Category Archives: grades

Butler Bookshelf

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Friendships can be hard to navigate during middle school. These middle-grade novels from our Butler Center Children’s Fiction collection represent challenges students face and how they face them. This week’s feature pick is Roohi and Nate are Not on the Same Page by Supriya Kelkar and Jarret Lerner. Studious Roohi and rebellious Nate couldn’t be any more different, and they don’t consider themselves friends when they join their school Lunch Bunch. As they spend more time together, and when they learn the school librarian’s job is on the line due to budget cuts, Roohi and Nate put their differences aside and work together to save what they hold dear.

Roohi and Nate are Not on the Same Page
Supriya Kelkar and Jarret Lerner
ABRAMS/Amulet Books
Available now!

Camp Big Top
Alexandra Diaz
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing/Beach Lane Books
Available now!

The Unlikely Aventuras of Ramón and El Cucuy Book 2: Don’t Eat the Birthday Boy!
Donna Barbara Higuera
Illustrated by Juliana Perdomo
ABRAMS/Amulet Books
Available now!

When Tomorrow Burns
Tae Keller
Random House Children’s Books/Random House Books for Young Readers
Available now!

The Catastrophic Friendship Fails of Lottie Brooks
Kate Kirby
Random House Children’s Books/Random House Books for Young Readers
Available now!

Searching for Security: A Review of Comet’s Nine Lives

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Comet’s Nine Lives
Jan Brett
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an Imprint of Penguin Random House
Ages 4-8
Available: October 6, 2026

 

When his first life slips away from him after eating some foxgloves, Comet the cat needs to find a home to keep his other eight lives intact. As his efforts turn into one misadventure after another, losing more lives in the process, Comet’s goal of finding a suitable shelter seemed further than ever. However, the safety he sought may be closer than he first thought. 

Jan Brett’s signature intricate and realistic art style shines once again in her latest picture book. Her trademark serene and cool watercolor illustrations and borders, which include seashells, sea creatures, seaweed, and wooden planks, capture the coastal ambiance of the story’s island setting. The watercolor paint isn’t super vibrant, but it is smooth and calm. Comet’s antics portrayed in the pictures spark exciting action despite the lack of bright colors. Brett’s prose doesn’t talk down to her audience. She uses sophisticated language in some areas, especially when a dog character feels outraged or frightened of Comet’s unwelcome presence. For instance, in one scene where a health inspector comes to an ice cream parlor and sees Comet, he proclaims, “Feline residues! Maximum infractions!” As Comet loses each life, Brett’s wording makes apt descriptions that match the situation presented in the illustrations. Overall, Comet’s Nine Lives is an exquisite read sure to charm both parents and young readers alike. Jan Brett fans would be proud to include this book in their collections. 

Butler Bookshelf

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For this week’s Butler Bookshelf, we’re looking at picture books featuring fathers. These stories showcase how to express love for parents, father figures in this case, in a multitude of ways and how they care for their children in many ways, too. Our feature pick is Baba Palooza by A.D. Ghani and illustrated by Nadia Alam. Whenever Aziah rides her Baba’s taxi, she feels like a movie star. Since Baba works long hours, Aziah and her father make every second count. When Baba has to miss Aziah’s dance recital due to work, Aziah wants to give her father a surprise he’ll never forget.

Check out more picture books featuring fathers (and grandfathers) below!

Baba Palooza
A.D. Ghani
Illustrated by Nadia Alam
ABRAMS/Abrams Books for Young Readers
Available now!

Ways Papi Says I Love You
Delia Ruiz
Illustrated by: Carlos Vélez Aguilera
Charlesbridge
Available now!

Grumpy Monkey Father’s Day Fuss
Suzanne Lang
Illustrated by: Max Lang
Random House Children’s Books/Random House Studio
Available now!

Sunrise Sail
Charles Trevino
Illustrated by: Maribel Lechuga
Charlesbridge
Available now!

One Two Daddy Loves You
Shelly Becker
Illustrated by: Dan Yaccarino
ABRAMS/Abrams Appleseed
Available now!

Version 2.0: A review of The Continuation of Summer Dillon

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The Continuation of Summer Dillon
Sarah Everett
HarperCollins Children’s
September 15, 2026
Age 8-12

What would you think of a replica android replacing your sibling? What if you were the replica? That’s how Summer 2.0 came to join the grieving Dillon family after their 11-year-old daughter’s passing. With downloads of Summer’s memories and mannerisms, she is not meant to replace, but to continue Summer’s life. That is, until a glitch in her code has Summer 2.0 developing her own likes (the color turquoise), dislikes (oatmeal-yuck), fears (being recycled), and a “forever plan” with dreams for her future—gaining her family’s love, becoming the perfect Summer, growing old, and visiting the Grand Canyon.

This middle grade, science fiction novel is an exploration of what makes us “us,” what makes us human. Sarah Everett’s characters embody all the joys and heartbreaks of life (for both humans and androids), with themes of grief, love, friendship, and individuality. She handles tough subjects delicately and with an 11-year-old’s worry about their place in the worlds of school and family. Fast prose, brief paragraphs, and journal-like footnotes addressed to Summer 1.0 and future Summers embody the voice of a vibrant, yet unsure young girl, with just a touch of AI omniscience. This juxtaposition poses questions about the ethics of artificial intelligence in an age-appropriate way and mirrors the changes tweens experience as they grow from childhood wants to the more complex understanding that comes with growing up. A bittersweet coming of age story to remind readers that we are all unique, we all have value, and we are all irreplaceable.

Butler Bookshelf

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Interaction is crucial for a child’s development, and board books can be a gateway for very young readers to fall in love with reading. Whether it’s lifting flaps, touching-and-feeling, or asking what a subject, like a color, word, animal, or shape, is, interactive board books can positively stimulate a baby’s or toddler’s brain and make reading a path to discovery. These kind of board books can also function as toys and must be treated with tender loving care (or at least try to do so). This week’s feature pick is Little Softies: Animals: A Touch-and-Feel First Words Book by Wendy Kendall. Readers can feel the soft and colorful felt pages while learning what each animal is called.

Little Softies: Animals: A Touch-and-Feel First Words Book
Wendy Kendall
ABRAMS/Abrams Appleseed
Available now!

¡Mira, Mira! Colors
Lourdes Heuer
Illustrated by Juliana Perdomo
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing/Little Simon
Available now!

The Questioneers: What’s that Color?
Andrea Beaty
Illustrated by David Roberts
ABRAMS/Abrams Appleseed
Available now!

A Breathe-Along Book: Breathe a Rainbow: With 8 Calming Textures to Trace with Your Finger
Julie Koon
ABRAMS/Abrams Appleseed
Available now!

A Lift-the-Flap Book: Hide-and-Seek Mommy
Marta Altés
ABRAMS/Abrams Appleseed
Available now!

Butler Bookshelf

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Happy Tuesday! Today is all about the silly, so from hand puppet shark attacks, farm animal shenanigans, to pepperoni prehistoric creatures, there’s a little bit of goofiness for everyone here; giggle-enducing storytime guaranteed. Our feature pick this week is Loops, written and illustrated by Jashar Awan. Tying shoes can be a big deal! But with a little help & encouragement from one very determined friend, you too can learn to bunny-ear and loop and pull like a pro.

Check out some more silly picture books below!

Loops
Jashar Awan
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing / Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Available now!

No, I’m a… Shark!
Mike Henson
Illustrated by Ana Gomez
The Quarto Group / Happy Yak
Available now!

Sorry, Sammy
Scott Rothman
Illustrated by Tom Tinn-Disbury
The Quarto Group / Happy Yak
Available now!

Pizzasaurus
Tammi Sauer
Illustrated by Kyle Beckett
Random House Children’s Books / Doubleday Books for Young Readers
Available now!

The Case of Old MacDonald and His Farm
Mark Teague
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing / Beach Lane Books
Available now!

It’s Better to Give: A Review of Just One Gift

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Just One Gift
Linda Sue Park
Illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng
HarperCollins/Clarion Books
April 7, 2026
Age: 8-12

The language arts assignment is deceptively simple: If you could give a gift, what would it be? The recipient must fall into the assigned category (family, friend, or ?), and the gift must not be something they have ever asked for. When Ms. Chang’s middle school ELA class begins to think through their assignment, they discover that the thought put into a gift can reveal as much about the giver as the receiver. And that their gifts highlight emotions, priorities, and community in ways that may never have been imagined.

Inspired by the Sijo poetry style of Korea, composed of three lines and thirteen to seventeen syllables, each response is its own short story of connection and meaning. In this companion to The One Thing You’d Save, Park’s choice to arrange the title into an assignment explanation, followed by individual student responses, provides natural pauses between chapters to digest the consideration that went into each gift. It also helps to delineate between student voices and highlight the self-consciousness, enthusiasm, and growing thoughtfulness of the middle school years. The simple pencil sketches from the book cover and select interior pages (available online) showcase Sae-Heng’s clear and imaginative style, bringing the students’ vision to the page like one might doodle in their assignment notebook.

A thoughtful exploration of the meaning, importance, and joys of gift giving for middle schoolers beginning to understand the ways their actions—big and small—can affect the world around them.

*Final art not included in the ARC.

Butler Bookshelf

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Love is in the air… and so are good books! In honor of Valentine’s Day this Saturday, our Butler Bookshelf this week is all about… you guessed it: love! From a cherry-blossom-covered Tokyo fling to humanoid coffee-shop meet-cutes, these YA books are full of witty banter, swoony romance, and more than enough butterflies-in-the-stomach to go around. Our feature pick for this week is The Roommate Arrangement by Samantha Markum. Type-A and high-strung Blair’s pre-college coding summer just got a lot more complicated after she finds herself stuck in the same apartment as her older brother’s brooding best friend, Jamie. The two bicker constantly, but it’s no secret that there’s something bubbling beneath the surface. Something that might just be more than platonic.

Check out some more young adult romance reads below!

Steam
Shaenon K. Garrity
Illustrated by Emily Holden
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing / Margaret K. McElderry Books
Available February 3rd, 2026 (today!)

Love Me Tomorrow
Emiko Jean
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing / Sarah Barley Books
Available February 3rd, 2026 (today!)

The Roommate Arrangement
Samantha Markum
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing / Margaret K. McElderry Books
Available now!

Love Makes Mochi
Stefany Valentine
Random House Children’s Books / Joy Revolution
Available now!

Room to Breathe
Kasie West
Random House Children’s Books / Delacorte Romance
Available now!

Butler Bookshelf

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For fans of fast-paced, nail-biting, whodunit thrillers, this week’s Butler Bookshelf is definitely for you. From a mysterious party drug plaguing schools with Stepford Wives-esque effects to a football team massacre that’s left one religious town reeling, these five books are cocktails of crime, thriller, mystery, and horror in all the right ways. Our feature pick this week is Lost Girls of Hollow Lake by Rebekah Faubion, set to be released on January 27th. In a sapphic, Yellowjackets meets Lord of the Flies way, Lost Girls of Hollow Lake tells the story of eight girls abandoned on a mysterious island after a school field trip goes south. When the group is miraculously—supernaturally, even—able to make it back to shore, there’s only one problem: just five girls remain. The town wants answers about the missing three, and someone out there is determined to pick off the rest. Can these girls ever truly make it off the island?

Read Lost Girls of Hollow Lake to find out & check out some more thriller YA books below!

Better the Devil
Erik J. Brown
HarperCollins / Storytide
Available January 20th, 2026!

Gaslit
Megan Davidhizar
Random House Children’s Books / Delacorte Press
Available January 13th, 2026 (today!)

I Don’t Wish You Well
Jumata Emill
Random House Children’s Books / Delacorte Press
Available January 20th, 2026!

Lost Girls of Hollow Lake
Rebekah Faubion
Random House Children’s Books / Delacorte Press
Available January 27th, 2026!

Shiny Happy People
Clay McLeod Chapman
Random House Children’s Books / Delacorte Press
Available now!

The Complications of Intimacy: A Review of How Girls Are Made

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How Girls Are Made
Mindy McGinnis
HarperCollins 
Ages 16-18
Available November 18, 2025

High school seniors Fallon, Shelby, and Jobie couldn’t be more different. Fallon is determined to graduate with straight A’s and escape Presnick, their small, conservative Ohio town. Shelby is focused on her budding career as a semiprofessional MMA fighter. And Jobie is chasing online stardom… and a rhinoplasty. When Fallon finds out her thirteen-year-old sister Farrah’s sex education class is teaching girls virtually nothing, she decides someone must enlighten these young girls about safe sex. After coercing Shelby and Jobie to join in, the trio begins hosting secret meetings to talk about sex at the local rec center, under the guise of a “self-help” class called “SHAFT.” After an Instagram post about “SHAFT” goes viral, Presnick’s parents are up in arms. DMs begin flooding in; fingers start pointing, and their antidote to an incompetent health class quickly spirals into a dangerous web of lies. Weaved in between their own simultaneous struggles, a fatal ending for one of the three solidifies the long-lasting effects of trauma. 

Although the first three hundred pages, even with a point of view shift each chapter, maintain a consistent tone that accurately captures the acerbic humor and raw tumult of teenage girlhood, the final fifty pages quickly veer into tragedy reminiscent of a Lifetime movie—fitting for a story steeped in teenage drama. Despite its soapy ending, How Girls Are Made serves as an important cautionary tale about the complications (and potential dangers) of sex and relationships. The characters are complex; the dialogue rings true, and as devastating as the story becomes, McGinnis confronts a myriad of incredibly relevant issues to teenagers nowadays. Given its heavy subject matter, which McGinnis tackles with heart-wrenching accuracy, including references to rape, suicide, and domestic abuse, the book is best suited for more mature young adult readers.