Here we round up new and forthcoming children’s titles, including a YA novel that imagines an internment camp for Muslims, a friendship story, a book about kids frustrated by parents, and a YA novel about a girl diagnosed with cancer.
Internment by Samira Ahmed. Little, Brown, $17.99; ISBN 978-0-316-52269-4. Ahmed (Love, Hate & Other Filters) sets her chilling novel in the very near future: two-and-a-half years after an election that brought about a Muslim ban, Exclusion laws, and the internment of Muslims in a disturbing echo of the Japanese internments of the 1940s. The book earned a starred review from PW.
The Afterwards by A.F. Harrold, illus. by Emily Gravett. Bloomsbury, $17.99; ISBN 978-1-5476-0044-1. The creators of The Imaginary offer another friendship story that inventively meshes—and blurs—the realistic and the fanciful.
Sweeping Up the Heart by Kevin Henkes. Greenwillow, $16.99; ISBN 978-0-06-285254-0. Henkes’s profound understanding of the adolescent heart and mind is evident as always in this story of two 12-year-olds frustrated by their parents. The book earned a starred review from PW.
Fear of Missing Out by Kate McGovern. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $17.99; ISBN 978-0-374-30547-5. In this novel by McGovern (Rules for 50/50 Chances), protagonist Astrid has a terminal form of cancer (astrocytoma, a heartbreaking, thematic link to her name), which spreads throughout the brain in “star-shaped cells.”
Beast Rider by Tony Johnston and María Elena Fontanot de Rhoads. Amulet, $17.99; ISBN 978-1-4197-3363-5. In this wrenching story about Manuel, a 12-year-old boy from Oaxaca, Mexico, the authors convey what motivates him to leave his poverty-stricken life to ride “the Beast” (a train heading to the U.S. border). The book earned a starred review from PW.
Hey, Water! by Antoinette Portis. Holiday House/Porter, $17.99; ISBN 978-0-8234-4155-6. Portis’s latest picture book recognizes an element that masquerades in different states.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers, illus. by Luke Flowers. Quirk, $19.99; ISBN 978-1-68369-113-6. Delivering on the page the same reassurance they originally imparted on the TV screen, these 75 uplifting songs elucidate the late Fred Rogers’s legacy of positivity and compassion.
How to Two by David Soman. Dial, $17.99; ISBN 978-0-525-42784-1. Soman (the Ladybug Girl series) imagines the ways that a growing number of children can play together by counting up to 10.
Music for Mister Moon by Philip C. Stead, illus. by Erin E. Stead. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99; ISBN 978-0-8234-4160-0. A girl named Harriet accidentally knocks the moon out of the sky in this story by the Caldecott–winning duo.
Baby’s First Bank Heist by Jim Whalley, illus. by Stephen Collins. Bloomsbury, $17.99; ISBN 978-1-5476-0062-5. Baby Frank, who still sleeps in a crib and wears black-and-white-striped onesies, goes to great lengths to secure the pet he desires in this picture book.
For more children’s and YA titles on sale throughout the month of March, check out PW’s full On-Sale Calendar.
