CCBC Choices 2024 -- Tweens (ages 9-11)

"From fried dumplings to fortune cookies, here are the tales behind your favorite foods . . . Separated into courses like a Chinese menu, these tales -- based in real history and folklore -- are filled with squabbling dragons, magical fruits, and hungry monks. This book will bring you to far-off times and marvelous places, all while making your mouth water. And, along the way, you might just discover a deeper understanding of the resilience and triumph...

Courage is the strongest magic there is. On Hamra's thirteenth birthday, she receives nothing but endless nagging and yet another errand to run in the Langkawi jungle that looms behind her home. No one has remembered her special day. And so, stifled and angry, Hamra ignores something she shouldn’t: the rules of the jungle. Always ask permission before you enter. Hamra walks boldly in. Never take what isn’t yours. Hamra finds the most perfect...

When a mysterious Little Free Library guarded by a large orange cat appears overnight, eleven-year-old Evan plucks two weathered books from its shelves, never suspecting that his life is about to change.

After generations of short hair in her family, a little girl celebrates growing her hair long to connect to her culture and honor the strength and resilience of those who came before her.

"Five puppets confront circumstances beyond their control with patience, cunning, and high spirits ... Shut up in a trunk by a taciturn old sea captain with a secret, five friends--a king, a wolf, a girl, a boy, and an owl--bicker, boast, and comfort one another in the dark. Individually, they dream of song and light, freedom and flight, purpose and glory, but they all agree they are part of a larger story, bound each to each by chance, bonded by...

"In a big abandoned house, on a barren hill, lives a skull. A brave girl named Otilla has escaped from terrible danger and run away, and when she finds herself lost in the dark forest, the lonely house beckons. Her host, the skull, is afraid of something too, something that comes every night. Can brave Otilla save them both?"--

Seventh grader Wendy Toledo knows that black holes and immigration police have one thing in common: they can both make things disappear without a trace. When her family moves to a new all-American neighborhood, Wendy knows the plan: keep her head down, build a telescope that will win the science fair, and stay on her family's safe orbit. But that's easier said than done when there's a woman hiding out from ICE agents in the church across the alley,...

"Wesley's hopeful plans for Indigenous Peoples' Day (and asking her crush to the dance) go all wrong--until she finds herself surrounded by the love of her Indigenous family and community at the intertribal powwow"--

A moving story...about the enduring bond between twins: Anders, who has recently died, and Lily, who has to balance her grief and confusion with a brother who isn't quite gone--and how to navigate a world that is moving forward without him. Of course Anders wasn’t lonely in the afterlife. He still, like always, had Lily. Lily doesn’t believe in making wishes. Not anymore. Not since Anders died. Wishes can’t fix the terrible thing that happened....