Tara Lazar: Tuesday, October 15th

• Lynn Rae Perkins, author of the Newbery-award winning Criss Cross along with several other middle grade and picture books has a new holiday-themed picture book out today called Wintercake
• Another picture book out today by a debut author/illustrator that looks lovely is The Star in the Forest  by Helen Kellock 
• A new picture book by On the Night You Were Born author Nancy Tillman is available today called I Knew You Could Do It!
• And Grace Lin has her follow-up to her Caldecott Honor book A Big Mooncake for Little Star out today - this one is called A Big Bed for Little Snow. 

• Another book that is getting some early Caldecott buzz is the collaboration between Academy Award winning actress Lupita Nyong’o from 12 Years a Slave and illustrator Vashti Harrison who did Hair Love and lots of other picture books!  This one is called Sulwe and is about a girl “who has skin the color of midnight. She is darker than everyone in her family. She is darker than anyone in her school. Sulwe just wants to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. Then a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.”
• A picture book release that caught my attention today is Hello, Ninja by N.D. Wilson with art by Forest Dickison and the thing that intrigued me is that it looks like this title was released in board book form about 6 years ago but is being rereleased today and will be turned into a Netflix series soon!
• And another title that is already rising in those best-selling ranks is Parker Looks Up - which captures the real-life inspiring moment of when Parker Curry looked up at Michelle Obama’s portrait on a visit to Washington DC’s National Portrait Gallery.
• Corrina: And the picture book we are excited to celebrate with you today is YOURS Tara! The Upper Case: Trouble in Capital City is out today - happy book birthday!  Can you tell us a bit about it?
• Tara: This book is the follow-up to 7 ATE 9: The Untold Story, again featuring hard-boiled detective Private I, but with a whole new mystery with the uppercase letters of Capital City MISSING! Punctuation like Question Mark and the Quotation Twins make cameos, as does our favorite waitress from Cafe Uno, B.

• Rob Buyea’s third book in the Perfect Score series is out - this one is called The Perfect Star and carries on the adventures of Gavin, Natalie, Trevor, Randi, and Scott into 8th grade - their final year of middle school.
• The third novel in W. Bruce Cameron’s Dog’s Purpose series, A Dog’s Promise, is also out today. 
• M.P. Kozlowsky’s Rose Coffin looks really interesting - Publishers Weekly says it “subverts the typical chosen one narrative in this creepy middle grade fantasy." 
• If you have a middle grade reader who loves quirky mysteries, check out Elizabeth Webster and the Court of Uncommon Pleas by New York Times best-selling author William Lashner.
• The Memory Keeper - about a girl who can remember just about everything that has happened to her and is trying to find a way for her grandmother to recover her memory is out today by debut author  Jennifer Camiccia

• Alan Gratz fans will be delighted that his new book Allies is out - this one weaving various voices and stories together to tell a story centered around D-Day in World World II. 
• Another WWII historical fiction novel that I keep hearing rave reviews about is  Under the Broken Sky by Mariko Nagai. It is a novel in verse about  a Japanese orphan’s experience in Soviet occupied rural Manchuria during World War II. 
• Give and Take by Elly Swartz - this new book is about a girl who becomes a hoarder to deal with all the loss in her life (her grandmother passes away and her parents take in an infant foster baby and she has anxiety over the baby’s departure
• Another Rick Riordan Presents title that you HAVE to check out is  Tristan Strong Punches a Whole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia - it’s called “a middle-grade American Gods set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods”
• Another mythology-based fantasy out this week is The Dragon Warrior by Katie Zhao - this one inspired by traditional Chinese myths.

As far as graphic novels go, there is just one out today - the 3rd Wings of Fire graphic novel - The Hidden Kingdom.

• If you know kids who like Where’s Waldo-type books, who love history, and diving into all those little details - definitely take a look at Castles Magnified by illustrator Harry Bloom and author David Long. It’s one of those books that you can just get lost in for hours! The two other titles in this series are Pirate Magnified and Egypt Magnified.
• Two more titles available today that will help keep this younger generation culturally literate are both from the “What is the Story of” series (from the same folks who bring us “Who was” series - today we get What Is the Story of Doctor Who? and What Is the Story of the Wizard of Oz? 
• Also out this week is a fascinating picture book memoir by artist Ashley Bryan that reveals his experiences serving in the segregated U.S. Army during World War II.  It’s called Infinite Hope and looks incredible and moving. (Layered art, various styles, sketches, drawings, photographs, paintings...gorgeously detailed)
• The young readers edition of Planned Parenthood’s president and activist Cecile Richards bestselling memoir, Make Trouble is out today. The full title is Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead Kirkus says, "Richards lends solid practical advice for resisting and organizing while offering a fascinating window into contemporary social struggles. Gritty, accessible, and sure to strike a chord with action-oriented."

Thank all of you for listening and sharing your Tuesday with us!

You can find an outline of the show and links to all the books and topics we chatted about at allthewonders.com.  If you have a question or comment, I’d love to hear from you! You can contact me at corrina@allthewonders.com or connect with me on Twitter or Instagram. And reviews on iTunes or Stitcher are always much appreciated.

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