The October 2023 middle grade books are here! As I did last month, I’ll be adding to this post in real time. New books will pop up every few days, and the Google presentation linked below will also have new books every few days.
This will work similar to September with one small change. For October, I will add the new books to the top of the Google presentation instead of at the end. This way, you don’t have to scroll through the entire presentation to get to the new books each week.
Also a reminder – the book information I added to the previous Spotlights has not changed! I still add the book’s genre, setting, protagonist description, themes, grade level recommendations, and my notes. They are now in the Google presentation instead of in the post.
I’m putting that information in the Google Slides because the post would be a very long scroll by the end of the month if I added them here. With the Google presentation, it’s a “sideways” scroll, but you can also easily share the information with students in the library. Simply delete the information you don’t want to include.
HOW TO USE THE OCTOBER 2023 MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS SPOTLIGHT IN YOUR LIBRARY
As with the September 2023 Spotlight, this post has four parts. I’ve linked each below for easy reference, but they are also linked in the body of this post.
PART I: GOOGLE SLIDES PRESENTATION – OCTOBER 2023 MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS
The first part of the New Release Spotlight is the Google Slides presentation. This is downloadable, editable, and FREE!
A few reminders and items I had questions about last month:
- The Google Slides presentation includes each book’s publisher’s summary, genre, setting, grade levels, themes, protagonist description, and any notes I might need to add. This is the special book information that was previously included in the Spotlight; it’s just in a different place now.
- You can download this presentation anytime, but keep in mind that I am adding new books to the presentation every week in October. If you download the presentation before October 31, 2023, you will need to re-download it to get the new books each week.
- The new books I add are not automatically added to any copies of the presentation you add to your Google Drive. You will have to redownload them to get the most recent update.
This presentation is great to play on a loop in the library! Students and teachers will inevitably ask you to order some of the books – a great way to develop a student-centered library collection.
Click here to download the presentation. Click “Use Template” in the
top-right corner to make an editable copy for your own Google Drive.
PART II – PRINTABLE LIST OF OCTOBER 2023 MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS BY GENRE AND TOPIC
You can download a one-page, printable list from this Google page. You can download the list anytime, but you might want to wait until the end of October to download it. I will continually add new titles for October through the end of October, so any downloads before that date will only be part of the list. The final list will be complete on Tuesday morning, October 31, 2023.
I will post an update in this post once the list is complete.
The list is sorted by genre and topic. Includes book title and author’s last name. The list is fully-editable, so you can add or remove whatever you need to suit the needs of your library.
Books that fall into more than one genre are listed under each genre (so some titles are on the list more than once).
PART III – THE GINORMOUS BOOK LIST
Since October 2019, I have added the New Release Spotlight books to The Ginormous Booklist. This is a huge Google spreadsheet that currently has over 3600 titles for K-12.
I will continue to add information from the October Spotlight titles to The Ginormous as normal. Scroll to the bottom for the newest titles. The October 2023 Spotlight titles begin with #3601 on The Ginormous Booklist.
PART IV – OCTOBER 2023 MIDDLE GRADE BOOK COVERS WITH AMAZON LINKS
The fourth part of the October 2023 Middle Grade Spotlight is a sorting area by genre and topic.
The cover images below are clickable Amazon Affiliate links. If you use them to make a purchase, I will get a small commission from your purchase.
I am including the cover images below to help make it easier for you to find the books. I know I sometimes have trouble finding them on Titlewave just by title or author.
The book cover links below will tell you the ISBN (scroll down to Amazon’s book details) and give you an overall list of books without having to scroll through the entire Google presentation.
As with the above parts of the October 2023 Spotlight, I will add to this section throughout the month. The last titles will be added on or before October 31, 2023. I will post an update here when the list is complete.
Because some books fall into multiple genre or topic categories, you will find some books listed more than once below.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
ECOFICTION
NOVEL IN VERSE / EPISTOLARY
REALISTIC FICTION
SCIENCE FICTION
SURVIVAL
DYSTOPIA
FANTASY
MORE OCTOBER 2023 BOOK RELEASES
As of September 28, 2023, the Picture Book Spotlight is not yet linked — please check back in a few days. I need to create the post first!
ABOUT THE SPOTLIGHT
The New Release Spotlight began in May 2016 as a way to help librarians keep up with the many new children’s and YA books that are released each week.
Each week, school librarian Leigh Collazo compiles the New Release Spotlight using a combination of Follett’s Titlewave, Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble. Recommended grade levels represent the range of grade levels recommended by professional book reviewers. See the full selection criteria here.