Middle Grade Magic Booth – LB Ink
Welcome LB Ink to the Little Brown For Young Readers Family!
★ “Heartwarming [and] authentic” —Shelf Awareness, starred review
A moving middle grade graphic novel about friendship, belonging, and learning to love yourself despite the voices in your head.
Isaac Itkin can’t get away from his thoughts.
As a lonely twelve-year-old kid with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), everything from studying to looking in the mirror becomes a battle between him and a swarm of unhelpful thoughts.
The strict therapy his mother insists on doesn’t seem to be working, but when a group of friends invites him to join their after-school role-playing game, the thoughts feel a little less loud, and the world feels a little brighter.
But Isaac’s therapist says that exposure to games can have negative effects on kids with OCD, and when his grades slip, his helicopter mother won’t let him play anymore. Now Isaac needs to find a way to prove to himself, to his mother, and to the world that the way to quiet the noise in his head may have been inside him all along.
Many years after the disappearance of their mother, siblings Ben and Saoirse are still drowning in grief, as is their lighthouse-keeper father. Ben blames his little sister for the loss of their mother, and despite being six years old, Saoirse has yet to speak. When the kids discover that Saoirse is a selkie and the magical world that their mother told stories about is real, they dive into an adventure to keep the spirit world from disappearing forever. Based on the award-winning film Song of the Sea, this graphic novel is a wonder of magical storytelling and visual splendor that is destined to become a classic.
Includes an 18-page bonus story written and illustrated by film creator Tomm Moore and a Gaelic glossary.
Song of the Sea (along with Wolfwalkers and The Secret of Kells) is part of Cartoon Saloon’s Irish Folklore Trilogy which celebrates magic, fantasy, and Celtic mythology.
Julia didn’t always believe in aliens.
It was her father who convinced her otherwise. You see—Julia’s dad believes he was abducted by aliens. And ever since then, he’s been obsessed with the extraterrestrial beings living out there.
So when a festival commemorating the 75th anniversary of the infamous UFO crash in New Mexico rolls around, Julia turns down a dream vacation to Hawaii with her best friend, Sara, to join her dad for a weekend trip to Roswell, where he expects the aliens to make contact.
But amid the alien-themed goofiness of the festival, Julia finds she isn’t sure whether her father really did get abducted. His memories of alien interference are starting to sound increasingly shaky, and with them, her faith in him. Will this weekend bring the two closer together or only drive them apart?
A heartfelt story of family, loyalty, and the lengths we go to support those we love.
2024 Golden Kite Award Winner • An NPR and New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
“I want to be friends with them all” — Vashti Harrison, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History
New Kid meets The Baby-sitters Club in this graphic novel series opener about the Curlfriends, four inseparable Black girls who show us the meaning of true friendship—and being your true self.
Charlie has a foolproof plan for the first day at her new middle school. Even though she’s used to starting over as the new kid—thanks to her military family’s constant moving—making friends has never been easy for her. But this time, her first impression needs to last, since this is where her family plans to settle for good.
So she’s hiding any interests that may seem “babyish,” updating her look, and doing her best to leave her shyness behind her…but is erasing the real Charlie the best way to make friends?
When not everything goes exactly to plan, like, AT ALL, Charlie is ready to give up on making new friendships. Then she meets the Curlfriends, a group of Black girls who couldn’t be more different from each other, and learns that maybe there is a place for Charlie to be her true self after all.
In the Curlfriends series, follow four inseparable Black girls who each have a unique story, and each learn lessons about friendship, family, and being their true selves:
Curlfriends: New in Town
Curlfriends: Back in Business
When Bình fights back against a bully who makes fun of his Vietnamese heritage, he expects to be cheered as the hero. He defeated the bad guy, right?
Instead, it gets him a stern warning from his vice principal and worried parents. Now he’s stuck on a family trip to a silent meditation retreat. That means no talking—and no video games!—for a whole weekend. Could things possibly get any worse?
However, when a nun gathers all the kids to tell them the Jataka tales—the stories of the Buddha’s many past lives—Bình takes a fantastical dive into his imagination and starts to see himself in these stories. Will he retreat further into himself, or will he emerge from the weekend open to change?
With any luck, these next few days will prove more enlightening than he thought.
A 2024 YALSA Top Ten Great Graphic Novel for Teens • An NPR Best Book of 2023 • A 2023 NCSS Notable Social Studies Book
“Inspiring and exciting, powerful and very poignant” —Anderson Cooper
★ “[A] gripping narrative, told with great immediacy” —Horn Book, starred review
★ “Highly recommended.” ―School Library Journal, starred review
“A powerful true story that demonstrates the power of one young person determined to change the world” — Victoria Jamieson, coauthor of When Stars Are Scattered
A teenage boy risks his life to tell the truth in this gripping graphic memoir by youth activist Muhammad Najem and CNN producer Nora Neus.
Muhammad Najem was only eight years old when the war in Syria began. He was thirteen when his beloved Baba, his father, was killed in a bombing while praying. By fifteen, Muhammad didn’t want to hide anymore—he wanted to act. He was determined to reveal what families like his were enduring in Syria: bombings by their own government and days hiding in dark underground shelters.
Armed with the camera on his phone and the support of his family, he started reporting on the war using social media. He interviewed other kids like him to show what they hope for and dream about. More than anything, he did it to show that Syrian kids like his toddler brother and infant sister, are just like kids in any other country. Despite unimaginable loss, Muhammad was always determined to document the humanity of the Syrian people. Eventually, the world took notice.
This tenderly illustrated graphic memoir is told by Muhammad himself along with CNN producer Nora Neus, who helped break Muhammad’s story and bring his family’s plight to an international audience.
Aspiring engineer Suzy Hess is invited to the famous Underlook Hotel, domain of the reclusive horror writer Jack Axworth, in the mountains above her hometown of Estes Park, Colorado. Suzy thinks she’s there to tutor Jack’s son, Danny, but instead she finds herself investigating a local curse that threatens the landmark hotel.
With the help of Elijah Jones, an amateur filmmaker who thought he’d been asked to make a film about the so-called King of Horror; Rena Hallorann, the hotel’s caretaker; and Danny, who knows more than he’s letting on, Suzy sets out to solve the mystery at the heart of the Underlook, one that holds the town of Estes Park in its grasp. With only a week to save the hotel—and the town—the friends find themselves racing against time to uncover the shadows of the past.