Must-Read Books That Went Under the Radar in 2023

With the spirit of fall and the countdown to Halloween in mind, I decided to roundup some books that, while all different from each other, can fit an October reading vibe. Let’s call them different fall reading flavors!

It’s been horrible to watch the devastation left behind in Hurricane Helene’s wake in the Southeast. I live about four hours away from extensive flooding in East Tennessee and have experienced floods here in Nashville over the years as well. I know many kids will have questions and big feelings about the recent natural disasters, so I rounded up these five children’s books about floods and hurricanes.

You don’t have to “get” poetry to love this book. These poems are visceral, immediate, and urgent. They speak to the impossibility of living in a world full of so much grief and so much joy. Choi is wonderfully inventive with form and their images often startle gasps from me, but what makes this book so special is how it feels to read it. It is heartrending and heart-healing, both. It’s the book I turn to when I wake up wracked with despair, because it reminds me that, yes, feeling despair is natural in these times, and no, despair is not the only thing I have to feel.

I know there are a lot of Halloween-all-year readers, so I wanted to share some of my favorites from my Etsy deep dive. These are all cute ghosts — nothing too scary here. I’ve started with the small, inexpensive items like stickers and bookmarks, and I’ve finished with a real showstopper.