Books like Cynthia Kadohata

After her beloved Aunt May dies, twelve-year-old Summer watches Uncle Ob sink into grief and clings to the possibility that May might somehow send them a sign. Like Kira-Kira, this brief novel understands that bereavement changes the texture of ordinary things—meals, car rides, familiar rooms—while flashes of beauty remain possible.

Rylant’s spare, musical prose gives working-class lives enormous dignity, and Summer’s narration is guileless without ever being simplistic. Missing May won the Newbery Medal, but its lasting distinction is how much tenderness it fits into so few pages. Readers who carried Katie’s sorrow with them will find this equally difficult to forget.

Eleven-year-old Delphine arrives in Oakland determined to look after her two younger sisters, because the mother they barely know cannot be counted on to do it. Delphine’s vigilance will feel instantly familiar to anyone moved by Katie and Lynn: sisterly love here consists not only of affection, but of responsibility, irritation, storytelling, and the private rules children invent to keep one another safe.

Yet One Crazy Summer has its own quick, comic energy. Against the ferment of 1968 Oakland, Delphine begins discovering that adults, families, and political movements are more complicated than the judgments she has brought with her. A Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award winner, it is cherished because its history lives through unforgettable sisters rather than lessons—and because Delphine’s hard-won understanding feels exhilaratingly real.