by Sarah Adler Read by Mara Wilson Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Or listen at Libro.fm Content: It’s sweary including many -bombs, and has on-screen, explicit sex. It’s in the romance section of the bookstore. Gretchen Acorn is a con artist. She runs a business where her job is to connect to the spirit world and help her clients connect with their dead loved ones. She tells herself that she’s doing them a service, comforting them in their time of grief. Then one of her clients pays her to go perform an exorcism at the farm of her bridge partner. Gretchen was expectin ..read more

by Ruth Behar First sentence: “The sound of trumpets coming from the direction of our town gates tears me from sleep, my dreams forgotten as I jolt out of bed.” Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Content: There are some instances of hatred toward Jews, deaths of parents, and overly strict fathers. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore. These inter-connected short stories follow girls in the same Sephardic Jewish family from their exile in Spain in 1492, to their lives in Turkey and one girl’s exile from there to Cuba, to finall ..read more

I find it interesting how much my co-workers influence my reading. When I had a friend who was super into YA and romance novels, I read a lot of those (still do, though; I like them!), but now that she’s left, and there’s a huge fantasy/sci-fi contingent at work, I find myself being pulled into that. (Alas, that poor literary fiction readers. And we’re still lacking someone to read books in the history section …) All this to say 1) I haven’t read a YA book in AGES, 2)’m out here being the lone middle grade reader at work, and 3) I read a lot of fantasy. So it’s not surprise that this is my fav ..read more

by Annabelle Tometitch Read by the author Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Or listen at Libro.fm Content: There is a depiction of abuse by a parent, talk of suicide, and swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Biography section of the bookstore. Annabelle Tomtetich’s mom, an immigrant from the Philippines, was arrested for firing a BB gun at a person who was trying to steal her mangoes from the mango tree in her front yard. To understand how she came to this point Tometich takes us through her (not her mother’s) childhood, the rel ..read more

by Loretta Lopez First sentence: “My body is still getting used to hers.” Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Content: While this is super short, and the main characters are eleven, it deals with some pretty heavy themes (including sexual and physical abuse, divorce, sickness, and death). It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.   This slim book is three interconnected short stories, each one following a girl in a Manhattan Middle School. Elisa is fresh from El Salvador and is petitioning the US government for asylum so she can st ..read more

by A. J. Sass First sentence: “Day one of my new normal began on the Sunday before I started my first-ever day of public school.” Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Content: There is some talk of crushes and like-liking people, there is mention of anxious self-mutilating behaviors, and it’s on the longer end for the age range. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore. Shai has a plan to create their new normal: come out as non-binary to their mom and their closest friends (done), wear sleeves to cover their arms so they stop picking and pul ..read more

by Thea Glassman Read by Christine Lakin Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Or listen at Libro.fm Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, as well as talk of bullying. It’s in the Film section of the bookstore. When we recently drove down to Dallas to see the eclipse, I went through my backlog of audiobooks, looking for something interesting we could listen to and I landed on this. From the subtitle – How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Television – it sounded like an interesting look at pop culture and the ways that teen stories can affect television as a whole ..read more

by Heather Fawcett Read by Ell Potter & Michael Dodds Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Or listen at Libro.fm Others in the series: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries Content: There are some dangerous moments and an off-screen sex scene. For some reason, it’s in the Romance section of the bookstore, which I disagree with. (While it has a romance, it’s not Romance!) Spoilers for the first one, obviously. It’s a little while after the events of the last book, and Emily and Wendell have settled back into teaching (such as it is, for Wendell) at Cambridge. But, soon ..read more

by Charlotte Bond First sentence: “On my oath, I, Sir Nathaniel, do swear that what I am about to tell the Distinguished Mage is the truth.” Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Release date: May 28, 2024 Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work. Content: There is violence and some pretty gruesome deaths. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore. Maddileh is a knight. She’s managed to get herself disgraced – it was something to do with an ex-lover and punching him in the face because he was an ass. She figures that there’s only one way to ..read more

by Kelly Yang First sentence: “‘Mom!’ Millie, my sister, protests, banging on the door.” Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! Others in the series: Finally Seen Content: There is talk of puberty, crushes, and social media. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I’d give it to the older end of the age range. Lina’s mom’s business making bath bombs has stalled, and the thing that they need to save it? Social media. It’s also taken over the 5th grade- everyone in Lina’s class seemed to have gotten phones over spring break, and there’s no stopping t ..read more