Red River Rose by Carole Lindstrom (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 224 pages, grades 4-7). Rose loves her Métis community that she, her parents, and her younger sister are part of. When she hears rumors about the Canadian government’s plan to remove them from their land, Rose wants to help with the resistance in any way she can. She’s often frustrated that she’s not allowed to do as much as her friend Ambroise and the other boys, but she finds ways to help, like collecting scrap metal for ammunition and coming up with a plan to sabotage a Canadian steamship. The Métis are eventually forced to hide in caves, and most of their homes are destroyed by the end of the story, but it’s clear that this strong community will find ways to survive together. Includes an author’s note about the Métis tribe that she is a part of and their history along the Saskatchewan River.

Based on Carole Lindstrom’s 2025 picture book The Gift of the Great Buffalo, this story takes place around the same time as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book and offers a much-needed Native American perspective. Rose is a strong and courageous character, although some of her actions seemed to me somewhat unrealistically adult for a 12-year-old. The portrayal of the Métis and the ways they mixed their traditional ways with European influences and the Catholic church makes for a fascinating read.

The Lions’ Run by Sara Pennypacker, illustrated by Jon Klassen (Balzer + Bray, 288 pages, grades 4-8). Lucas is a 13-year-old orphan living in an abbey in occupied France during World War II. In the opening pages, he rescues a litter of kittens from two classmates who are trying to drown them. Seeking a place to hide the kittens, he stumbles upon a barn occupied by Alice, a girl who is attempting to hide her racehorse from the Nazis and smuggle her to America. Alice isn’t happy that Lucas has discovered the barn, but slowly the two become friends as Lucas begins to find the courage to participate in acts of resistance against the Germans. His job as a delivery boy takes him to a Lebensborn, where French girls, pregnant by Nazi soldiers, live and deliver their babies, who are taken from their mothers and sent to live with German families. Lucas gets to know one of the girls and learns of her plan to try to keep her baby. The plot threads about the horse and the baby come together in a heart-pounding last few chapters that demonstrate just how far Lucas has come in being brave and open up the possibilities for a better future than he could ever have imagined. Includes an author’s note about what is fact and what is fiction in the story.

At the risk of sounding like an old crank, I sometimes feel like I can’t read one more book about World War II. That was my initial reaction upon learning about this book, but the multiple starred reviews and early Newbery consideration wore me down. Thank goodness. I was drawn in right from the beginning, and by the end I was torn between not wanting to stop reading and feeling like I couldn’t stand the almost unbearable suspense. Fans of Number the Stars and The War That Saved My Life will not want to pass this one by, and I feel pretty confident in saying it will join them on the list of Newbery honorees.