Category Archives: Kidlit

This tag contains all books tagged as Children’s Literature, including picture books, Middle Grade fiction, Young Adult fiction, and relevant non-fiction.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

If you choose to support this author or novel (financially or otherwise), please consider educating yourself about the Quileute tribe’s plight and support their mission.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him—and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & anti-Native language
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Blood depiction & blood-drinking
  • Hospitalisation for illness & injuries (broken bones, blood loss)
  • Mentions of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Minor car accident
  • Attempted murder
  • Stalking & kidnapping

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer

When Edward Cullen and Bella Swan met in Twilight, an iconic love story was born. But until now, fans have heard only Bella’s side of the story. This unforgettable tale as told through Edward’s eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting Bella is both the most unnerving and intriguing event he has experienced in all his years as a vampire. As we learn more fascinating details about Edward’s past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he justify following his heart if it means leading Bella into danger?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & sexism
  • Racism & anti-Native language
  • Rape & paedophilia mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation and attempted suicide mentioned
  • Blood depiction & blood-drinking
  • Stalking
  • Murder
  • Animal death

If you choose to support this author, please consider educating yourself about the Quileute tribe’s plight and support their mission

All the Ways Home

Sometimes, home isn’t where you expect to find it. After losing his mom in a fatal car crash, Kaede Hirano–now living with a grandfather who is more stranger than family–developed anger issues and spent his last year of middle school acting out. Best-friendless and critically in danger repeating the seventh grade, Kaede is given a summer assignment: write an essay about what home means to him, which will be even tougher now that he’s on his way to Japan to reconnect with his estranged father and older half-brother. Still, if there’s a chance Kaede can finally build a new… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother in a car accident

All the Rage by Courtney Summers

The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous. But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape (theme)
  • Victim-blaming
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Bullying

About That Night by Norah McClintock

In the depths of winter, a woman wanders off in the snow. She is a popular former teacher and wife of a local policeman. A full-blown search begins. Meanwhile, Derek is staying with his new girlfriend and her parents while his family is out of town. He can’t believe his luck–Jordie is the hottest girl in school, and he’s going out with her. When Ronan, school bad boy and Jordie’s ex-boyfriend, shows up, Jordie decides that maybe Derek isn’t the one after all. But before she can end it with him, Derek disappears. Did he run away? Or did something happen to him? Is there a connection between the two disappearances? Ass.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Murder
  • Bullying

The Lost Sisters by Holly Black

Sometimes the difference between a love story and a horror story is where the ending comes . . . While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister Taryn began to fall in love with the trickster, Locke. Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out that Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Coerced marriage discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Murder discussed
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Bullying

Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore

Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves. Five centuries later, a pair of red shoes seal to Rosella Oliva’s feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fever’s history better than anyone: Emil, whose family was blamed for the fever five hundred years ago. But there’s more to what happened in 1518 than even Emil knows, and discovering the truth may decide whether Rosella survives the red shoes.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical queerphobia, transphobia & antiziganism, including the g slur
  • Antisemitism recounted
  • Persecution for witchcraft and witch trials
  • Nightmares
  • Blood depiction & minor body horror
  • Death of grandparents recounted
  • Attempted execution
  • Near-drowning incident (on-page)

Hollow by Rhonda Parrish

A car accident shattered sixteen-year-old Morgan’s family. Now her brother’s dead, her mom’s paralyzed in more ways than one, her dad lives at work and her seven-year-old sister Amy tries too freaking hard to salvage everything. What’s more, high school is its own special kind of hell, where her ex-boyfriend delights in spreading rumors that shred her reputation and make her feel like a loser. When she finds an old camera in a creepy abandoned hospital, it seems like her luck is finally changing. And it is changing–from bad to worse. Because of course it is. Each time… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault (on- & off-page)
  • Parent with paralysis & depression
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother in a car accident
  • Bullying & slut-shaming

Context : The protagonist’s mother is dealing with depression after being paralysed in the same car accident which killed her son (the protagonist’s brother).

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people… In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance – and Papi’s secrets – the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes
  • Sexual harassment
  • Sexual assault of a minor recounted & attempted rape of a minor (on-page)
  • Sex-trafficking & coerced sex work of a minor discussed
  • Infidelity
  • Pregnancy discussed, and premature childbirth scene & resuscitation of a newborn
  • Emesis
  • Cancer mentioned (minor secondary character)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from dengue fever recounted
  • Death of a father & husband in a plane crash (of-page, theme)
  • Death of a sister mentioned
  • Stalking
  • Poverty themes

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A Brown

For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts Malik’s younger sister, Nadia, as payment into the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Emotional & physical child abuse
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Anxiety & panic attack (on-page, protagonist)
  • Depersonalisation & derealization
  • Hallucinations
  • Self-harm & self-harm ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a father & sister recounted
  • Death of a mother (on-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder and regicide
  • Police brutality
  • Whipping mentioned
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Kidnapping & hostage situation
  • Fire recounted
  • Colonialism themes, including refugee experiences, riots & stampede
  • Animal cruelty & death, including animal sacrifice