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Featured Authors Derrick Barnes, Nic Stone & Jacqueline Woodson Winter Reading Challenge 2026 |
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Picture Books and EGRAPHIC
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Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut
by Derrick Barnes
Derrick Barnes's smooth, fresh words and Gordon C. James's lush, vibrant illustrations capture the confidence, pride, and magic black and brown boys feel the moment they get a new haircut and admire their own beautiful reflections in the mirror.
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I Am Every Good Thing
by Derrick Barnes
Illustrations and easy-to-read text pay homage to the strength, character, and worth of a child. Also available in Spanish
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I Got You
by Derrick Barnes
A little boy adores his big brother, who is always there for him, playing with him and teaching him things.
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The King of Kindergarten
by Derrick Barnes
Instilled with confidence by his parents, a young boy has a great firs day of kindergarten.
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The Queen of Kindergarten
by Derrick Barnes
Instilled with confidence by her parents, a young girl has a great first day of kindergarten.
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Santa's Gotta Go!
by Derrick Barnes
When Santa stays with the Mack family while he waits for his sleigh to be repaired, they discover that he isn't the best houseguest.
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Like Lava in My Veins
by Derrick Barnes
Bobby Beacon has trouble controlling his hot temper at his superhero school.
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The Day You Begin
by Jacqueline Woodson
There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you. There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it's how you look or talk, or where you're from; maybe it's what you eat, or something just as random. It's not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it. Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael López's dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders sometimes--and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway.
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The Other Side
by Jacqueline Woodson
Aware of the fence that separates the black part of town from the white part, Clover is curious when a white girl suddenly comes around and sits on the fence day after day, so she decides to take the initiative and make a friend despite the consequences of breaking the strict rules that everyone lives by.
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Show Way
by Jacqueline Woodson
Soonie's great-grandma was just seven years old when she was sold to a big plantation without her ma and pa, and with only some fabric and needles to call her own. She pieced together bright patches with names like North Star and Crossroads, patches with secret meanings made into quilts called Show Ways -- maps for slaves to follow to freedom. When she grew up and had a little girl, she passed on this knowledge. And generations later, Soonie -- who was born free -- taught her own daughter how to sew beautiful quilts to be sold at market and how to read. From slavery to freedom, through segregation, freedom marches and the fight for literacy, the tradition they called Show Way has been passed down by the women in Jacqueline Woodson's family as a way to remember the past and celebrate the possibilities of the future. Beautifully rendered in Hudson Talbott's luminous art, this moving, lyrical account pays tribute to women whose strength and knowledge illuminate their daughters' lives.
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This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration
by Jacqueline Woodson
The story of one family's journey north during the Great Migration starts with a little girl in South Carolina who finds a rope under a tree one summer. She has no idea the rope will become part of her family's history. But for three generations, that rope is passed down, used for everything from jump rope games to tying suitcases onto a car for the big move north to New York City, and even for a family reunion where that first little girl is now a grandmother. Newbery Honor-winning author Jacqueline Woodson and Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator James Ransome use the rope to frame a thoughtful and moving story as readers follow the little girl's journey. During the time of the Great Migration, millions of African American families relocated from the South, seeking better opportunities. With grace and poignancy, Woodson's lilting storytelling and Ransome's masterful oil paintings of country and city life tell a rich story of a family adapting to change as they hold on to the past and embrace the future.
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The World Belonged to Us
by Jacqueline Woodson
A group of kids celebrate the joy and freedom of summer on their Brooklyn block.
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El Mundo Era Nuestro
by Jacqueline Woodson
Cuando hace tanto calor como para hacer estallar los hidrantes, eso solo significa una cosa: ¡por fin llegó el verano! Liberados de la escuela y disfrutando de su libertad, los niños de una cuadra de Brooklyn hacen de las calles su patio de recreo. Desde la mañana hasta la noche, crean su propia diversión, dejan volar su imaginación y aprenden a trabajar y jugar juntos. Es un mundo donde todo es posible... al menos hasta que sus madres los llamen a casa para cenar. Pero no hay que preocuparse: saben que siempre hay un mañana para volver a hacerlo, porque la calle les pertenece y ellos gobiernan en su mundo.
Rebosante de energÃa, el texto rÃtmico y las vÃvidas ilustraciones de Jacqueline Woodson y Leo Espinosa capturan gloriosamente la alegrÃa y la libertad del verano, asà como el crecimiento que conlleva la independencia.
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The Year We Learned to Fly
by Jacqueline Woodson
By heeding their wise grandmother's advice, a brother and sister discover the ability to lift themselves up and imagine a better world.
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Brown Girl Dreaming
by Jacqueline Woodson
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.
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Who Got Game?: Baseball: Amazing But True Stories! by Derrick D. BarnesAn illustrated book of true sports stories about baseball for middle grade readers by award-winning author Derrick Barnes, Who Got Game?: Baseball collects the coolest and most surprising tales about a favorite sport, from unsung heroes to priceless stories, stats, and amazing comebacks.
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The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze
by Derrick Barnes
Thirteen-year-old Henson Blayze strives to be seen as more than just a football player in his predominantly white small town of Great Mountain, Mississippi, but when a horrific incident compels him to speak out, he must choose between playing football and seeking justice.
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Ruby Flips for Attentionby Derrick D. BarnesRuby and her BFF Teresa Petticoat want to start their own dancing drill team. But first they have to learn some moves, and Ruby is hoping her big brother Marcellus can help.
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The Slumber Party Payback by Derrick D. BarnesRuby wants to get back at her brother Roosevelt because he played tricks on her and her friends at her last slumber party.
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Clean Getaway
by Nic Stone
For the life of him, William Scoob Lamar can't seem to stay out of trouble--and now the run-ins at school have led to lockdown at home. So when G'ma, Scoob's favorite person on Earth, asks him to go on an impromptu road trip, he's in the RV faster than he can say FREEDOM. With G'ma's old maps and a strange pamphlet called the 'Travelers' Green Book' at their side, the pair takes off on a journey down G'ma's memory lane. But adventure quickly turns to uncertainty: G'ma keeps changing the license plate, dodging Scoob's questions, and refusing to check Dad's voice mails. And the farther they go, the more Scoob realizes that the world hasn't always been a welcoming place for kids like him, and things aren't always what they seem--G'ma included.
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Princess #1
by Nic Stone
Shuri would rather be in her lab than perform her princess duties, but when she learns of rumors of an invasion and that Wakanda's heart-shaped herb plants are dying, she must figure out how to save the plants in time for Challenge Day.
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Heat #2
by Nic Stone
Shuri thinks sneaking out of the palace with K'Marah will be the most difficult part of her mission, but when they leave Wakanda, the girls discover that not everyone feels the same way about Wakanda.
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Wakanda Forever #4
by Nic Stone
Shuri and K'Marah rush back to Wakanda in order to attend Challenge Day, but a mysterious enemy blocks them from the palace and threatens to destroy the dwindling heart-shaped herbs.
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Shuri: A Black Panther Novel #1
by Nic Stone
For centuries, the Chieftain of Wakanda (the Black Panther) has gained his powers through the juices of the Heart-Shaped Herb. Much like Vibranium, the Heart-Shaped Herb is essential to the survival and prosperity of Wakanda. But something is wrong. The plants are dying. No matter what the people of Wakanda do, they can't save them. And their supply is running short. It's up to Shuri to travel from Wakanda in order to discover what is killing the Herb, and how she can save it, in the first volume of this all-new, original adventure.
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The Vanished (Shuri: A Black Panther Novel #2)
by Nic Stone
With the heart-shaped herb thriving, a group of Wakanda's finest engineers working on expanding her dome technology, and the borders more fortified than ever, Princess Shuri can finally focus on what matters most: her training. Soon, a bigger problem rears its head. The princess hears whispers of exceptionally talented young girls across the world going missing. A young environmental scientist in Kenya, a French physics prodigy -- the list of the missing keeps growing and growing. And when this mystery hits home in a way the princess would've never expected, there's no more time for hesitation: There are lost girls out there somewhere, and Shuri is determined not to let them be forgotten.
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Symbiosis (Shuri: A Black Panther Novel #3)
by Nic Stone
The royal palace of Wakanda is one of, if not the most secure facilities on this planet--or any other. So the anxiety Shuri feels when she's jolted out of sleep by the queen mother with the news that someone attempted to break into the palace--and succeeded--is significant. And as quickly as they broke in, they vanished. The search for this interloper, a mysterious symbiote with superhuman speed and strength, will lead Shuri to the Jabari Lands, a remote, unforgiving part of the country she has never seen. And what she discovers will be more shocking than she could have imagined.
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Before the Ever After
by Jacqueline Woodson
ZJ's friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.
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Harbor Me
by Jacqueline Woodson
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Jacqueline Woodson's first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories. It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat--by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for A Room to Talk), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them--everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives.
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Miracle's Boys
by Jacqueline Woodson
Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother.
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Remember Us
by Jacqueline Woodson
The summer before seventh grade, as the constant threat of housefires looms over her Brooklyn neighborhood, basketball-loving Sage is trying to figure out her place in her circle of friends, when a new kid named Freddy moves in.
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