These are books that kids will want to read-or should read, but will enjoy doing so. Board book, picture books, kid lit, elementary school books, middle school books, high school books, all age comic books and more will be talked about here.
I know Spy School. That is the go-to mglit book series written by author Stuart Gibbs that makes kids want to read. I knew of the Once Upon A Tim book series that’s also written by him. In the liner notes for all of those books, it lists all the author’s other books, which I had also read, except for that series. The Quest of Danger is book number four in the Once Upon A Tim series and I understand the hype now.
There is a point in time when that illustrated book that you read to elementary-aged students has content that you didn’t know. It won’t happen with every illustrated book, but the non-fiction ones especially might bring up facts that you adults didn’t know or realize. In Concrete: From the Ground Up, that point came for me when the book said “Cement is not the same as concrete.” That was on the third page and when I looked back at the first two pages there were also facts that I didn’t know. Concrete is not trying to be a primer on construction for children, it’s that it’s an intelligent book, that’s punctuated with lots of humor and illustrations.
There’s a reason why some books set out to be a trilogy and reasons why readers are reticent to jump into one of the latter entries of them. The Bigfoot Queen by Jennifer Weiner is the third book in a series that subverts one of those expectations and sneaks up on the other. The result of The Bigfoot Queen is mglit that makes you want to read every word so that you can revel in the changes that each of them are discovering.
Let your freak flag fly, that’s what I say. I said something like that to a student today, except it was the more school-appropriate version of “you do you, don’t worry about others.” We read our first R.L. Stine book last year and were exceedingly surprised by Stinetinglers. It’s obvious from that book that Stine has a knack, a hook at digging into the mglit psyche and dredging their fears and unsaid scares. Fear Street takes his angle, ups the demographic, increases the horror, and proves that he knows his role-and its capable of expanding. Specifically, True Evil: The First Evil, The Second Evil, The Third Evil is a book that’s in the Fear Street series of books that Stine creates.
If I was in middle or high school then The Changing Man is the sort of book that I would’ve loved. It operates on a more mature level than Goosebumps. It oozes teen paranoia and angst on the pore of every greasy page. The characters are typical teens who don’t trust anyone over 20, but know that they have to acknowledge them and sometimes seek guidance when long-dormant problems rear their heads. More than anything, my teenage soul (and the erstwhile reader) would crave the horror, the monsters and the creatures that I know exist in the book, if only they can reveal themselves at the right time.
At times, science should be silly, especially if your audience is young and needs to look at things from a different angle. This is the angle that asks questions you’ve never thought about. It’s the sly questioning of whether or not there’s a rhinoceros in the room or a STEM-based story about the time an astronaut played golf on the moon. Tee Time on the Moon is an illustrated book aimed at early to mid-elementary school audiences, but whose curious nature will lend itself to those slightly younger, in addition to older than that. This is due to the left-field thinking that kids would have as to playing golf on the moon. However, the book’s layout also lends itself to welcoming young readers who might be intimidated by the story or the text that they see as out of this world.
Oh Beulah, you always have a hunch. When I read to younger elementary school audiences I love books like Beulah has a Hunch! Inside the Colorful Mind of Master Inventor Beulah Louise Henry, and so do those young audiences. It’s a real story and is one of the first instances of a non-fiction illustrated book that pre-k and early elementary will experience, and we do love some non-fiction. However, non-fiction is only as good as its enjoyment to those elementary ages. This is where the illustrations; combined with the zippy vibe of the book make Beulah has a Hunch! a fun time that won’t tax their time and just might inspire their imagination.
If I taught a photography class I would issue this challenge to my students. First off, they’d get two shots and neither of them could use a filter or emoji. Now that I’ve eliminated 80% of the people who would enroll in the class, here’s the challenge. Take a photograph in this room of something creative, beautiful, startling or odd. You’re only able to use what’s in the room and can’t move things around or otherwise stage the photo. The point to the exercise is that there is beauty all around us, it’s just that sometimes you have to look for it, squint your eyes or tilt your head. Wings, Waves & Webs: Patterns in Nature is an illustrated book that jumps knee-deep into the world of observation, as it can be seen by elementary school ages.
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