library Catalog
So I’m not always on board with the ‘Finn’s Fun Trucks’ series, but once in a while I really like what it puts together. Case in point, this lovely addition to every firefighter loving kid’s bookshelf. If you are a parent who finds themselves with a kid who can’t get enough of firefighting (and who patiently explains to their parents the difference between a fire truck and a fire engine), Finn’s book is for them. First off, it has the wherewithal to understand these differences and then add to them. How many children’s books can you name that feature a mobile command center? I also, and this is going to sound silly, really appreciated that there was actual fire being fought in this book. Some of it, wholly new. I mean, I’ve never seen a passenger plane on fire in a board book before, have you? With flaps that allow you to see each truck in action, this is a pretty cool addition to a well-worn genre. – Betsy Bird, School Library Journal

My Hair is Like Yours by St. Clair Detrick-Jules & Tabitha Brown
Birth to 3 Years-Old
Library Catalog
Gorgeous gorgeousness abounds in this title. And how could it not? This is a creation from the same team that brought us that glorious board book My Hair Is Like the Sun last year (and yes, I most certainly did include it on the 2023 Board Book List). The true standout here isn’t just the photography, which is amazing. I mean, I don’t know who these people are, but Tabitha Brown (who is confusingly credited as an ‘illustrator’ rather than a ‘photographer’, oddly) has presented an array of families and hairstyles that defy description. Meanwhile, St. Clair Detrick-Jules writes a simple but fabulous text that describes how each child resembles their relative. ‘My hair is like my friend’s, picked out into a fro. / My hair is like my twin’s, tied in a bun just so.’ Oh. Did I mention it also rhymes? Because apparently this wasn’t a difficult enough assignment already. This book is incredible. One of the best. – Betsy Bird, School Library Journal

Flora and Friends: Colors by Molly Idle
Birth to 3 Years-Old
Library Catalog
A word of advice for picture book illustrators who are compelled by their publishers to produce board books based on their popular characters: Should you wish for a kind of literary success above and beyond the monetary kind (which is always nice too) I will direct your attention to one Molly Idle. Last year I had the delight of presenting her Flora and Friends: ABC to a large group of librarians and you should have heard the audible gasps when I lifted a flap to reveal a murder of crows in flight. You’ll find that same satisfaction on the pages of this book as well. Following in the footsteps of the Caldecott Honor winning (and much deserved) Flora and the Flamingo, this concept book uses her customary bird-centric storytelling to introduce color mixing. Red and yellow make orange. Yellow and blue make green. That sort of thing. I’ve always liked Flora as a character. Aside from her natural grace and beauty, how awesome is it not to have some skinny waif prancing about a book’s pages for once? Flora’s always been so body positive, and no one really talks about it. Even so, this book’s just as delightful as its predecessors. Worth discovering if you haven’t seen them before. – Betsy Bird, School Library Journal

For Younger Readers

Goodbye, Hello: A Going Home Travel Adventure by Angela H. Dale & Daniel Wiseman
Preschool to 2nd Grade
Library Catalog
An engaging and heartwarming depiction of a military family’s reunion. In a small U.S. city, a pale-skinned mom and brown-skinned child and infant in arms bid goodbye to ‘Pop-Pop’ and ‘Gram’ and climb into a yellow cab for the start of a long journey. They’re going to be reunited with a U.S. Navy sailor in a new port; they eventually reach Japan after moving by mobile walkway, elevator, air-train, plane, and bus. Brisk two-beat alternately rhyming lines whisk readers along through the tedium of travel, though the many people portrayed are mostly smiling, and some are particularly helpful. Finally the big ship looms on the page horizon, and the family joyfully embraces their other mom, a Black sailor: ‘Now we’re four / More to love.’ Readers can play seek-and-find to spot the dozen uniformed workers who interact with travelers and the various modes of transport depicted, including a wheelchair. Wiseman’s vigorous but precise fine black outlines show a wide variety of skin colors, though most travelers wear bright, casual outfits. Distant, aerial perspectives include a viewpoint high above the fantastically colorful buildings lining city blocks. Repeat trips through the pages are guaranteed by the numerous details to pore over (though one crucial detail somehow escaped Wiseman’s discerning eye: seat belts!). Armchair travelers, first-time fliers, and airport habitués will buckle up willingly for this vicarious voyage. – Kirkus

A Hat for House: One Storm Many Helpers by Audrey Perrott & Druscilla Santiago
Preschool to 2nd Grade
Library Catalog
House’s roof is blown off in a storm, but help arrives in many forms. One day, ‘a big, blustery gust of wind’ steals House’s ‘hat’ (roof). A nearby oak tree stretches her limbs and leaves over House, but more wind WOOSHes away the attempted protection. Birds, squirrels, and mice try to help, but the wind whisks their replacement roof away, too. Human neighbors arrive to help, securing a tarp over House. The tarp protects the neighbors inside House during a rainstorm, after which a rainbow appears and roofers arrive to install a permanent roof, allowing House to ‘feel like myself’ again. House’s front resembles a face, with windows on either side of a door with a small window in it; these features function as eyes and a mouth, and window treatments provide plenty of variety in expression (to great comic effect on the final page, when House eyes storm clouds and warns, ‘Don’t even think about it’. House’s inhabitant has brown skin and a long dark braid; neighbors and roofers appear to be a diverse bunch in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity. Centering a house instead of a human as the main character provides a bit of distance and humor to a potentially scary topic, but House expresses feelings, too. The color palette reinforces this tone: House is a cheery yellow with teal trim, the oak tree’s leaves are rust-orange, and the storm clouds and gusts of wind are a steely blue-gray. Hats off! – Kirkus

Plumber Pearl! by Andrea Zimmerman & Dan Yaccarino
Preschool to 2nd Grade
Library Catalog
Books that peek behind the curtain are always fun. The newest edition to the ‘Big Jobs, Bold Women’ series shows the basics of what a plumber handles, and it does so with whimsical aplomb. Pearl, a grinning plumber, is called to fix a building with leaks everywhere. The story trundles along from there with a bouncy rhyme scheme. The rhymes are enhanced with juicy onomatopoeias—the building is full of creaks and squeaks and chugs and glugs. They're the kind of texts readers can sink their teeth into. It's so much fun to read, it's almost easy to miss the valuable lessons included. Pearl's work teaches persistence; even when something isn't immediately accomplished, she keeps trying. The title also addresses collaboration, as a helpful mouse pal keeps squeaking until Pearl listens. Only then is the ultimate problem (and solution) discovered. VERDICT This enjoyable read-aloud is a complete victory. – School Library Journal

Fiction

It’s All or Nothing, Vale by Andrea Beatriz Arango
Grades 4-6
Library Catalog
After an accident, a talented fencer in Virginia struggles to balance recovery and her dreams of becoming a champion. Puerto Rican seventh grader Valentina Marí Camacho can't wait to fence again. After she and Papi were in a serious motorbike accident, anticipating fencing again was the only way Vale endured doctors, surgeries, and ‘the complete rearranging of [her] life.’ But her return four months later is far from triumphant. Unpredictable flares of pain make previously effortless moves challenging, and even worse, Cuban American newcomer Myrka Marerro, who's cued lesbian, has taken her place as top fencer. But, Vale explains, fencing is ‘what keeps me me.’ If Vale's not the best, who is she? Her parents have always pushed her to win. But now, Mami treats her like she's fragile–though Papi insists she's fine, causing arguments between her parents. Her older brother, Luis Manuel, suggests other hobbies, but Vale and fencing are inseparable. But pain–and Vale's growing crush on Myrka–risk thwarting her plan to beat her rival. Vale's vulnerable, angry free verse narration eschews overused disability storylines, intricately exploring issues including chronic pain, perfectionism, and parental expectations. Vale's ambivalence about identifying as disabled is particularly well expressed. Her relationships with her family are realistically nuanced, and non-Spanish speakers will understand the occasional lines of Spanish dialogue through context. In her acknowledgments, Arango explains that she drew on her and her husband's experiences with chronic pain when writing the story. Moving and insightful. – Kirkus

Love from Anna Hibiscus! by Atinuke
Grades 2-4
Library Catalog
Anna lives in Lagos, Nigeria, but she is on an extended holiday with her grandparents and her three ‘big girl cousins,’ staying in the village where her grandparents grew up. Anna befriends the local kids and spends most of her days with them, herding the goats and teaching the children reading, spelling, and arithmetic. One day, at a nearby market, she spots a boy named Sunny stealing a banana and chases him to his home. He has no parents, no grandparents, and no food. Anna befriends him, and when Sunny falls ill and needs medicine, she calls on her extended middle-class family to help. Responding with generosity and compassion, they pay for his medicine and adopt him into the family. Later, she learns why the village children of her age are all relatively small: their families can afford, at most, only one meal daily, while she eats three. Atinuke, a storyteller who grew up in Nigeria, writes with simplicity and clarity as well as respect for children’s ability to process the hard truth that many families cannot afford to provide adequate food and medical care for their children. Illustrated with many expressive ink drawings, this early chapter book from the Anna Hibiscus series is moving and memorable. – Booklist

Danilo Was Here by Tamika Burgess
Grades 4-6
Library Catalog
His family and friends in Panamá have big dreams for Danilo, but he isn't sure they're his dreams. Set in 1990 just after the United States' Operation Just Cause, an invasion centered on ousting dictator Manuel Noriega from Panamá, this novel centers on Danilo Osorio Jr. After a knee injury sustained while playing baseball led to him losing his construction job, Danilo's father left for the States. But the calls and letters have stopped coming, and he's not sending home any money. After the Osorios' apartment in El Chorrillo is damaged in an airstrike, Danilo, his mother, and his younger sister, Amara, are forced to relocate to a refugee center in an airplane hangar. All seems lost until Danilo is recruited to play on a youth baseball team in California for a couple of months. Danilo isn't sure he cares about baseball anymore, but he realizes this might be a chance to contact Papá. Burgess skillfully covers a lot of ground in her representation of events that are seldom discussed in U.S. history books but that devastated Panamá and its people. Danilo's journey is fast paced, heartfelt, and heartbreaking. The trauma, dislocation, and devastation weighing heavily on him are palpable as he tries to adjust. His new teammates, who are predominantly white, are dismissive and exclude him socially; he also faces a slew of culturally insensitive and ignorant remarks thrown at him as a Black Panamanian boy in the U.S. – A compelling book that's here to stay. – Kirkus

Nonfiction

Unstoppable John: How John Lewis Got His Library Card–And Helped Change History by Pat Zietlow Miller, art by Jordan Jerry
Grades K-4
Library Catalog
A young reader grows to be a fearless activist and change-making politician. As a child in Alabama, John Lewis wasn't permitted to have a library card: “Most libraries were for white people. And he was Black.” Recognizing injustice, he wrote the library a letter, which went unanswered. That didn't stop John from spending the rest of his life fighting for racial equity. Years later, John and his friends sat at lunch counters and in bus seats reserved for white customers and stood in the sun for hours in voter registration lines. Again and again, they were denied access. Even when faced with anger and violence, they marched for their rights until the laws began to slowly change. John never stopped reading, learning, and fighting, long after he had finally received his library card. Framed by its subject's love of books and libraries, this biography celebrates Lewis' determination and situates him within the Civil Rights Movement in language accessible to the picture-book set. Detailed backmatter (including an author's note) touches on the March on Washington and Bloody Sunday, adding necessary historical depth for older readers, caregivers, and teachers. Rough-edged oil paintings lend a folk-art feel to the story and bring certain striking details into focus, such as the purposeful expressions of the marchers and the ire of the bystanders. A captivating, bookish tribute to an unstoppable upstander that will empower the youngest activists. – Kirkus

The House on the Canal: The Story of the House that Hid Anne Frank by Thomas Harding, art by Britta Teckentrup
Grades 2-6
Library Catalog
The “old house on the canal,” as Anne Frank referred to it, lived many different lives before it was the hiding place for Anne and her family. Nearly four hundred years before Anne would even set foot in the house, it was built and then lived in by a stonemason, who added the attic annex that would later be her refuge. Then, a woman fleeing religious persecution moved into the building with twelve children, and they'd safely endure a plague and devastating winters in its walls. Years after that, a wealthy merchant and his wife would hold fancy galas in its rooms, until the merchant passed away and the wife left. Next it was a stable, and then it served as a chemist's lab and then cannery. Eventually another family moved in, but soon fled the German invasion of Amsterdam. Finally, Otto Frank moved his two businesses and eventually his family there for safety. The sequential story is factually told but still has warmth and affection, and while the building itself is never anthropomorphized, the interplay between the physical space and the lives of its occupants has clear emotional stakes. The mixed-media illustrations are skillfully composed, with the angular solidity of the house providing a visual throughline as both exterior and interior scenes play out; the perspective shift through windows is particularly effective, as there are views from within the house looking out over the canal and from outside peering into the ongoings of the building's residents. While Anne's story gets most of the page count, the presentation of the entire history of the building, from its literal foundations to its present form as a museum, is a poignant reminder of the best and worst of humanity. – Bulletin of the Center for Childrens Books

Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer by Quartez Harris, art by Gordon C. James
Grades 2-5
Library Catalog
In descriptive and poetic language, this book reveals how reading and writing were powerful motivators for young James Baldwin. Growing up in Harlem, he was drawn to the language he heard around him and to the books he found in the library. As he grew up, the impact of reading and writing on his life continued to grow, leading him to a career as a celebrated writer. The illustrations help bring the story to life, showing Baldwin's early years in Harlem and the people and places that influenced his decision to become a writer. These depict children playing on the streets, the police who threatened Baldwin, and his stepfather who discouraged his writing ambitions and his mother who encouraged them. An abundance of words sprinkled around the illustrations show what Baldwin heard and what he saw. When Baldwin left Harlem and moved to France, his writing career emerged and blossomed. VERDICT This book is especially recommended because it not only explains the growth of a successful writer, but it also can stimulate discussions of the ways in which reading and writing enrich our lives. – School Library Journal

Graphic Novels

Mixed-Up by Kami Garcia, art by Brittney Williams
Grades 2-5
Library Catalog
*Starred Review* Fifth-grader Stella and her best friends, Latasha and Emiko, have been inseparable ever since they stood up to the school bully together in kindergarten. So far, the school year has started off perfectly: a sleepover to kick off the new year, classes together, and the announcement of a new Witchlins game based on their favorite show! However, Stella feels off: she's having a hard time reading and struggling in class, which is starting to cause a rift in their friendship. Luckily, Stella's teacher Ms. Marin realizes that Stella is dyslexic and works with her parents and the school to get her the help she needs to begin to train her brain to learn in a way that works for her. In the meantime, she spends her recesses in the school library working on a graphic novel she plans to submit for the school's annual fifth-grade project, for which she plans to write and draw a project based on her own story. Garcia, a former teacher, uses dyslexia-friendly fonts and decodable words to make this book as accessible as possible for readers who can relate to Stella's experiences. Williams' brightly colored, cartoonish artwork nicely fits the story and adds lots of personality to the main characters. A perfect book for younger readers who are fans of graphic novels like Smile, Allergic, and Four Eyes. – Booklist

The Secret of Kells: The Graphic Novel by Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey and Samuel Sattin
Grades 3-8
Library Catalog
A lovely adaptation of the 2014 fantasy movie of the same name, this graphic novel expertly recaptures the magic of the Irish folktale…A must-have addition to library collections. – School Library Journal

Very Bad at Math by Hope Larson
Grades 4-8
Library Catalog
Verity “Very” Nelson is an ambitious class president, an overall top student, and an all-out charmer who faces one obstacle to a triumphant end to eighth grade: numbers. She's failing math, which could force her to step down from student council and lose the class presidency she's worked so hard on. Now she's stuck in an “experimental math pod”–a special two-person class with Lucile, the grumpy ex-BFF of class vice president Bree–in a race against time to bring her math grade up. Very also faces distractions, including a fundraising fiasco and a quest to emulate her political idol, State Rep. Hazel Shaw. Very is a lovable, distinctly drawn protagonist whose various scrapes have a lighthearted tone. Her ultimate worst enemy isn't other people but rather her own hubris and choices. Refreshingly, Larson avoids preachiness, and she shows Very's life and personality as being larger than her learning disability. Very's diagnosis of dyscalculia is handled with a light hand and given equal weight to her interpersonal struggles, such as her well-realized relationships with Bree and Lucile. Larson's command of the medium is apparent in the dynamic, easy-to-follow layouts and panel flow and the funny, specific character designs. The balance between the writing and visuals enhances Very's journey, and her colorful Asheville, North Carolina, environs lend a cozy, reassuring air. Red-haired Very is light-skinned, Bree has brown skin and Afro-textured hair, and Lucile has light brown skin. A buoyant misadventure with some lessons along the way. – Kirkus