Mini Fact: Your local library tlikely has a summer reading program.

Check it out!

When summer is right around the corner, we start dreaming of all the free time we’ll have. Eager readers start making their lists of good books to fill that time! Let’s dive right into the pool of great new kids’ books on the shelves.

• For children who have experienced being a newcomer in a country, “Outsider Kids” by Betty C. Tang will seem familiar. Three siblings from Taiwan have to overcome language and cultural barriers, plus try to get along with their stuck-up cousin.

• Have you ever played “Ticket To Ride”? Now this popular board game has an adventure-filled book to accompany it. “Ticket To Ride: An Unexpected Journey” by Adrienne Kress tells the story of 12-year-old Teddy, who wins a crosscountry trip on the Excelsior Express — a trip that becomes more than he expected.

• It’s 1939, and 12-year-old Atlas Wade and his father are slated to climb Mount Everest just as World War II is getting underway. In “One Wrong Step,” Jennifer A. Nielsen tells the breathtaking story of how Atlas and his fellow climbers must survive the extreme conditions and try to save others from a dangerous avalanche.

• If you know about Mark Twain’s book “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” you might remember “Mary-Jane, the red-headed one.” Author Hope Jahren brings Huck’s friend to life in “Adventures of Mary Jane,” as she makes her own trip down the Mississippi River, conquering challenges and adventures along the way.

• Readers who are intrigued with geography and history will sink their teeth into “The Wild River and the Great Dam” by Simon Boughton. The Hoover Dam, finished in 1936, was the biggest engineering success in the country at that time, and it forever changed the landscape in the southwest United States. Boughton’s account also includes the personal side of the dam’s construction.

• “Mawson in Antarctica: To the Ends of the Earth” by Joanna Grochowicz tells the story of the explorer during his harrowing 1912 expedition to the bottom of the Earth.

Award winners

This year’s winner of the John Newbery Medal for most outstanding contribution to children’s literature is “The First State of Being” by Erin Entrada Kelly.

The Newbery Honor Books are:

• “Across So Many Seas” by Ruth Behar

• “Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All” by Chanel Miller

• “One Big Open Sky” by Lesa Cline- Ransome

• “The Wrong Way Home” by Kate O’Shaughessy

The 2025 winner of the Randolph Caldecott Medal for most distinguished American picture book for children is “Chooch Helped,” illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz and written by Andrea L. Rogers.

The Caldecott Honor Books are:

• “Home in a Lunchbox,” illustrated and written by Cherry Mo

• “My Daddy Is a Cowboy,” illustrated by C.G. Esperanza and written by Stephanie Seales

• “Noodles on a Bicycle,” illustrated by Gracey Zhang and written by Kyo Maclear

• “Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei,” illustrated by Yuko Shimizu and written by Anita Yasuda

The Coretta Scott King Author Book winner is “Twenty-four Seconds From Now ...” by Jason Reynolds.

The King Illustrator Book winner is “My Daddy Is a Cowboy.”