A Curse So Dark And Lonely is a fantasy retelling of the famous fairy tale Beauty and the Beast set in a modern-day world. The female protagonist Harper, who has Cerebral Palsy, is swept into the parallel fantasy world of Emberfall after witnessing and trying to stop a kidnapping. In this new world, the realm […]

Love Letters to the Dead follows Laurel on her journey of coming of age and grief. The novel’s journey begins with a simple task in her English class where her teacher asks her to write a letter to any dead person of her choosing. Laurel dedicates her first letter to Kurt Cobain telling him about […]

War, love, journalism and the emotional impact of written words. In a magical world with two gods at war, 18-year-old Iris Winnow has to navigate her life after her brother was drafted into the war. With the dream of writing texts that will eventually have an impact, Iris secures a job for the Oath Gazette, […]

The adventure and comedy movie, belonging to the subcategory of buddy films, is set in the Outerbanks of North Carolina, where Zak, a young man with Down syndrome, has a dream- a dream bigger than living peacefully in a care home with the authorities watching over him. The young boy’s goal is to attend his […]

Chuck Mullin’s Bird Brain: Comics About Mental Health, Starring Pigeons, as the title already suggests, is a collection of several smaller comics depicting independent situations where pigeons discuss mental health issues. The individual comics range from one to four panels in colour. The book aims to reach a variety of audiences as, on one side, […]

The Boys in the Band was originally written by Mart Crowley and premiered as an off-Broadway production in 1968, one year before the Gay Liberation Movement emerged. The play is set in one evening in an apartment in New York City where Michael hosts a birthday party for his friends, all of them being gay. […]

This book can give children a wonderful insight into the lives of other children across the globe. The daily lives and activities of seven different children are highlighted, from countries like Japan, Peru, and Uganda. Getting a glimpse into the lives of others can help us understand differences but also, that at the end of […]

This heartwarming story shows the beauty of non-traditional families and can help introduce this topic to young readers. The Central Park Zoo houses all kinds of animals, the penguins being among the ones that love living in pairs. Roy and Silo, two male penguins, are in love and desperately want a little penguin of their […]

The series Little People, Big Dreams offers a wonderful introduction to various historical figures for young readers. And there are so many to choose from! Whatever the child’s field of interest is, there is a role model out there just waiting to be discovered. The beautiful illustrations accompany the accessible text written specifically with young […]

When Donovan tells his mom about the adventure novel they’re reading at school, her reaction comes as a surprise. So what if the two boys in the story talk about loving each other? However, this kickstarts an attempt to ban the assigned book The Adventurers due to “mature” and “inappropriate” content. This storyline is intertwined […]

This young-adult book focuses on child abuse, parental neglect, social stratification, and friendship and is structured as diary entries of the two girls Treasure and India.Young Treasure lives with her mother and her abusive stepfather Terry who one day hits her with his belt and scars her forehead. Upon this incident, Treasure’s grandmother takes her […]

This wonderfully illustrated book is all about the beauty of helping others. George the giant just got a brand new outfit that finally makes him feel good about himself again. But what makes him feel even better is helping out others. So when he gives all of his new clothes away to different animals, he […]

This is a small children’s book with three short stories concerning daily situations worth thinking about more deeply. The first is about William who is teased by his classmates with the nickname ‘darling’ his father likes to call him. When he has to move on to the next school, he is worried his father will […]

Simon and Annika miss their Grandma, who lives in the US, a lot. But distance can be overcome in many ways! And so, the siblings write a letter and send it off in a red envelope. This piece of paper travels halfway across the world, all to show Grandma her grandchildren love and miss her. […]

What can a skeleton do if he wakes up with the hiccups? He can’t hold his breath, can’t eat sugar… The only option is to scare the hiccups away! But what can scare a skeleton? This picture book is perfect to practice basic verb conjugation and Halloween-themed vocabulary. It could be used in a teaching […]

“Well that is Planet Earth. Make sure you look after it, as it’s all we’ve got.” This beautifully illustrated book presents Earth as something precious that needs to be protected by all generations. The story shows both the beauty of the world as well as its problems while staying optimistic, for: “Though we have come […]

In this beautifully illustrated picture book, a sloth shares his wisdom with the other jungle animals. They don’t understand why he does everything so… slowly. But given enough time to answer, the sloth explains that he isn’t “lazy” but just wants to take time to enjoy life. A reminder we could all use now and […]

“This is how I speak. Even the river stutters. Like I do.” This beautifully illustrated children’s book tells the story of a young boy finding his voice. Struggling with stuttering, he feels uncomfortable speaking in front of the class. He finds comfort in driving out to the river with his father, where he’s told that […]