Strong as Fire, Fierce as Flame  by Supriya Kelkar (a middle-grade novel)

She was someone I knew, someone I looked up to, proving just how strong women could be. I couldn’t see her losing hope, like the embers inside her were being stomped out.

Bonus quote: “…Sometimes when life is really tough, all you can do is look forward.”

Letters to a Writer of Color edited by by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro | Fictional Writing Reference | Random House (March 7, 2023)

As a writer of color, the compulsion to write something that matters, in a world that tells you your story doesn’t matter, is always going to be your North Star. These moral urges are impossible to ignore- and they exist for a reason. But I’m here to tell you to take up more space and to write what you want. Don’t settle for the same tropes if they don’t appeal to you.

The Woman in the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Helped Fly the First Astronauts to the Moon by Richard Maurer | Children’s Women Biographies; 10 – 14 years, and up | Roaring Brook Press (March 14, 2023)

Is this for certain the way things go?
What comes after the rain and the snow?
Are you and I the travelers tonight
Riding this train and talking so bright?
Or is it a dream? What would you say?
Do you think it might be a story too good to stay?

The Power of Language: How the Codes We Use to Think, Speak, and Live Transform Our Minds by Viorica Marian | Linguistics | Dutton (April 4, 2023)

If you have ever played Boggle, then there is a good chance you have been irritated at another player for turning the grid around while you were writing down words. You may have even been that person yourself, getting yelled at by the other players, all because at some point your brain made a discovery: that turning the grid changed your perspective and made you see the same letters in a different way, extract more words, and raise your score. Like a turn of the Boggle board, every new language that we know makes us extract and interpret information differently, altering how we think and feel, what we perceive and remember, the decisions we make, the ideas and insights we have, and the actions we take.

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen (YA)

There’s a saying in the Blessed Empire: Little thieves steal gold, and great ones steal Kingdoms, but only one goes to the gallows. I’m not sure I agree. I’ve little interest in kingdoms, but even less in dancing with the hangman. And I’ve gotten very good – great, you might even say – at stealing gold.

And one more: Nothing stolen is ever mine. But there’s another truth on the other side of that coin: What’s mine can always be stolen.