Erik Jon

by (text) & illus. by Jacqueline Alcántara . Nov. 2026. 32p. tr. from by Jasminne Mendez . pap. $8.99. ISBN 9781536255317. K-Gr 3 COPY ISBN K-Gr 3–Belle and her Ti Abue spend New Year’s Day making a traditional soup together in Charles’s Spanish-language edition of Freedom Soup. Ti Abue’s habit is to recount their family’s history in relation to Haiti’s struggle for independence—and the recipe they are preparing—at this time each year.

Gr 4-7–On December 31, 1940, the Heath family returns home earlier than expected and finds a shadowy figure taking photographs in their Berlin apartment. With that attention-grabbing opening, readers are introduced to Don, almost 13, his mother, and his American diplomat father. The novel in verse then goes back to their arrival in Germany three years earlier and details the family’s spy experiences and anxious perspective of Hitler’s increasing military aggression.

Gr 5 Up–The third book in the “Dragonships” series reflects the separation of the Dread Knights as they each forge their own paths, moving away from the dragon, Lunar. While Lunar faces new threats to the solar system in the form of the Void Dragons, he must also contend with the planetary dragons, who are judging whether humanity deserves the right to exist. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its protagonist.