Featured fiction picks

Set in Nigeria, this is a delicious tale of mischievous toddlers, juicy mangoes and cunning monkeys-- starring the letter M.

Twelve-year-old Meg is pulled into a mysterious treasure hunt at her new boarding school and must learn to work with her new classmates, who all have secrets of their own.

When his sister keeps interrupting his story with wild ideas that don't even rhyme, a big brother suddenly realizes she's actually improving his yarn-- and doing it with an impressive surprise of her own-- and decides to share the narrative.

A little girl and her grandmother spend Friday afternoon preparing for Shabbat by making challah.

Law student Tess and her influencer best friend are stalked by a masked man while exploring a remote Oregon cave system. After Tess is trapped in a narrow underground crawlspace, a high-stakes survival and investigation unfolds regarding dark secrets from Allie's past. 

It's time for bed but the little witch's room is still awake with magic, and young ones can join her in saying good night to all the frightfully fun items around her.

Fourteen acclaimed authors showcase the beautiful and diverse ways holidays are observed. From Lunar New Year to Solstice, Día de Los Muertos to Juneteenth, and all the incredible days in between, it's clear Americans don't just have one holiday.

A family gathers for their Sunday menudo tradition, and through playful mishaps and counting (in Spanish and English), they learn the value of teamwork and love.

Community members, primarily of Mexican-American descent, band together and protest the construction of a police station on designated parkland and transform it into a vibrant cultural hub.

Pablo Ortiz, an anxious sixth-grader, had no desire to be the hero called to defeat the Aztec goddess who came through a portal-- his locker!-- from the monster realm. Good thing his friends and his abuela have what he needs to succeed.

Mariam Hassan is an Iraqi American Muslim girl navigating sixth grade at a Catholic school. She faces "burden of representation" while navigating friendships, a class president race and being cast as Mary in the Nativity play, all while managing her sister's serious illness.

In a tiny Beirut apartment, Raja and his mother live side by side. Raja relishes books, order and solitude, but his octogenarian mother views his desire for privacy as a personal affront.

In this "Romeo and Juliet"-inspired retelling set during the civil rights era, a Mexican American girl is driven to join a movement for justice after her white classmate and best friend from the barrio are tragically murdered.

Two 10-year-olds must decide whether they should join forces to create an unbeatable duo that is sure to win their school's annual creative storytelling contest.

Hassan faces a hectic month of homework, soccer and gaming while fasting every day for the holy month of Ramadan, in a story about balancing family traditions and secular middle-school life.

18 year-old Zoey Hennessey travels to an island to inherit her deceased mother's apartment and meets her new, quirky neighbors. When one of her new neighbors dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she begins to explore these new connections and the grief that binds them.

This collection includes 13 scary stories with shocking twists on everyday reality, from an innocent set of dark, dusty basement stairs to a piano recital that requires unusual sacrifices.

Inheriting a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, celebrated writer Alma Cruz creates a graveyard for the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life, but they have other ideas as they rewrite and revise themselves, revealing their true narratives to those who will listen.

An immortal, grumpy ghost hunter cursed to wander eternally outlives everyone he loves. When he takes a job as a cemetery groundskeeper to banish a vengeful spirit, he unexpectedly finds a found family and a reason to live. 

Marshall, a journalist, is sent to a small town to look into an improbable rumor that a horse has given birth to a human baby. As she investigates, she discovers evidence of a murder and becomes drawn into an even deeper and stranger mystery than she expected.

Santi is excited to spend the summer in Hillside Valley, meeting local kids, eating his Abuela's delicious food and exploring, but Santi doesn't speak Spanish and it seems everyone he meets does.

Darcy, a 32-year-old librarian, returns to work after a mental breakdown triggered by the death of her ex-boyfriend. Returning to work she faces local book bans, protests and more.

As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward. Content warning for suicidality.

After their billionaire father is murdered at his annual Prodigy Ball, his five brutally trained adopted children are trapped in their mansion as suspects, forced to confront one another's secrets, traumas and betrayals.

Henry, a young boy with autism, learns to manage his school garden with his best friend Katie-- but Henry's world feels turned upside down when Katie brings along a new friend named Ivy.

A patient father offers fantastical, creative responses to a wakeful child’s nighttime questions, including why the ocean is blue, what the rain is and what happened to the dinosaurs.

In a mysterious convent, a lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened. When a stranger passes the convent walls, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future and her present life.

Two little mineral piles, Stalactite and Stalagmite, foster a friendship over millions of years as they grow closer together, figuratively and literally.

Tess Bright just scored her dream role starring in an adaptation of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, but one very tall, annoyingly handsome person-- Hugh Balfour-- is standing in her way.

Feeling incomplete as an adopted child after placing her own baby up for adoption, teen Grace tracks down her biological siblings and finds herself struggling with the dynamics of being a middle child between an embittered older brother and an outspoken younger sister.

When Beth March is found dead in the woods on New Year's Day, her sisters vow to find her murderer. Told through multiple perspectives, Beth's story unfolds through flashbacks next to Meg, Jo and Amy's increasingly fraught investigation as the tragedy threatens to rip the Marches apart.

In the final days of Pompeii, two boys-- Felix and Loren-- must grapple with closely-guarded secrets and untangle myth, magic and memory to escape the burning city alive.

Grieving the loss of her husband to Alzheimer's, Maggie embarks on a dangerous quest to uncover the truth behind his illness, leading her on a mind-bending adventure through time and memory to save him and change the course of history.

After her best friend is cast out of their insular Orthodox Jewish community for a seemingly innocent transgression, Yoyo Gold's eyes are opened to the truth of her neighbors’ hypocrisies for the first time. And what she sees leaves her shocked and unmoored.

Tessa loves how her grandmother always smells of campfire stories. Mom says it's because Kohkom spends her days sewing beautiful beads onto smoked hides. Inspired, Tessa asks Kohkom to teach her beading, but first she must listen and learn about the many stories a bead holds.

Introduces toddlers to the exciting world of trains in their many forms, including fast trains, steam-powered trains, electric trains, freight trains and more.

A gripping, paranormal thriller about a teenage boy who accidentally brings a well-meaning but volatile poltergeist into his home.

Lucy Smith, a foster teen on the run, is drawn into a complex mystery involving her stolen Ojibwe heritage. Lucy must uncover the truth about her past, while also trying to clear her name and protect her loved ones.

Eniiyi must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin, Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including Monife's tragic end.

Second-grader Lola Levine explores paleontology during Dinosaur Week at school. During a class field trip to the Museum of Natural History, her little brother gets fidgety and the siblings get lost.  

A non-speaking autistic college graduate is forced back into an adult daycare following a family tragedy. Following the narratives of staff and clients alike, this novel explores the often-overlooked disabled community.

When Roz, a robot, washes ashore on a wild island she must learn from the animal inhabitants and adapt to her new surroundings.

A 12-year-old Japanese American baseball superfan forced to spend his summer in Oregon with his grandfather instead of playing elite ball.

Danilo's baseball talent lands him the opportunity to train in the States and find his absentee father, who may be the key to saving the family he abandoned as they deal with the devastating effects of the U.S. military invasion of Panamá.

To go on an art club field trip, Miguel decides to ditch his responsibilities at his family’s bodega and hide the truth from his parents. When things come crashing down, he finds a friend in his newly adopted cat, Lolo.

Set in a world where white people no longer exist, college professor Charlie Brunton receives a call from his estranged daughter Sidney, setting off a chain of events as they journey across a truly "post-racial" America in search of answers.

One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy's father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.

Clever and mischievous cats take on different shapes! Young readers can learn basic shapes with six different cats.

Addressing the assumptions people make about those with disabilities in an accessible, honest and humorous way, this story follows Joe, who is tired of being told how amazing he is for doing normal things.

A kidnapped Nahua girl, enslaved and thrust into the heart of Spanish conquest, uses her wit, magic and resilience to carve her own destiny and rewrite her legacy as both traitor and goddess amidst a clash of empires.