Art & Oakie Ask: Do You Speak Bear?, written by Josh Oaktree, is a 2024 Independent Publisher Book Awards bronze medalist in the Children’s Picture Book (7 & Under) category. The third book in the Art & Oakie Ask series, Do You Speak Bee?, debuts fall 2024. You can pre-order and learn more at the Oak Tree Comics website: www.oaktreecomics.com.

Frozen Stiff, by Sherry Shahan, is on America’s Battle of the Books Medium 20 Book List, Grades 5–6, 2024–25. 

Jurassic Mark, by Andy Narwhal, is a 2024 PB Rising Stars Mentorship Program honorable mention.

The Dinner Menu, by Nasrin Aboulhosn, was published in the May 2024 issue of Highlights magazine.

Who knew? A heartwarming snapshot of Margo Sorenson’s Italian childhood, which inspired her to write her YA book Secrets in Translation (Fitzroy Books, 2018), was posted on the Italian Language Foundation blog here: https://italianlanguagefoundation.org/web/an-italian-language-reunion-and-reaffirmation/.

The Monkey Island Murder, third in Rosalind Barden’s Sparky of Bunker Hill Mystery series, was released June 1, 2024. This humorous young-adult series follows the misadventures of street punk Sparky as she tackles crime in downtown Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill neighborhood, 1932.

Nebula and BSFA Awards finalist Jendia Gammon, writing as J. Dianne Dotson, sold The Secret of the Sapphire Sentinel and The Dawn of Dusk and Twilight, the sequel and prequel to The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern, to Justine Norton-Kertson at Android Press in an exclusive submission, two-book deal, for publication in fall 2025 and fall 2026 (world English).

This Opening Sky, an accessible middle grade novel in verse, following an unlikely friendship in the aftermath of the American Civil War, co-written by Kelly Hollman and Charlotte Watson Sherman, is a 2024 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection.

Kelcie Murphy and The Academy for the Unbreakable Arts, by Erika Lewis, is a 2024–2025 Sunshine State Young Readers Award Book and a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award silver medal winner, and received a starred review from ALA Booklist.

Three of Lee Wardlaw’s cat-themed poems and her article 8 Things I’ve Learned from My Cats about Writing Haiku have received Certificates of Excellence in the 2024 Cat Writers’ Association Communications Contest. All four finalists are now in the running for the Muse Medallion. Winners will be announced in October at CWA’s annual conference.

Settlement House Girl: Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Caroline Arnold’s memoir, received an A-rated review in BookLife Reviews by Publishers Weekly and a Highly Recommended review in BlueInk Reviews.

Brenda Scott Royce’s Angela & Lulingu: Two Gorillas, A World Apart took home silver in the middle-grade nonfiction category at the Nautilus Book Awards (Better Books for a Better World). The book also earned a silver award in the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards and a gold medal for Best Children’s Educational Picture Book at the NextGen Indie Book Awards.

Dog vs. Strawberry, written by Nelly Buchet and illustrated by Andrea Zuill, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Shelf Awareness, and is an Amazon Best Book of the Month and a Junior Library Gold Standard selection.

Kirkus Reviews calls Little Wolf’s Howl, written by Nelly Buchet and illustrated by Mathias Ball, a “meaningful, modern fable” in a lovely review.

In a starred review, School Library Journal calls Big Sister, Long Coat, written by Nelly Buchet and illustrated by Rachel Katstaller, “[w]onderful for all collections.” Booklist also gives the book a starred review.

Down the Hole, by Scott Slater and illustrated by Adam Ming, was nominated for the 2024–2025 Chickadee Award by the Maine State Library.

Andy Nordvall was a guest and contributor to the Comic Creator Connection All-Stars panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. He was invited on the panel to discuss his short comic The Moral of the Story with art by Don Nguyen in the Nightmare Theater 3-D horror comic anthology, and the MG fantasy novel Abyssal, written with art by Paige Barr in conjunction with the online #MerMay art challenge.

Something Wild, written and illustrated by Molly Ruttan (2023 Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Random House), is the recipient of a starred Kirkus review and has recently been accepted into Dolly Parton’s 2024 Imagination Library.