Corn Is Maize: A Gift of the Indians by Aliki (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Level 2 book, 1976) is a surprisingly detailed exploration of corn. The text is accessible to a young reader, and many pages have an abundance of details, such as how corn is fertilized, how it must be helped to grow, and how it was
Mariam Hassan is the only Muslim girl in her new school — her new Catholic school. In Hail, Mariam by Huda Al-Marashi (published 2026), she comes to a new understanding about her religion and how she can relate to the world around her as she navigates a difficult situation. Although there are so many things
Fictional writer Alma Cruz is done with her writing career when she builds a cemetery for her unfinished stories. In The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez (published April 2024), Alma’s story drafts, which have been buried in boxes in the ground or burned, now speak out from the ground. At once a celebration
In Victory on the Walls: A Story of Nehemiah by Frieda Clark Hyman (published 2005), 13-year-old Bani hesitantly joins his uncle, the cupbearer to the Persian king, on a journey back to Jerusalem to repair the walls of the Holy City. Bani has only known Susa, the Persian capital, but now he’s returning to the
An elderly librarian is tired after a long day until, at closing time, a young man arrives asking if she remembers him. It is William Henry Spaulding, a man who, as a child, had spent hours at a time in the library. Of course she remembers him and she reintroduces him to his old friends,
Garram the Hunter: A Boy of the Hill Tribes by Herbert Best was a Newbery Honor book in 1931. It tells the story of a talented young man in the hilly country in Nigeria and his adventures with his tribe and as he visits the city nearby and learns from the leaders there. Garram must
The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer (published 1954) is a romantic mystery in Heyer’s traditional style, and with a strong emphasis on mystery. It’s 1817, and Captain Staple happens to stop at a toll gate in the rain only to discover a very afraid young boy has been left to mind the gate. He’s alone, and
Kristin Hannah has done it again. Her novel, The Four Winds (published 2025) captures a unique era of America history within a loveable story about strong a strong woman overcoming hardship. The Four Winds is a primarily a novel of the Dust Bowl, and how one family sought for their own American dream in the
Sai is Apprentice to Paiyoon, master mapmaker, in the middle grade novel The Last Mapmaker by Christine Soontornvat (published 2022). She hides her undesirable identity as a girl from the Fens, the daughter of a con-man. When the Queen announces an award to the explorers who find and map the Southern continent, Sai sees her
The Sky Beneath Her by Mary Ellen Taylor (published 2026) was a short impulse read for me, a historical fiction mixed with contemporary fiction novel that I normally wouldn’t pick up. It alternates between Tula in the modern day and a number of characters in 1942 who are on board the Oceanus ship, hoping to
I greatly enjoyed the compact On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (reviewed here), which gave a brief look at twenty ways tyranny begins to appear in government. So, I was hoping for something similar in Timothy Snyder‘s On Freedom (published 2025). He gave a nice explanation of what freedom means and entails, but it was not
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna and the Race to Understand Our Genetic Code by Walter Isaacson (with Sarah Durand; published 2022) is the bestseller nonfiction adapted for young readers. It details the life and work of one of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners, a woman who managed to learn to edit genes at the
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