Six For Sunday: Kids Lit Represent – 2019 Must Reads!

It’s the final Sunday in April which means it’s the last of the Kids Lit Represents prompts! This is a age range that I’m not really familiar with these days but am making more of an effort to be as my god-daughter loves reading and I’m looking forward to being able to buy her more books so I’ve really loved creating posts this month, and also seeing everyone else’s recommendations!

Six for Sunday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely Steph at ALITTLEBUTALOT. You can find a list of prompts from January to June 2019 here

2019 Kids Lit Must Reads!

We’re wrapping up Kids Let Represent month on Six for Sunday by sharing six must read releases from 2019. Some of my six have already been released and some are due for release later in the year, what they do all have in common is that just like last week’s 2018 releases I haven’t read any of them yet, but they all appeal to me for one reason or another.

To Night Owl From Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan & Meg Wolitzer

Avery Bloom, who’s bookish, intense, and afraid of many things, particularly deep water, lives in New York City. Bett Devlin, who’s fearless, outgoing, and loves all animals as well as the ocean, lives in California. What they have in common is that they are both twelve years old, and are both being raised by single, gay dads.

When their dads fall in love, Bett and Avery are sent, against their will, to the same sleepaway camp. Their dads hope that they will find common ground and become friends–and possibly, one day, even sisters. 

But things soon go off the rails for the girls (and for their dads too), and they find themselves on a summer adventure that neither of them could have predicted. Now that they can’t imagine life without each other, will the two girls (who sometimes call themselves Night Owl and Dogfish) figure out a way to be a family?

Released in February I featured this book in my Out In… post and went on to buy it. I’ve not actually got around to reading it though but I did love The Parent Trap when I was younger which this has been compared to, and I’m actually quite fond of a story told via letters and emails so I’m thinking May Bank Holiday I’ll settle down with this one.

How High The Moon by Karyn Parsons

In the small town of Alcolu, South Carolina, in 1944, 12-year-old Ella spends her days fishing and running around with her best friend Henry and cousin Myrna. But life is not always so sunny for Ella, who gets bullied for her light skin tone, and whose mother is away pursuing a jazz singer dream in Boston. 

So Ella is ecstatic when her mother invites her to visit for Christmas. Little does she expect the truths she will discover about her mother, the father she never knew and her family’s most unlikely history. 

And after a life-changing month, she returns South and is shocked by the news that her schoolmate George has been arrested for the murder of two local white girls. 

Bittersweet and eye-opening, How High the Moon is a timeless novel about a girl finding herself in a world all but determined to hold her down.

How High The Moon was released in March, and after Amy told me about it quickly made it’s way onto my shelves. To Kill A Mockingbird was my set text for GCSE English Literature and has always held a special place in my heart. HHTM is said to be a cross between TKAM and One Crazy Summer for an MG audience so I’m intrigued to see how it handles some of the dark issues that the Jim Crow South contained.

The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane by Julia Nobel

Emmy’s dad disappeared years ago, and with her mother too busy to parent, she’s shipped off to Wellsworth, a prestigious boarding school in England. But right before she leaves, a mysterious box arrives full of medallions and a note reading: These belonged to your father. 

Just as she’s settling into life at Wellsworth, Emmy begins to find the strange symbols from the medallions etched into the walls and stumbles upon the school’s super-secret society, The Order of Black Hollow Lane. As Emmy and her friends delve deeper into the mysteries of The Order, she can’t help but wonder—did this secret society have something to do with her dad’s disappearance?

The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane was released in March and another that I featured in my Out In… post I’ve not yet got round to buying it but I love the sound of the mystery and so it’s on my to buy list.

The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out In The Streets by Gayle E. Pitman

This book is about the Stonewall Riots, a series of spontaneous, often violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBTQ+) community in reaction to a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The Riots are attributed as the spark that ignited the LGBTQ+ movement. The author describes American gay history leading up to the Riots, the Riots themselves, and the aftermath, and includes her interviews of people involved or witnesses, including a woman who was ten at the time. Profusely illustrated, the book includes contemporary photos, newspaper clippings, and other period objects. A timely and necessary read, The Stonewall Riots helps readers to understand the history and legacy of the LGBTQ+ movement.

I’m not the biggest reader of non-fiction to be honest, I read enough textbooks at university to last me a lifetime, but this one deals with such a major part of Equal Rights History I really want to know more about it myself and I think this should be a really accessible way into the history. Out in May I’ll be picking this one up.

The Fearless Five by Bannie McPartlin

Jeremy, Johnny J, Walker, Sumo and Charlie are about to have the summer of their lives. They’ve all just finished primary school and are looking forward to weeks of holiday freedom before they head off to their new schools. But they soon realise it’s not all going to be riding their bikes, making rope swings in the woods and climbing trees. Johnny’s mum is ill, really ill – and Jeremy decides there is only one way to save her. A way that might just involve a robbery … And by the end of it all – or perhaps somewhere in the middle – they will be The Fearless Five. And this will be a summer they will never, ever forget…

This book just looks like a lot of fun! It’s a debut children’s novel from the author who publishes adult fiction as Anna McPartlin and who doesn’t like a good adventure! The Fearless Five is released in May.

Tilly and the Lost Fairytales by Anna James

A magical adventure to delight the imagination. The curl-up-on-the-sofa snuggle of a series from a uniquely talented author.
After solving the mystery of Tilly’s mother’s disappearance, the bookwandering community is at risk. An extreme group of Librarians have taken over the British Underlibrary and they want to restrict bookwandering.

Tilly and Oskar believe that The Archivists are the key to restoring balance – but nobody has seen them for thousands of years, and most people think they never really existed anyway. Is a journey to the French Underlibrary and a peculiar book of fairytales, the key to discovering their whereabouts?

But wandering into fairytales is dangerous and unpredictable, and the characters aren’t as they seem. Soon, Tilly and Oskar realise that villains don’t just live inside the pages of books. Sometimes, you don’t get to live happily ever after…

A captivating, curl-up-on-the-sofa series about the magic of books and the power of the imagination.

Tilly and the Bookwanderers featured in last week’s post and I haven’t read it yet but the second the the Pages and Co. series just sounds so brilliant there was no way I was going to leave it off today’s post! I have until September to get the first one read!

They were my #SixforSunday! If you’ve taken part leave a link to your post below and I’ll be sure to check it out!