#WorldKidLit Wednesday: Born a Girl: It Takes Courage

a cluster of five girls of different ethnicities against a reddish-orange backgraound with green, purple, and orange leaves around them and white lettering for the title and subtitle in the upper left corner

Equal parts Our Bodies, Ourselves, Margaret Mead, and biology/history explainer, Born a Girl: It Takes Courage is an approachable feminist manifesto for today's teens that embraces difficult topics. Organized around the fictionalized stories of five teenage girls---one each from Nepal, France, Afghanistan, Kenya, and Mexico---this nonfiction YA illustrated book lays out a frank, sympathetic description … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Born a Girl: It Takes Courage

#WorldKidLit Month 2025: The Moonwind Mysteries

Welcome back to #WorldKidLit Month 2025! Today's post comes to us from Staci Fox. One of the coolest things about running a library these days? Our readers are more connected to the world than ever before. Whether it's through travel, streaming services, international classmates, or even TikTok trends, there's a real appetite for stories that … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Month 2025: The Moonwind Mysteries

#WorldKidLit Month 2025: Roses & Violets

Welcome back to #WorldKidLit month on GLLI. Today's post comes to us from Mairin Raisdana. Published in 2019 and translated in 2023, Roses and Violets is the first book in the Rosenholm fantasy trilogy by Danish author Gry Kappel Jensen, translated by Sharon E. Rhodes. The book is set in Rosewood Boarding School, a school … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Month 2025: Roses & Violets

#WorldKidLit Wednesday: Song of a Blackbird

When Annick, an older teenager living in Amsterdam, learns that the grandmother who has raised her ever since her parents’ death in an accident, needs a bone marrow transplant, it leads her on a journey that will take her across oceans and continents, and almost 70 years into the past. Searching for a perfect match, … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Song of a Blackbird

#WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Lost Ones

Yellow writing on a red sky with a red sun in the background. In the foreground, two dark two-story houses with red windows, trees, and a gray street with a horse and single-person carriage in the foreground.

Mika is back! She stars in the award-laden Moonwind Mysteries, a gripping upper MG/YA historical series set in 1880s Sweden. The first two books in the series, The Night Raven and The Queen of Thieves, were filled with suspense, gritty details, fast pacing, and vivid  characters, including the city of Stockholm, which becomes a tangible … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Lost Ones

#WorldKidLit Wednesday: When the Mapou Sings

In 1934 the American occupiers have left Haiti, but things are no better for the people ruled by corrupt and brutal section chiefs. When one of them kidnaps 16-year-old Lucille’s best friend and cuts down their favorite mapou tree, Lucille goes down to the police station to inquire. That puts her own family in danger, … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: When the Mapou Sings

#DecDisplays – Recent Memoirs

How lucky young people are today in their choices of memoirs. Today I'm celebrating that many of our students are able to see themselves, not just in fiction but in the stories that people are willing to share of their lives, their struggles, their memories and their triumphs. Originally I had a place-holder poster up … Continue reading #DecDisplays – Recent Memoirs

#DecDisplays – August celebrations

The next couple of posts are going to be the country celebration posters of the last few months. Please note these are not an exhaustive list of the literature coming out of those countries, or even the literature in translation, merely what I have to offer our students, including stories of Korean diaspora - mainly … Continue reading #DecDisplays – August celebrations

#WorldKidLit Wednesday: Genocide, revised & expanded edition

Cover of Genocide

First published in 2006, this revised and expanded edition of Genocide updates information and case studies through the beginning of 2024. This allows the author to address both the brutal October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israeli communities and a music festival, and the Israeli Defense Force’s bombardment of and withholding of humanitarian supplies from Palestinian … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Genocide, revised & expanded edition

#DecDisplays – Dystopian sense-making

Our Grade 7 students do a dystopian unit in their English Language Arts (ELA) class, and I came across this nifty categorisation in a poster by Jeri Hurd (sans the sub-pages / images). Since I find our students are increasingly stimulated by imagery, rather than just text, I adapted the poster to include 7 sub-posters … Continue reading #DecDisplays – Dystopian sense-making