Rebecca Stead

Jan 16, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Rebecca Stead |Kyle Lukoff |Deb Caletti

Amina Mucciolo, illus. by Elle Pierre. Scholastic, $14.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-338-79240-9In this openhearted story exhorting self-acceptance, conversational first-person narration from Mucciolo proposes that within each person exists a rainbow that combines “all the special little things that make each of us unique.” Acknowledging through an anecdote that it can be scary to express oneself, the narrator offers an example of moving toward self-acceptance.

Jan 16, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Lourdes Heuer |Rebecca Stead |Kyle Lukoff |Deb Caletti

Lourdes Heuer, illus. by Maxwell Eaton III. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8234-5570-6In an almost empty attic, a budding cartographer sits at a desk, creating an atlas for an unknown recipient. The resultant maps’ first-person annotations are reportorial in style, and it’s quickly apparent that the places and spaces, drawn by Eaton (Looking for Peppermint) in colored pencil, pen, and watercolor, portray a beloved personal geography.

Jan 16, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Kate Messner |Rebecca Stead |Kyle Lukoff |Deb Caletti

Kate Messner. Bloomsbury, $17.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-5476-1639-8After sullen seventh grader Finn Connelly is detained for damaging the headstone of late local hero Edna Grace Thomas, who once corresponded with and encouraged climbers of the 46 Adirondack peaks, Finn sees the event as further proof that he exists in stark contrast to his deceased fireman father, whose heroism on 9/11 was captured in an iconic photograph.

Jan 9, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Rebecca Stead |Kyle Lukoff |Deb Caletti

Betsy Bird, illus. by Andrea Tsurumi. Union Square, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-1-4549-6046-1Bird (The Great Santa Stakeout) and Tsurumi (There’s No Such Thing as Vegetables) imagine the giggly-good havoc wrought by ending myriad nursery rhymes with “POP! Goes the Weasel.” The story’s canon-tweaking mischief-maker—introduced in the book’s first featured rhyme—is a weasel in pink overalls who leaps into the framing of each classic final line, generally with arms and legs akimbo.

Jan 9, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Jill Tew |Rebecca Stead |Kyle Lukoff |Deb Caletti

Jill Tew. Freedom Fire, $18.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-368-10468-5Middle schooler Kaya Morgan’s happiest memories are of summer days at the North Georgia Renaissance Faire, “a magical place grounded in the real world,” where she bonded over funnel cake fries with her late father, a bowman who ruled the fair’s archery stall on the weekends. Now 12, Kaya is thrilled to finally join the fair’s apprentice camp and train for the role her father promised her: queen. Instead, Kaya is cast as court jester.