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Swim Team
Bree ends up in Swim 101 at her new middle school and turns to Etta, a neighbor who used to captain a swim team. The races give this story a finish line, but the conversations around the pool add another reason to keep reading. Bree learns how the question of who gets to swim has a history of its own.
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The Runaway Princess
Princess Robin slips away from a castle that has become much too familiar. Mermaids, swamps, and a steady parade of new friends keep the pages moving while her parents try to catch up. Robin’s red outfit is easy to spot in the busy, brightly colored scenes, a help for a reader getting used to following the pictures.
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Stargazing
A friendship starts next door, with favorite music videos and painted toenails. Quiet moments like those give Christine and the much bolder Moon room to become real friends before a frightening hospital stay puts their closeness to the test. Pick it for a reader who likes seeing what a character is thinking in the space between two speech balloons.
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The Aquanaut
There’s a crew of sea creatures inside the diving suit that turns up at Aqualand, the marine park Sophia’s father and uncle founded. The gag gives way to a rescue story when Sophia discovers what the park is doing to its animals. The suit’s big, round silhouette makes the crew easy to follow in busy panels, and the trouble keeps the pages turning.
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Snapdragon
Snap needs help with some orphaned opossums, so she strikes a bargain with Jacks, the woman people say is a witch. If odd jobs, animal bones, and a family mystery sound like a good afternoon, this comic has room for all three. The rescue starts the friendship, and the ties between the two characters grow stronger as Snap learns what Jacks has been keeping to herself.
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The Moth Keeper
For a quiet stretch of reading, follow Anya into the desert with her lantern. She looks after the moths her village depends on, but she longs to see the sun. There’s room to linger over the night scenes, where a pool of lantern light can tell you as much about being out there alone as a page of dialogue would.
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Camp Prodigy
Tate takes up the viola after hearing Eli play, then runs into Eli at summer orchestra camp. Readers who know the nerves of playing in front of others will recognize a lot here, even if they’ve never held a viola. The camp gives both kids space to decide what they want from music and each other.
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Pashmina
A shawl found in a suitcase shows Pri a vividly colored India, while her mother has been reluctant to answer questions about the place she left. The bursts of color help readers tell when the shawl is shaping what they see. Pri’s decision to look for her family gives this visit between the real and the imagined a destination.
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The Secret Garden on 81st Street
Mary Lennox discovers an abandoned rooftop garden after moving into her uncle’s New York brownstone. Watch the garden change as Mary, Colin, and Dickon put it back together. It gives readers something concrete to follow while the children tackle things they find harder to say aloud. The whole retelling works on its own.
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Séance Tea Party
An unusual tea party brings Lora face to face with Alexa, a ghost she knew as an imaginary friend. The friendship makes sense right away, and the book takes its time with what happens when one girl can grow up and the other can’t. It’s an especially good choice for a child who likes a touch of the supernatural with more feeling than fright.
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The Deep & Dark Blue
After a coup, twins Hawke and Grayce hide among women who use weaving to work magic. There’s enough action for a reader who wants a castle adventure, and the twins have different reasons to care how it ends. Hawke wants his old life back. Grayce has found somewhere she can live as a girl and wants to keep it.
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This Was Our Pact
Ben and Nathaniel follow festival lanterns downriver on their bikes. They’re trying to see where the lights go, and before long there’s a talking bear along the way. Try it with an older elementary reader who enjoys a mystery that gets stranger as it unfolds. The nighttime pages are made for slowing down and looking past the path the boys are on.
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Journey to Tomioka
Osamu and Akiko set out to bring their grandmother’s ashes home to the family farm inside the Fukushima Exclusion Zone. The trip is short on the page, but the loss is real to the siblings and some of the spirits they encounter are dangerous. The detailed settings reward a reader who likes to look around a panel before finding out what happens next.
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When Stars Are Scattered
Omar Mohamed’s childhood in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp becomes a graphic memoir with a difficult choice at its center. If Omar goes to school, he’ll have to leave his younger brother Hassan for part of each day. Choose this for a reader who can sit with hard decisions and wants to see what the brothers’ ordinary days look like while they wait for their future to change.
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