Books You May Have Missed 2021: Elementary and Middle Grade

Eleven-year-old Barclay Thorne yearns for the quiet life of a mushroom farmer, but after unwittingly bonding with a beast in the forbidden Woods, he must seek Lore Keepers to break the bond and return home.

"Full-color portraits illustrate the stories of ten people-rulers, educators, inventors, scholars, and explorers-who helped shape the African continent and the world from ancient times through the tumultuous sixteenth century"--

"As a young girl in Cuba, Alicia Alonso practiced ballet in tennis shoes. Within a few years, she was in New York City, with a promising ballet career. But her eyesight began to fail. When Alicia needed surgeries to save her vision, dancing was impossible, but she wouldn't give up her dream. She found the strength and determination to return to the stage and become a prima ballerina. This is the true story of a woman who overcame her challenges, mastered...

"What makes a fish a fish? Trout thinks he knows the answer. "That's easy! Fish have fins, gills, scales, are shaped like me, and live underwater." "Not so fast," answers Mudskipper. "What about a clingfish? They don't have any scales. Or a hagfish? They don't have any fins. Or what about me? I live in and out of the water!" As Trout and Mudskipper explore below and above the world's waters, they are introduced to a multitude of fish in various shapes,...

Feeling pulled between two cultures after a month with family in Pakistan, Amina shares her experiences with Wisconsin classmates through a class assignment and a songwriting project with new student Nico.--

Edited by award-winning and bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of intersecting stories by both new and veteran Native writers bursts with hope, joy, resilience, the strength of community, and Native pride. Native families from Nations across the continent gather at the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In a high school gym full of color and song, people dance, sell beadwork and books, and celebrate friendship...

"Annie Lumsden has hair that drifts like seaweed, eyes that shine like rock pools, and thoughts that dart and dance like minnows. She lives with her artist mother by the sea, where she feels utterly at home, and has long felt apart from the other girls at school. Words and numbers on the page don't make sense to her, and strange maladies have been springing up that the doctors can't explain. Annie's mother says that all things can be turned into tales,...

"Mickey finds a book that promises to erase whatever is written in it, and after filling the page with all the things and people he dislikes, he finds himself in the anti-world where everything familiar is gone"--

"In the first picture book written by a DACA dreamer Areli Morales tells her own powerful and vibrant immigration story of moving from a quiet town in Mexico to the bustling and noisy metropolis of New York City"--

"Third-grader Aven Green has been solving mysteries for a whole month, cracking such cases as The Mystery of the Cranky Mom. But can this perceptive detective solve two cases at the same time? First her teacher's lunch bag disappears. Then Aven's great-grandma's dog goes missing. Fortunately, since Aven was born without arms, all the "arm" cells went to her super-powered brain instead. (That's her theory.)"--