New middle grade with strong girls - April 2026

Strong female characters are one of the things I love about middle grade fiction.  Girls trying to find their way as they grow and mature.  These two are a perfect example of those young women.  

The first one is "The Queen's Granddaughter" by Diane Zahler.  I loved her books "The Blackwood Magicians" and "Baker's Magic" so I was excited to read this new one.  This is the story of Blanca, the granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine.  Blanca has been living a happy life with her sister, Uraca, her loving parents, and her new baby sister Eleanor.  Blanca understands that her job is to marry well but at 12, she hopes that it's going to be awhile until she gets married.  Her oldest sister is already married and so when her grandmother shows up at the castle, ready to announce the latest arranged marriage, Blanca doesn't want Uraca to go, so she badmouths her sister to her grandmother.  When her grandmother makes her announcement, it's Blanca, not Uraca, that is meant to go to France and marry Louis.  Blanca feels terrible, but her grandmother explains that it's really more about Blanca than Uraca.  Blanca is a willful girl so as they get ready to leave to go to Paris, Blanca insists that her best friend and servant, Suna, go with them.  The journey is dangerous but eventually they end up in Paris, where there are more endings than Blanca imagined.  This is an exciting book with themes of family and duty, of power and responsibility, and understanding that historical figures were actual people with feelings and ideas that go beyond the letters they wrote.  I found the story fascinating and readers who like historical fiction, particularly strong women in history, will love this one.   

Check out this terrific cover!

The second one is called "Hafsa's Way" by Aisha Saeed.  She's written a number of books since her first one "Amal Unbound", which I adored, so I was happy to see her latest one.  It's about Hafsa, a girl who lives with her family in a rural part of Pakistan.  She helps around the house and goes to school, but she really wants to be a doctor.  Hafsa is pretty strong willed, which makes her butt heads with her dad a lot.  Without telling anyone, she applies to go to a science based summer camp in Lahore, the big city.  When she gets accepted, she has to figure out how she's going to pay for it, but also how to get her parents to let her go alone to a big city.  Luckily, her big sister lives in Lahore, quite close to where the camp is.  She offers to let Hafsa stay with her and her husband's family as well as pay for the camp, because her husband is a doctor.  The camp isn't quite what Hafsa expected, but she finds a way to make a difference any way.  There are wonderful themes of  family connections, persistence, rights of women, ethical treatment of animals, and finding your own way.  Middle grade readers are going to love getting to know Hafsa and her family just as much as I did and hopefully draw parallels between her persistence and their own,  I thought this was great!