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...

In preparation for winter, a skilled young hunter embarks on a perilous journey up the mountain to gather obsidian, where he encounters the fearsome eagle god Savik and is presented with a life-altering choice.

"Johannes, a free dog, lives in a park hemmed in on three sides by dense human neighborhoods, and on one side by the ocean. His job is to be the Eyes--to see everything that happens within the park and report to the park's elders, three ancient bison whoensure the Equilibrium. His friends--a stalwart seagull, a mordant raccoon, a one-eyed squirrel, and a pelican who can read--work with him as the Assistant Eyes, observing the humans and other animals...

After a rocky first year, Anna's family have settled into life in California--their small restaurant is even turning a profit. Then her parents make a shattering discovery: their visas have expired. Anna's world is quickly overwhelmed by unfamiliar words like "undocumented" and "inequality." She longs to share the towering secret that looms over every aspect of her life with a friend, but her parents strictly forbid her from telling anyone. As Anna...

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-grandmothers 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...

"On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, 'La Joconde, c’est partie! The Mona Lisa, she’s gone!' No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting? Travel back to an extraordinary period...

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...

Two years after a tragedy saddles him with viral fame, twelve-year-old Simon O'Keeffe and his family move to Grin And Bear It, Nebraska, where the internet and cell phones are banned so astrophysicists can scan the sky for signs of alien life, and where, with the help of two new friends, a puppy, and a giant radio telescope, Simon plans to restart the narrative of his life.

"Jo Jo Makoons has noticed that the family members she loves most—Mama, Kokum, and even her cat, Mimi—all have their own ways of being healthy. So when Teacher says that their class will be learning about healthy habits, Jo Jo is ready to be neighborly by helping everyone around her be healthy too. After a snowstorm shuts down her Ojibwe reservation, Jo Jo uses her big imagination and big personality to help both Elders and classmates alike. Because...