Special Collections
California Department of Education Recommended Literature List 2024
Description: The California Department of Education (CDE) coordinates the development of Recommended Literature List with the assistance of teachers, teacher librarians employed by schools and public libraries, administrators, curriculum planners, and parents.#CDE
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I Have a Question
by Andrew ArnoldFor Stevie, speaking up in class can be scary. So, when Ms. Gail asks, “Are there any questions?” Stevie looks around the classroom, hoping someone will raise their hand. But no one does. No one has a single question. Except Stevie.
“I can’t ask, can I? If I do, I know just what will happen,” Stevie thinks, beginning a journey of worried imagination. Everyone will certainly laugh, they'll think the question is silly, they'll think Stevie is silly.
But Stevie has to know. Stevie has to ask.
Written with terrific humor, empathy, and tenderness, author-illustrator Andrew Arnold's I Have a Question is wonderfully funny and mightily empowering--inspiring anyone who has ever felt too shy, too silly or too afraid to raise their hand.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
Something Like Home
by Andrea Beatriz ArangoA moving novel in verse in which a lost dog helps a lonely girl find a way home to her family . . . only for them to find family in each other along the way. From the Newbery Honor Award-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All.
Titi Silvia leaves me by myself to unpack,
but it’s not like I brought a bunch of stuff.
How do you prepare for the unpreparable?
How do you fit your whole life in one bag?
And how am I supposed to trust social services
when they won’t trust me back?
Laura Rodríguez Colón has a plan: no matter what the grown-ups say, she will live with her parents again. Can you blame her? It’s tough to make friends as the new kid at school. And while staying at her aunt’s house is okay, it just isn’t the same as being in her own space.
So when Laura finds a puppy, it seems like fate. If she can train the puppy to become a therapy dog, then maybe she’ll be allowed to visit her parents. Maybe the dog will help them get better and things will finally go back to the way they should be.
After all, how do you explain to others that you’re technically a foster kid, even though you live with your aunt? And most importantly . . . how do you explain that you’re not where you belong, and you just want to go home?
Dogtown
by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko and Wallace WestFrom beloved authors Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko and with illustrations from Wallace West, Dogtown is at once an uplifting story and a page-turning adventure, sure to find a forever home in readers’ hearts.
Dogtown is a shelter for stray dogs, misbehaving dogs, and discarded robot dogs, whose owners have outgrown them.
Chance, a real dog, has been in Dogtown since her owners unwittingly left her with irresponsible dog-sitters who skipped town.
Metal Head is a robot dog who dreams of being back in a real home.
And Mouse is a mouse who has the run of Dogtown, pilfering kibble, and performing clever feats to protect the dogs he loves.
When Chance and Metal Head embark on an adventure to find their forever homes, there is danger, cheese sandwiches, a charging station, and some unexpected kindnesses along the way.
New York Times Bestseller
Elf Dog and Owl Head
by M. T. AndersonClay has had his fill of home life. A global plague has brought the world to a screeching halt, and with little to look forward to but a summer of video-calling friends, vying with annoying sisters for the family computer, and tuning out his parents’ financial worries, he’s only too happy to retreat to the woods.
From the moment the elegant little dog with the ornate collar appears like an apparition among the trees, Clay sees something uncanny in her. With this mysterious Elphinore as guide, he’ll glimpse ancient secrets folded all but invisibly into the forest. Each day the dog leads Clay down paths he never knew existed, deeper into the unknown. But they aren’t alone in their surreal adventures. There are traps and terrors in the woods, too, and if Clay isn’t careful, he might stray off the path and lose his way forever.
Graced with evocative black-and-white illustrations by Junyi Wu, Elf Dog and Owl Head is heartfelt and exhilarating, wry and poignant, seamlessly merging the fantastic and the familiar in a tale both timely and timeless.
Queen of the Tiles
by Hanna AlkafThey Wish They Were Us meets The Queen’s Gambit in this thriller set in the world of competitive Scrabble, where a teen girl is forced to investigate the mysterious death of her best friend when her Instagram comes back to life with cryptic posts and messages.
CATALYST
13 points
noun: a substance that speeds up a reaction without itself changing
When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It seems that even though Najwa is trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet.
But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors. With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion. All’s fair in love and Scrabble, but all bets are off when Trina’s formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe Trina’s death wasn’t as straightforward as everyone thought. And maybe someone at the competition had something to do with it.
As secrets are revealed and the true colors of her friends are shown, it’s up to Najwa to find out who’s behind these mysterious posts—not just to save Trina’s memory, but to save herself.
Akim Aliu: Dreamer
by Akim Aliu and Greg Anderson ElyséeThis honest, engrossing graphic memoir tells the story of professional athlete and activist Akim Aliu's incredible life as a hockey prodigy in Canada.
Akim Aliu — also known as "Dreamer" — is a Nigerian born, Ukrainian Canadian professional hockey player whose career took him all around the world and who experienced systemic racism at everyone turn. This graphic novel tells Akim's incredible story, from being the only black child in his Ukrainian school, to having his teeth bashed in by a racist teammate in the Ontario junior league. A gut-wrenching and riveting graphic novel memoir that reminds us to never stop dreaming, this story is sure to inspire young readers everywhere.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
I Am Made of Mountains
by Alexandra S.D. HinrichsThis lyrical picture book celebrates the beauty of nature while exploring the diverse landscapes of the National Parks across the United States of America.From the volcanos of Haleakalā National Park in Hawai'i to waterfalls of Yosemite to the churning ocean at Acadia National Park in Maine, I Am Made of Mountains takes readers on a tour to honor America&’s great outdoors. Sixteen parks are highlighted, and the story follows a different child visiting each park and exploring the natural wonders of each location. The lyrical text paired with the expansive illustrations is an ode to the outdoors that will inspire nature lovers and National Park visitors of all ages.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
How to Write a Poem
by Kwame Alexander and Deanna NikaidoIn this evocative and playful companion to their New York Times bestselling picture book How to Read a Book, Newbery Medalist Kwame Alexander teams up with poet Deanna Nikaido and Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet to celebrate the magic of discovering your very own poetry in the world around you.
Begin
with a question
like an acorn
waiting for spring.
From this first stanza, readers are invited to pay attention—and to see that paying attention itself is poetry. Kwame Alexander and Deanna Nikaido’s playful text and Melissa Sweet’s dynamic, inventive artwork are paired together to encourage readers to listen, feel, and discover the words that dance in the world around them—poems just waiting to be written down.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
An American Story
by Kwame Alexander#1 New York Times Bestselling and award-winning author of The Undefeated, Kwame Alexander, pens a powerful picture book that tells the story of American slavery through the voice of a teacher struggling to help her students understand its harrowing history. From the fireside tales in an African village, through the unspeakable passage across the Atlantic, to the backbreaking work in the fields of the South, this is a story of a people's struggle and strength, horror and hope. This is the story of American slavery, a story that needs to be told and understood by all of us. A testament to the resilience of the African American community, this book honors what has been and envisions what is to be. With stunning mixed-media illustrations by newcomer Dare Coulter, this is a potent book for those who want to speak the truth. Perfect for family sharing, the classroom, and homeschooling.
The Enchanted Life of Valentina Mejía
by Alexandra AlessandriEncanto meets The Chronicles of Narnia by way of Colombian folklore in this middle grade fantasy adventure. To save their father’s life, a brother and sister must journey across a land full of mythical creatures and find the most powerful and dangerous of them all: the madremonte.
Twelve-year-old Valentina wants to focus on drawing the real world around her and hopefully get into art school in Bogotá one day, but Papi has spent his life studying Colombia’s legendary creatures and searching for proof of their existence. So when Papi hears that a patasola—a vampire woman with one leg—has been sighted in the Andes, Valentina and her younger brother Julián get dragged along on another magical creature hunt.
While they’re in the Andes, a powerful earthquake hits. Valentina and Julián fall through the earth…and find an alternate Colombia where, to Valentina’s shock, all the legends are real.
To get home, Valentina and Julián must make a treacherous journey to reach this land’s ruler: the madremonte, mother and protector of the earth. She controls the only portal back to the human world—but she absolutely hates humans, and she’ll do anything to defend her land.
Hollow Fires
by Samira AhmedSafiya Mirza dreams of becoming a journalist. And one thing she’s learned as editor of her school newspaper is that a journalist’s job is to find the facts and not let personal biases affect the story. But all that changes the day she finds the body of a murdered boy.
Jawad Ali was fourteen years old when he built a cosplay jetpack that a teacher mistook for a bomb. A jetpack that got him arrested, labeled a terrorist—and eventually killed. But he’s more than a dead body, and more than “Bomb Boy.” He was a person with a life worth remembering.
Driven by Jawad’s haunting voice guiding her throughout her investigation, Safiya seeks to tell the whole truth about the murdered boy and those who killed him because of their hate-based beliefs.
This gripping and powerful book uses an innovative format and lyrical prose to expose the evil that exists in front of us, and the silent complicity of the privileged who create alternative facts to bend the truth to their liking.