Top MG/YA Picks of 2023

Top 10 Books of 2023

Table of Contents:

Picture Books

Middle Grade

Graphic Novels

YA

Welcome to the December edition of Bookcase Bizarro!

Besides taking some time off, I’ve been completing my first (gulp) BUSINESS PLAN. Many thanks to The Creative Academy for Writers for offering free business plan templates and spreadsheets for download, and to author Crystal Hunt for her excellent book, Full-Time Author, which I’ve been working through to get an idea of exactly what I’m doing. I learned that while I’m half-way decent at finances, I absolutely failed at drafting my mission, vision and value statements. At first, I dismissed writing them at all, believing they were business doublespeak, but these little focus phrases have really helped me to define my most important writing and publishing goals and to say ‘no’ to opportunities that take away from these goals. Who knew? Certainly not this writer!

On the publishing front, I’ve formatted my books. I can absolutely confirm that Vellum formatting software is almost ridiculously easy to use. Yes, it was an investment, but I waited until the Black Friday sales to score a 30% discount. Now, I’m learning all about metadata, which I understand is the first step in successfully marketing your book. (Actually, I would argue that professional-level editing is actually the first step in successful marketing, as no one in this crowded market will fork over the cash to buy a poorly-written book.)

A recent ‘learning opportunity’ taught me that formatted pages are not the same as manuscript pages, so I am going to have to ask my book cover designer to re-size the spines for my paperbacks and pay for that mistake in cold, hard cash. Lesson learned: don’t hire a book cover designer until all edits are complete and don’t quote the total number of pages until I’ve formatted the book.

This month, I round up my Top 10 favourite reads of the year. You’ll notice that this post is a bit of a mishmash between the old format and the new. I only changed my focus to MG/YA in September, so you will find some picture book and graphic novel recommendations among the MG and YA. Next year’s Top 10 roundup in 2024 will feature MG and YA books exclusively.

So heat up some hot chocolate or hot apple cider and join us as we delve into the top 10 titles of 2023.

A quick note to new readers: books that are available from the Toronto Public Library are marked #TPL, because books don’t have to be new or owned in order to be loved.

Picture Books

A fun summer read that tells the story of an overheated and overwhelmed dachshund (a ‘hot dog’ in both senses of the word), who escapes the city for a welcome respite at the beach.

Cape Cod’s boardwalks are instantly recognizable to anyone who’s been there, so I’m guessing the steamy city in question is Boston, where it’s possible to travel to the ocean for the day by train and ferry. (Yes, I’m jealous.) Hot Dog’s relief at leaving the steamy city streets behind for cooling ocean breezes is almost palpable.

Written as a prose poem, Doug Salati combines intense, compact rhythms and imagery with vibrant, multi-panel illustrations that unspool almost like a movie to create a sense of flow and movement, and a wonderfully evocative atmosphere. The pictures themselves have plenty of narrative resonance. Later scenes loop back to earlier ones to tie the story together in satisfying ways and to show a change of perspective. There is plenty of humour, like when Hot Dog nips at a curled up seal, mistaking it for a rock, or when the overwhelmed little dog has a ‘tantrum’ by lying down in the middle of a busy street, refusing to walk another step. Human-dog bonding moments soothe earlier ruffled feelings. My favourite? Hot Dog and their human companion snacking on watermelon together at the kitchen table.

A great choice for dog lovers, especially in the 3-5 age group. A Caldecott medal winner (2023). Highly recommended. (#TPL)

In this ode to traditional, inter-generational learning, the Davidsons bring to life artist Robert Davidson’s memories of fishing with his tsinii (grandfather) off the coast of Haida Gwaii. From the time Tsinii decides that the time is right for jigging to the boat’s return to the beach, readers are caught up in a powerfully immersive experience of a day spent at sea with Tsinii, who teaches his grandson the right way to respectfully catch fish.

Sara Florence Davidson’s prose is direct and poetic at the same time: “The clouds are soft and blurred. It looks like their jagged edges have been worn away by the tides.”

Gibbons’ illustrations often resemble woodcuts with a stunning sense of immediacy achieved through close ups of the small details that make up a day spent fishing. The “waters and lands of the Pacific” inspire Gibbons’ works and she aims to spark connections with her creations. Does she ever! The pull of the sea is so visceral in this book that I never wanted to come back to shore.

A beautiful, powerful story with absolutely stunning art. Highly recommended. (#TPL)

Mina lives in her own little world and wants it to stay that way. Mina’s father is the exact opposite. He loves to explore the world and often invites people into their home to visit and stay, like the stick insects he teaches to read and who then steals all of Mina’s books. “Everything will turn out fine,” he’s fond of saying, but Mina has her doubts, especially when her father brings home a very large ‘squirrel’ with very large fangs and razor-sharp claws.

Mina is a treasure. It combines the narrative depth of a book like Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (which, in my humble opinion, belongs on every child’s TBR list) with a wry humour that’s all its own. Forsythe’s storytelling is top-notch and features the long-suffering Mina as the third-person narrator. Readers will enjoy the various escapades that Mina’s father drags her into, as well as Mina’s attempts to cope with his boundless enthusiasms. Forsythe’s watercolour, gouache and coloured pencil drawings are big and bright, emphasizing the wondrous world seen by Mina’s father as well as the the cocoons Mina creates for herself inside their cozy house. The relationship between father and daughter is funny, wry and touching and Mina finally comes to appreciate the value of her father’s perspective.

Highly recommended, especially for kids (and adults) who appreciate offbeat humour. (#TPL)

Middle Grade

Nobody ever would have expected hyper-talkative, active Aurora Petrequin to become best friends with non-verbal Frenchie Livernois, but that’s exactly what happened when Frenchie silently chose Aurora back in third grade and she chose him back. The two friends share a love of nature, and like nothing better than to ramble through the woods near their home in Maine.

When they encounter a rare piebald deer during one of their walks, Aurora feels compelled to follow. She doesn’t worry about getting lost because Frenchie can always find his way home. But she feels lost when she finds out that she and Frenchie will no longer share a classroom at school. How will the teacher interact with Frenchie without Aurora there to advise and help? Aurora’s loud and blurty, and Frenchie is her only friend. During a back-to-school shopping expedition, Aurora meets two new girls and is thrilled by the possibility of making new friends, but the disruption to their usual routines disturbs Frenchie. When Frenchie goes missing one day at school, the whole town organizes a search for him with Aurora in the lead, but Aurora knows that all the yelling in the world won’t help her find Frenchie, not when he can’t answer back.

I was thrilled to find this book about two kids on the autism spectrum whose neurodiversities are not the main point of the story. First and foremost, this is a story about friendship. It draws us into a warm community and an even warmer friendship between two kids who are polar opposites. Neither Frenchie nor Aurora face any bullying at school, a welcome reprieve from the usual neurodiverse-kid-as-ridiculed-outsider trope. Aurora, who blurts things out, struggles a bit more to get along with others (especially her teachers) and her enthusiasm at finally making two new friends is almost visceral. Connor imaginatively tackles the emotional tug-of-war that occurs when Aurora wants to broaden her social life and Frenchie wants things to stay the same.

Although the story is mostly told from Aurora’s POV, Connor switches it up to include chapters from Frenchie and Aurora’s baby brother. Connor’s wordsmith mastery is on full display in Frenchie’s chapters, which read almost like prose-poems and provide us an inside view of Frenchie when he goes missing. She also includes chapters narrated by various adults in the town, all of whom have been touched by Frenchie Livernois in some way. Taken together, these voices create a wonderful portrait of how the entire town pulls together for Frankie and Aurora. Kudos to Connor for honestly portraying the challenges and struggles of families trying to relate to each other across neurodiversities. (#TPL)

Jake Simmons hates the run-down apartment building he and his mother move into when his mother loses her job. Gone is the suburban house with the suburban lifestyle. Jake’s new bedroom is a crumbling mess, and the rest of the building, named The Regency – isn’t much better. A resentful Jake sets out to explore the building when some escaped kittens lead him to the apartment of an old lady who’s even worse off than he is. There, he meets Larry the custodian, who offers him a job.

Jake soon gets into a routine of delivering mail, helping to feed cats and looking out for the residents, all of whom are vulnerable in some way. Jake gets to know every apartment in The Regency except for apartment 713, which is bricked up.

Their fortunes take a collective turn for the worse when the city reveals its plans to demolish The Regency. A down-in-the-dumps Jake wanders down to the custodian’s office in the bowels of the basement, where a rusty bell summons him to apartment 713. When he unlocks the door to the apartment, it swings open to a time when The Regency was new and elegant, and introduces a new friend, Beth, into the story. A mystery lies at the heart of The Regency. As Beth and Jake work together to uncover it. Jake wonders whether the key to saving The Regency is buried in its past?

This was one of our favourite MG reads of the past few months. Neither of us foretold all the twists and turns or even knew where the story was going, so the surprise factor stayed high. We loved the idea of an entire house disguised as a treasure hunt. We loved even more that two child-like (not childish) adults built it, for a very adult purpose: providing a home for people who need a safe haven for as long as they need it. This idea of home is central to the book, and it takes root in us through Jake, as he begins to realize exactly what The Regency means to them all.

The Regency’s architect, Mr. Williams, was one of our favourite characters – an adult who’s not afraid to take direction from kids, because he enjoys their company and values their opinions. (Any child should be so lucky to have a Mr. Williams in their lives.) The relationship is not one-sided, however. Jake and Beth pull Mr. Williams out of a grief-induced depression and help him restore his sense of curiosity, hope, purpose and belief in The Regency. Famous baseball players, musicians and artists show up in lively cameos, but the research Sylvester obviously did is largely invisible, coming to life inside the story itself.

The ending works and not everything is perfect – which is the perfect ending, as far as we’re concerned. (#TPL)

Eleven-year-old Mia Tang thinks she’s got it made. She and her best friend, Lupe Garcia, get to run the front desk of the Calavista Hotel that is now owned by her family (instead of the famously tight-fisted Mr. Yao) and it’s been doing well with investor backing. Mia’s more convinced than ever that she wants to be a writer, and she is certain that she will make her mark in 6th grade. What could possibly go wrong?

Well…

Mia’s new teacher, Mrs. Welch, thinks that Mia’s writing needs a lot of work and gives Mia poor grades for her work. Worse, Mrs. Welch is also a supporter of Proposition 187, which would ban the children of illegal immigrants, like Lupe, from attending public school. As anti-immigration support grows, Lupe’s grandmother dies and Mrs. Garcia decides to travel back to Mexico to attend the funeral. Weeks pass without a word from Mrs. Garcia, but Mr. Garcia cannot risk going to the police without exposing his own illegal status. When Mia posts a sign welcoming immigrants to the hotel to show her solidarity, some of hotel’s investors threaten to pull out, endangering the Tang family’s future. As support for Prop 187 grows and tensions mount, Mia wonders if her family – and the Garcias – will soon lose everything?

Kelly Yang’s sequel to Front Desk is an absolute treat. She’s crafted an entirely new story around Mia and her friends, and the wonderful world of the Calivista Hotel. Her richly portrayed settings and strongly drawn characters will draw new readers into the series while they welcome old readers back.

Yang resists the temptation to stand on a soapbox, choosing instead to explore how an atmosphere of fear and bigotry can poison everyone. A case in point is the conflict between Mia and her teacher, Mrs. Welch. Mia thinks that Mrs. Welch gives her poor marks because she’s racist. Mrs. Welch does treat white students differently than students of colour in her class. Yet, she’s also a stickler for good writing rules she believes will help make Mia a better writer, and even offers extra tutoring to Mia. Mia refuses, because she doesn’t trust her teacher.

Yang crafts a thoughtful resolution to this dilemma that doesn’t let Mrs. Welch off the hook for her racism, but also challenges Mia to look deeper at her own prejudices against her teacher. Might they be preventing her from getting the help she needs to become a better writer? Mrs. Welch, the person who seems the least capable of change, ends up surprising Mia, as do some of the hotel’s immigrant investors, who show that they are more than capable of bigotry against illegal immigrants like the Garcias.

These are big truths for middle graders to grapple with, but Yang helps her readers navigate their through an unjust and complicated world without ever promising them neat, formulaic endings. Like Mia, readers learn the power of how to speak up and advocate for themselves when facing systemic injustices that won’t easily be resolved, as well as how to live with the things they can’t change. For now.

Highly recommended, as is Kelly Yang’s Front Desk, the first book in the series. (#TPL)

Graphic Novel

Marlene is sick and tired of being told that she has ‘bad’ hair.

It’s bad enough that her mother takes her to the dreaded salon every Sunday to straighten her wild curls, but when she attends her mean cousin’s quinceanera and becomes the butt of her family’s judgemental looks and endless comments about ‘bad’ hair, Marlene begins to doubt herself. The self-doubt deepens when kids at school stick tape in her hair and her mother puts her hair in loathsome braids to ‘control’ it.

When Marlene visits her cool Tia Ruby, who has hair just as curly as her own, Marlene discovers a way of embracing not only her hair but herself as a person. But will she ever be able to convince her mother that curly hair is just as good as straight hair?

I just want to say that I could personally live in Tia Ruby’s apartment forever. She has a cool, rooftop pad with an A-MAZING garden and a smart resident chicken to boot. Bousamra’s colourful drawings create an oasis for the emotionally bruised and battered Marlene, and readers may breathe a visceral sigh of relief whenever she’s at Ruby’s.

Marlene’s mother is a complex woman who insists that she’s only trying to help every time she drags Marlene to the salon or painfully yanks a brush through her hair. It would be easy to dislike her, but Ortega asks us to look deeper at the reasons behind her behaviour, and offers compassionate insight from Tia Ruby along with the explanation.

A sensitive exploration of how internalized racism gets passed down in families. Bonus points for making an urban farmer one of the most important secondary characters. Highly recommended.(#TPL)

It’s Sixth Grade, and Shannon feels like she’s got it made. Not only is she one of the oldest kids in the school, but thanks to her best friend, Jen, she’s pegged a spot in the cool crowd. For the first time in her life, Shannon’s popular.

Or is she?

Jen, the leader of the group, is more into boys and the latest hits than the imaginary games she used to play with Shannon. Social cues are confusing and keeping up with the latest cool trends is exhausting. Sometimes, the only place Shannon feels at home is in her writing, until self-doubt threatens to sabotage that, too. What does being a friend really mean? Is it okay to be friends with boys without becoming someone’s ‘girlfriend?’ Is it possible to ‘grow out’ of a love of reading? Why do girls always cheer on boys instead of the other way around? And is being included really the same thing as being accepted?

Author Shannon Hale examines the transition from elementary school to middle school through the lens of the social anxiety experienced by Shannon Hale, the character. Navigating changing friendships, mean girl politics, not being interested in the same things as your friends becomes much more fraught – almost a kind of social terrorism for Shannon, whose inner voices roil in a constant dialogue of shame and confusion that leave her exhausted at the end of each day. Shannon’s turmoil is painfully illustrated in a memorable sequence by LuUyen Pham, where stark colours mirror the self-blame in Shannon’s head. Shannon’s anger confuses her mother until a poignant moment when Hale’s mother understands just how isolated her daughter is.

Hale’s story is also the story of a budding writer coming into her own gifts. Her portrayal of a world where imaginative play never ends but is redirected into words echoes Jo’s journey in Little Women and L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon. Hale includes pages from an actual manuscript that she wrote in grade six, as well as the supportive comments she received from her teacher. Young writers will recognize their own efforts in Hale’s sixth grade excerpts, which may encourage them to believe that one day, their writing could be as good as hers.

Any reader who’s ever experienced social anxiety will find a strong mirror book here, and bystander kids in popular groups may gain perspective into what their socially different friends might be feeling. Also, a wonderful coming-of-age story for any budding writer. (#TPL)

YA

Twin sisters Magnolia Heathwood and Charlie Yates were separated at birth after their parents were lynched for crossing the color line. Dark-skinned Charlie was raised in Harlem, New York City by her grandmother, a refugee from the Jim Crow south. Magnolia’s skin is light enough to pass as white. She’s adopted by the twin’s other grandmother, making her the heiress to a former plantation with a brutal past.

The sisters meet when Charlie’s grandmother becomes critically ill and asks Charlie to take her back to Eureka, Georgia to die. Eureka is a shock for Charlie, who’s been a civil rights organizer in Harlem and learning about the existence of her white-passing twin is the biggest shock of all. Magnolia, whose been groomed to take over the Heathwood plantation, is just as shocked to learn that she is actually Black. She’s always ignored the plantation’s slave-holding past, although she can see the rotting slave cabins from her bedroom window. Worse, she’s actually participated in discriminatory acts, even signing a petition to remove and relocate the dead bodies of Black citizens to a nearby swamp. This includes her and Charlie’s Grandmother Yates, as well as their own dead mother.

These acts deepen a curse that was set in motion by the twins’ separation, and the effects on Magnolia in particular are devastating. She can no longer see her reflection in mirrors and the angry ghosts of former plantation slaves prevent her from eating or drinking. Ghosts in fact, haunt every inch of Eureka, especially the Heathwood Plantation and Freedom House, Grandmother Yates’ former home. The ghostly residents of Freedom House terrify Charlie, who longs to flee back to New York, but she can’t let the earthly remains of Grandmother Yates or other Black community members be relegated to a swamp.

When the ghost of Charlie and Magnolia’s mother appears at Freedom House and charges them with the task of breaking the curse, they are forced to cross the color line again. Can Charlie ever forgive her light-skinned sister for her past racist beliefs and actions? Will Magnolia be brave enough to live the truth of who she is in a town that could kill her for passing? Finally, will Eureka’s aggrieved ghosts ever let them go?

This many-layered ghost story is one of the most intriguing I’ve read this year. McWilliams is an exceptional wordsmith who never lets her love of poetry bog down her story. Her use of imagery is wonderfully sharp and distinct precisely because she knows when, how and where to hold back. The character-driven plot mostly works but as is often the case with fiction told in alternating voices, one of the character’s story is more compelling than the other’s. How the sisters wrestle with their own demons in order to connect with each other is however, a real strength.

The rich life of the Black community, both past and present, is wonderfully – and horrifically – portrayed,. Seeing Jim Crow racism materialize at a genteel garden party is just as chilling as the violence that later erupts on Eureka’s streets. McWilliams doesn’t shy away from portraying the fraught world of civil rights organizing, with all it’s complicated choices and consequences. In the Jim Crow south, the price of freedom is living in constant mortal fear, stoked by the ongoing and organized terrorism of KKK night riders.

Eureka’s ghosts are convincing and evocative, and McWilliams uses them to explore the theme of being haunted by the past in direct and more symbolic ways. Love interests exist, but no men sweep in to rescue the sisters. McWilliams wisely lets the sisters struggle with how to rescue themselves.

Highly recommended, especially for lovers of atmospheric, ghostly, historical mysteries. YA and up. (#TPL)

Author Angeline Boulley takes us back to magnificent Sugar Island in this sequel to Firekeeper’s Daughter.

When her ambitious, motivated twin sister Pauline is assigned to an internship at Sugar Island Tribal Council, Perry Firekeeper-Birch isn’t worried. She’s looking forward to a Summer of Slack, fishing and tooling around in the jeep Aunt Daunis has given to them. When she crashes the jeep while speeding, Perry gets assigned to an internship by her furious Aunt Daunis and all her plans for a relaxed summer go up in smoke. Perry won’t be able to drive or keep one cent of her wages until she pays back Aunt Daunis. She’s also got the worst assignment imaginable: working for Kooky Cooper Turtle at the Sugar Island Cultural Centre. Perry can’t imagine being cooped up with Cooper all summer, in a museum no less. She’d rather be working on the fishing boats. At least, she’d be outdoors.

When Cooper Turtle takes Perry to Mackinac State College, she is introduced to Warrior Girl, an ancient ancestor the college is keeping in a collection along with other indigenous ancestors and belongings. Cooper is working on a repatriation deal with the university so he can bring Warrior Girl and the other ancestors back to Sugar Island where they belong, but the college is resistant. Perry is taken with Warrior Girl and is appalled that white anthropologists collect and display ancestral remains, which have been stolen from her community. Maybe Cooper Turtle isn’t so kooky after all. When Cooper arranges for Perry to hold a knife that once belonged to Warrior Girl, she knows that she has to do something.

Back in the parking lot, Cooper instructs Perry to resign from the internship if she can’t promise to help him get all the ancestors back to Sugar Island. Perry’s all in, a commitment that deepens as women from the community start to disappear. The links between the colonial appropriation of indigenous ancestors and their belongings, and missing and murdered indigenous women are unmistakable, and the connection takes a more sinister turn when Perry’s family becomes embroiled in a high-profile murder investigation. That’s when Perry decides to take matters into her own hands.

The impact of colonial racism is felt and experienced by Sugar Island’s inhabitants but it’s also resisted because of the strong cultural practices and ceremonies the community has reclaimed in the post-residential school era, which makes repatriation all the more poignant – and urgent. The legacy is still there but it must not be allowed to have the final word.

The world of Sugar Island is utterly immersive. The community is a complex one but its people go to the ends of the earth to help and protect one another, and their sense of humour is irreverent without ever being intentionally harmful. Boulley also doesn’t shy away from taking on tribal politics, calling out leaders who take advantage of their power to manipulate, abuse or control others.

Perry Firekeeper-Birch is a flawed and convincing teenager, unwilling at first to take responsibility for her actions or her big mouth until heartbreaking consequences force her to start considering other people’s feelings and perspectives. Her tendency to mouth off matures into an ability to speak truth to power as she starts seeking justice for her community and the missing women. Boulley excels in portrayals of multi-layered female characters who use their ingenuity and agency to solve mysteries and refuse to let themselves be victimized. It’s refreshing and uplifting to meet women who don’t doubt their power.

It took Boulley 36 years to write her first book, Firekeeper’s Daughter, which is a masterpiece. (You can read my short review here.) She took maybe a year (?) to write this one. Warrior Girl Unearthed is a fantastic book but it is not as richly layered or tightly woven as her debut novel. I wish that Boulley could have taken more time with this story though I can imagine the many reasons why she could not. Still, Warrior Girl Unearthed has very successfully avoided the Curse of the Second Book – no mean feat – and she is definitely a writer to watch.

While Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed are categorized as YA, both titles would be perfect for tweens who are ready to move onto more complex stories. Recommended. (#TPL)

And there you have it: the Top 10 Books of 2023. Thanks for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader! We’ll be back with more great reads in January. See you then!

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