With the new year comes new release books for your classroom library! Refresh with an amazing list of books available this January including a new series written for the star inside every kid, a new novel from the author of The Hate U Give and a book from literary legend Gary Paulsen.

Scroll to find them below and get excited to add some fresh reads to your classroom library!

1. Camila The Baking Star
by Alicia Salazar, illustrated by Thais Damiao

Interest level: K-2

Camila and her papa enter a baking competition on TV. As they start their challenge, Camila is determined to take complete control of their strawberry-iced cake pops. But without teamwork, their dessert is a mess! Is it too late to become baking stars?

2. Camila The Record-Breaking Star
by Alicia Salazar, illustrated by Thais Damiao

Interest level: K-2

After reading about kid record-breakers, Camila dreams of breaking a record of her own. But which world record should she tackle? No matter what she tries, Camila finds that breaking records is hard. Will she ever become a record-breaking star?

3. Camila The Stage Star
by Alicia Salazar, illustrated by Thais Damiao

Interest level: K-2

When Camila tries out for a play, she practices hard to get ready for auditions. So she’s extra disappointed when she doesn’t get the starring role. But as she learns her part and works with the rest of the cast, Camila discovers there is more than one way to be a star.

4. Camila The Video Star
by Alicia Salazar, illustrated by Thais Damiao

Interest level: K-2

A video contest is the perfect way for Camila to become a star. To enter, she must make a video that explains what her city, Los Angeles, means to her. But Los Angeles is so big! How will she decide what to talk about? As Camila works on her video, she realizes that there’s one special thing that makes her city feel like home.

5. Eyes That Kiss in the Corners
by Joanna Ho, illustrated by Dung Ho

Interest level: P-3

A young Asian girl notices that her eyes look different from her peers’. They have big, round eyes and long lashes. Her eyes are like her mother’s, her grandmother’s and her little sister’s. They have eyes that kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea, crinkle into crescent moons and are filled with stories of the past and hope for the future. Drawing from the strength of these powerful women in her life, she recognizes her own beauty and discovers a path to self love and empowerment.

6. City of the Plague God
by Sarwat Chadda

Interest level: 3-7

Characters from the Epic of Gilgamesh populate this high-stakes contemporary adventure in which all of Manhattan is threatened by the ancient god of plagues. Thirteen-year-old Sik wants a simple life going to school and helping at his parents’ deli in the evenings. But all that is blown to smithereens when Nergal comes looking for him, thinking that Sik holds the secret to eternal life. Turns out Sik is immortal but doesn’t know it, and that’s about to get him and the entire city into deep, deep trouble. Sik’s not in this alone. He’s got Belet, the adopted daughter of Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, on his side, and a former hero named Gilgamesh, who has taken up gardening in Central Park. Now all they have to do is retrieve the Flower of Immortality to save Manhattan from being wiped out by disease. To succeed, they’ll have to conquer sly demons, treacherous gods and their own darkest nightmares.

7. The Sea in Winter
by Christine Day

Interest level: 3-7

It’s been a hard year for Maisie Cannon, ever since she hurt her leg and could not keep up with her ballet training and auditions. Her blended family is loving and supportive, but Maisie knows that they just can’t understand how hopeless she feels. With everything she’s dealing with, Maisie is not excited for their family midwinter road trip along the coast, near the Makah community where her mother grew up. But soon, Maisie’s anxieties and dark moods start to hurt as much as the pain in her knee. How can she keep pretending to be strong when on the inside she feels as roiling and cold as the ocean?

8. Gone To The Woods: Surviving A Lost Childhood
by Gary Paulsen

Interest level: 4-7

A middle grade memoir from a living literary legend, giving readers a new perspective on the origins of Gary Paulsen’s famed survival stories. His name is synonymous with high-stakes wilderness survival stories. Now, beloved author Gary Paulsen portrays a series of life-altering moments from his turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. If not for his summer escape from a shockingly neglectful Chicago upbringing to a North Woods homestead at age five, there never would have been a Hatchet. Without the encouragement of the librarian who handed him his first book at age thirteen, he may never have become a reader. And without his desperate teenage enlistment in the Army, he would not have discovered his true calling as a storyteller. A moving and enthralling story of grit and growing up, Gone to the Woods is perfect for newcomers to the voice and lifelong fans alike, from the acclaimed author at his rawest and realest.

9. The Angel of Greenwood
by Randi Paul

Interest level: 7-12

Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Wilson is, on the surface, a town troublemaker, but is hiding that he is an avid reader and secret poet, never leaving home without his journal. A passionate follower of W.E.B. Du Bois, he believes that black people should rise up to claim their place as equals. Sixteen-year-old Angel Hill is a loner, mostly disregarded by her peers as a goody-goody. Her father is dying, and her family’s financial situation is in turmoil. Also, as a loyal follower of Booker T. Washington, she believes, through education and tolerance, that black people should rise slowly and without forced conflict. Though they’ve attended the same schools, Isaiah never noticed Angel as anything but a dorky, Bible toting church girl. Then their English teacher offers them a job on her mobile library, a three-wheel, two-seater bike. Angel can’t turn down the money and Isaiah is soon eager to be in such close quarters with Angel every afternoon. But life changes on May 31, 1921 when a vicious white mob storms the community of Greenwood, leaving the town destroyed and thousands of residents displaced. Only then, Isaiah, Angel and their peers realize who their real enemies are.

10. The Awakening of Malcolm X
by Ilyasah Shabazz and Tiffany D. Jackson

Interest level: 7-12

A powerful fictionalized account of Malcolm X’s adolescent years in jail written by his daughter along with a 2019 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award-winning author. No one can be at peace until he has his freedom. In Charlestown Prison, Malcolm Little struggles with the weight of his past. Plagued by nightmares, he drifts through days unsure of his future. Slowly, he befriends other prisoners and writes to his family. He reads all the books in the prison library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm grapples with race, politics, religion and justice in the 1940s. And as his time in jail comes to an end, he begins to awaken—emerging from prison more than just Malcolm Little: Now, he is Malcolm X. Here is an intimate look at Malcolm X’s young adult years. While this book chronologically follows X: A Novel, it can be read as a standalone historical novel that invites larger discussions on structural racism, prison reform and civil rights.

11. Concrete Rose
by Angie Thomas

Interest level: 9-12

If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison. Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control. Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father. Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different. When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can’t just walk away. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.

Mixed Me
by Taye Diggs
Interest level: P-3

Clean Getaway
by Nic Stone, illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile
Interest level: 3-7

From The Desk Of Zoe Washington
by Janae Marks
Interest level: 3-7

The Hero Next Door
edited by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Interest level: 3-7

Race to the Sun
by Rebecca Roanhorse
Interest level: 3-7

Stella Diaz Never Gives Up
by Angela Dominguez
Interest level: 3-7

The Thief Knot: A Greenglass House Story
by Kate Milford
Interest level: 4-8

U.S. Presidents: The Oval Office All-Stars
by Dan Green, illustrated by Simon Basher
Interest level: 5-8

White Rose
by Kip Wilson
Interest level: 7-12

Sunnyside Plaza
by Scott Simon
Interest level: 7-12

District administrators and literacy coaches can give students of all grade levels fresh reads by purchasing all of January 2021’s new releases in one collection!

Which of these new reads were you looking forward to most? Which do you think your students will love? Tell us in the comments below!