Valentine Activity Kit: Love, Violet

Love, Violet by Charlotte Sullivan Wild
illustrated by Charlene Chua
Ages 4-8

Perfect for Valentine’s Day, Love, Violet by Charlotte Sullivan Wild and Charlene Chua is a touching picture book about friendship and the courage it takes to share your feelings.

Only one person
makes Violet’s heart skip

Of all the kids in Violet’s class, only one leaves her speechless: Mira, the girl with the cheery laugh who races like the wind. If only they could adventure together! But every time Violet tries to tell Mira how she feels, Violet goes shy. As Valentine’s Day approaches, Violet is determined to tell Mira just how special she is.

Charlene Chua’s luminous watercolors bring to life this sweet and gentle picture book about friendship, love, and the courage it takes to share your heart.

Download an activity kit for Love, Violet!

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Teacher’s Guide: Himawari House

Himawari House
By Harmony Becker
Ages 14-18
On Sale Now

A young adult graphic novel about three foreign exchange students and the pleasures, and difficulties, of adjusting to living in Japan.

Living in a new country is no walk in the park—Nao, Hyejung, and Tina can all attest to that. The three of them became fast friends through living together in the Himawari House in Tokyo and attending the same Japanese cram school. Nao came to Japan to reconnect with her Japanese heritage, while Hyejung and Tina came to find freedom and their own paths. Though each of them has her own motivations and challenges, they all deal with language barriers, being a fish out of water, self discovery, love, and family.

Download the teacher’s guide for Himawari House here!

Find out more about Himawari House HERE→

Graphic Novel Preview: The Librarian of Auschwitz: The Graphic Novel by Antonio Iturbe; adapted by Salva Rubio and illustrated by Loreto Aroca; translated by Lilit Zekulin Thwaites

Our Graphic Novel Preview series invites readers to look inside graphic novels. This month, we’re highlighting the highly anticipated graphic novel adaptation of of Antonio Iturbe’s The Librarian of Auschwitz: The Graphic Novel, adapted by Salva Rubio and illustrated by Loreto Aroca; translated by Lilit Zekulin Thwaites.

Look inside The Librarian of Auschwitz: The Graphic Novel→

Teacher’s Guide: The Lost Year

The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine
By Katherine Marsh
Ages 10-14
On Sale January 17

From the author of Nowhere Boy – called “a resistance novel for our times” by The New York Times – comes a brilliant middle-grade survival story that traces a harrowing family secret back to the Holodomor, a terrible famine that devastated Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation.

But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret. Set in alternating timelines that connect the present-day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, Katherine Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor – the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, and which the Soviet government covered up for decades.

An incredibly timely, page-turning story of family, survival, and sacrifice, inspired by Marsh’s own family history, The Lost Year is perfect for fans of Ruta Sepetys’ Between Shades of Gray and Alan Gratz’s Refugee.

Download the teacher’s guide for The Lost Year here!

Find out more about THE LOST YEAR HERE→