Terrific new fantasy fiction

One of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is the characters in the books I'm choosing for my school library.  I'm still surprised by how few books there are where the main character is a person of color.  This is certainly changing, but one place it seems like it's going slower than in other characters is in the fantasy realm.  There still are very few options for multicultural heroes in fantasy books, so I was really happy to read these two books, which both have non-white main characters.

The first one is called "Jinxed" by Amy McCullough.  It's about Lacey Chu, who lives in a time where everyone has a baku instead of a phone.  A baku is a companion robot that looks and behaves like an animal but it also has communication and computer capabilities.  So instead of making a call or a text or an internet search, you ask your baku.  The baku have different levels, the entry level ones are inexpensive and has fewer features.  The higher levels are more expensive and have more features.  Lacey dreams of working for the founder of the company who invented the baku, but her hopes are dashed when she is denied entry into the elite school that will pave the way to working for Moncha (a derivation of the owner's name-Monica Chang).  Lacey's dad worked for Moncha, but since he disappeared, a lot of things are different.  Then Lacey finds a baku that doesn't appear to belong to anyone.  It's badly damaged and Lacey thinks it's fun to try to fix it up.  But this baku (a cat she calls Jinx) is different from any baku she's every seen before-instead of responding to commands, it seems to have a mind of it's own and when the school bully thinks Jinx is really something special, she knows she's going to need to protect Jinx.  It's a super exciting story and I'm really glad that it appears that it's the beginning of a series, because my students are going to LOVE this one.  It's really well written and the characters seem like people you'd know.  The two girls who are best friends are a very powerful team -one is the robotics and hardware guru, the other is the coder and both are girls of color.  This is going to be perfect for the bigger kids- fourth and up.   I can't wait to get this one in my library.

And here's the author talking about her book!

The second one is called "Dragons in a bag" by Zetta Elliott.  Ms. Elliott explains in her author notes that she wrote this story because of the lack of characters of color in the fantasy genre.  The main character is African American and has lots of cultural connections.  It's about Jaxon, who's mom is struggling with keeping their apartment.  So when she has a court date, she leaves Jaxon with a woman he's never met.  His mother calls her Ma and Jaxon assumes she is his grandmother.  She's not, but she's got a lot to teach Jaxon.  Ma tells Jaxon to sit down and read a book, but a squirrel comes in and starts listening to a box that Ma left on the counter.  This is just the start of an exciting adventure that involves dragons, a grandfather named Trouble and time travel.  This one also appears to be a series, which is great.  It's also written at a level that's going to make accessible to lots of kids-I think third graders and maybe high reading second graders would like this one.  It's definitely going to find a home in my library.