CCBC Weekly Book Reviews
Will’s Race for Home
After decades of backbreaking, thankless sharecropping work in Texas, Will’s father, who was enslaved as a child, is “grim and dull,” and Will longs for a closer relationship with him. When they hear of the Oklahoma Land Rush, they recognize it as the chance of a lifetime. With a wagon of supplies pulled by their mule, Belle, Will and his dad join thousands of others racing to stake out their own land.
July 7, 2025
Fireworks
For the two children at the center of this immersive picture book, a blissful July day is capped with a spectacular show.
June 30, 2025
Hick: The Trailblazing Journalist Who Captured Eleanor Roosevelt’s Heart
In the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, Lorena Hickok was a skilled and popular journalist, chronicler of the Depression for the U.S government, and intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. This fascinating biography begins with Hickok’s childhood.
June 23, 2025
All Better Now
What if a disease could make people happier and kinder? Crown Royale (CR) is a virus that kills one out of every 25 people infected. But the majority who contract it not only recover but also feel contentment in the aftermath.
June 16, 2025
Rabbit Rabbit
Cousins Bee and Alice (white, age 12) reunite after many years for their grandparents’ 50th anniversary in late 2019.
June 9, 2025
To See an Owl
“To see an owl is magic.” A girl fascinated by owls draws them, dreams about them, and goes in search of them with her mom, to no avail.
June 2, 2025
Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights
“When adults … refuse to acknowledge that adolescence isn’t a time of innocence and ease for everyone, when they try to take away books that reflect the wide range of experiences of young people, they are attempting to change the narrative of what it means to be a teen in the United States” (Isabel Quintero). Fourteen creators of books for youth whose works have been among those targeted by censors challenging materials in school and public libraries in recent years offer their perspectives on book bans and censorship in the United States.
May 26, 2025
At Home in a Faraway Place
Lissie (white) hopes to learn Spanish on the trip she’s taking with her dad and grandma to visit her dad’s friend Raúl, who lives “where most people speak Spanish.” Word by word, phrase by phrase, Lissie’s Spanish skills expand in that faraway place where she has both new and familiar experiences and meets many kind people.
May 19, 2025
Somadina
Long before Sọmadịna and her twin, Jayaike, were born, the creation of the Split ended the Starvation War. A yawning chasm, the Split severs the rest of the world from Sọmadịna’s island, where most people receive one magical ability from the goddess, Ala, when they come of age. When the twins manifest multiple gifts—and one of Sọmadịna’s causes her to murder a violent peer against her will—they are deemed “abominations” by their mother and harshly shunned by the community.
May 12, 2025
Picking Tea with Baba
Joining Baba in picking tea leaves on the mountain near their Chinese village is “a special treat” for this book’s narrator and his brother. Mama joins them, too. After a steep trek, the family reaches a “serene” garden striped with orderly rows of green tea shrubs.
May 5, 2025
How Sweet the Sound: A Soundtrack for America
An exuberant, lyrical text celebrates the rich history and variety of music made and influenced by Black Americans. The chronological account begins with the beat of talking drums, “the fireside chorus / of the motherland,” before moving to forms of music that “shouldered” the enslaved and “lifted / the insufferable weight off our world”: hymns, field hollers, juba, litanies, spirituals.
April 28, 2025
The Zuzu Secret
Siblings Josie, 12, and Abe, 15 (both white), have just moved to a Silver Spring, Maryland, when a car accident leaves their mom with a concussion and Josie in secret possession of a bearded dragon.
April 21, 2025
Everything Is Poison
On her 16th birthday, Carmela is finally allowed to begin training at La Tofana, the apothecary run by her mother and two other women in 17th-century Rome. Sometimes called a witch, Carmela’s mother, Giulia, and her staff, Maria and Laura, treat a host of run-of-the-mill ailments. They also secretly help women, including Laura’s childhood nemesis, Violetta, end unwanted pregnancies.
April 14, 2025
Raven’s Ribbons
“Boom-boom. Shuffle-shuffle.” Raven loves taking part in round dances, holding his grandma’s hand as “round and round they go” with other members of their Indigenous community. Raven especially admires the vibrant ribbon skirts worn by girls and women. Many of them were sewn by his grandmother, the colors carefully chosen for each individual.
April 7, 2025
Who Owns the Moon? And Other Conundrums of Exploring and Using Space
As NASA’s Artemis program works to return humans to the moon within the next few years, a timely account offers insight into the challenges of international cooperation as it relates to space exploration.
March 31, 2025- More Books of the Week