Recommended Reads

Eleven-year-old Jake’s life has just turned upside-down. His father was wounded in Afghanistan, and his mother is going to leave to care for him. That means Jake’s spending the summer on tiny Dewees Island with his grandmother. The island is a nature sanctuary—no cars or paved roads, no stores or restaurants. To make matters worse, Jake’s grandmother doesn’t believe in cable or the internet. Which means Jake has no cell phone, no video games...and no friends. This is going to be the worst summer ever!
 

After moving from her home in Haiti to her uncle's home in Brooklyn, ten-year-old Gabrielle, feeling bullied and out of place, makes a misguided deal with a witch.

When the annual migration of hummingbears, a source of local pride and income, dwindles and no one knows why, Willodeen, armed with a magical birthday gift, speaks up for the animals she loves and vows to uncover this mystery.

Through a bedtime story to her daughters, a woman weaves together her immigration story and Pilipino mythology. Includes glossary, songs, and author's note.

Millie McGonigle lives in sunny California, where her days are filled with beach and surf. It should be perfect--but times are tough. Hitler is attacking Europe and it looks like the United States may be going to war. Food is rationed and money is tight. And Millie's sickly little sister gets all the attention and couldn't be more of a pain if she tried. It's a time of sunshine, siblings, and stress. Will Millie be able to find her way in her family, and keep her balance as the world around her loses its own?

Estranged from the best friend whose brother killed her sister in a school shooting, a grieving Cora receives a message on her 12th birthday from her friend, asking for her help with creating a time portal to prevent the tragedy

Three years after being kidnapping from her home in Martha's Vineyard, fourteen-year-old Mary Lambert receives a letter from Nora O'Neal, a servant in the house where she was held, who tells her of an eight-year-old girl where she is now employed whom Nora believes to be a deaf-mute, but who is being treated as insane, and asks Mary to come and teach the nameless child; a little scared, but intrigued, and bored with domestic life, Mary agrees--only to find that there is more to the child's story, and that freeing her from a world of silence and imprisonment may be more dangerous than anyone anticipated.

While visiting family in China, Mia Tang witnesses some of the big changes the country is going through, which makes her think about the changes in her own life that need to be dealt with.

Rescuing an injured British spy found hiding in her grandmother’s barn, Meg agrees to guide a family of German refugees across occupied France to Spain in exchange for her father’s freedom from a Nazi prison.

Feeling disconnected from her heritage as the only Indian-American student in her community, young Reha commits herself to a future different from her dreams when her mother becomes dangerously ill.

After his dad is taken away, Silas sets out with a mysterious pony on a dangerous journey across a vast American landscape to find him—a journey that will ultimately connect him with his past and future.

Lucas struggles to believe his brother’s fantastical story explaining what happened to him during an agonizing six-day disappearance, an account that the other members of their community believe is made up

Georgia Rosenbloom's father was a famous artist. His most well-known paintings were a series of asterisms--patterns of stars. There was supposed to be a fourth asterism, but Georgia's father died before he could paint it. Then Georgia finds a sketch herfather made of her. One with pencil points marked on the back--just like those in the asterism paintings. Could this finally be the proof that the last painting would have been of her?

Practicing all of her life to earn a spot on the All-Star softball team, young Veronica explores other opportunities and hobbies when her mother’s rehabilitation expenses prevent her family from affording team fees.

The award-winning creator of The Invention of Hugo Cabret presents the story of two people bound to each other through time and space, memory and dreams, as they try to solve a mystery of grief and love.

With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor'winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past.





 

Brandon is visiting his dad on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 when the attack comes; Reshmina is a girl in Afghanistan who has grown up in the aftermath of that attack but dreams of peace, becoming a teacher and escaping her village and the narrow role that the Taliban believes is appropriate for women--both are struggling to survive, both changed forever by the events of 9/11.

The three-time Newbery Honor-winning author of Hatchet shares the story of his turbulent childhood, his escape into military service and the life-changing impact of an encouraging librarian who handed him his first book

Bell has spent his whole life--all eleven years of it--on Mars. But he's still just a regular kid--he loves cats and any kind of cake, and is curious about the secrets the adults in the US colony are keeping. Like, why don't they have contact with anyone on the other Mars colonies? Why are they so isolated? When a virus breaks out and the grown-ups all fall ill, Bell and the other children are the only ones who can help. It's up to Bell--a regular kid in a very different world--to uncover the truth and save his family...and possibly unite an entire planet.

Mars may be a world far, far away, but in the hands of Jennifer L. Holm, beloved and bestselling author of The Fourteenth Goldfish, it can't help but feel like home.

When the school assigns each eighth-grader the name of a teenager who died in the past year as a lesson in mortality, Worm Tarnauer, who thrives on being invisible, doesn’t count on Becca Finch, the 17-year-old car crash victim who changes everything

Told from their different points of view, aspiring rocket scientist Ro and introverted artist Benji become science class partners and unlikely friends, together setting out to build a rocket and search for Benji's long-lost father using clues in his favorite comic books series.

Growing up in prison because his mother is serving time for a crime she didn’t commit, Kabir is forced into the outside world and goes on the run in a place that cares little for homeless, low-cast children.

When a mysterious child appears at the monastery of the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, Brother Edik nurses her back to health, but when he uncovers her dangerous secret, she is sent away into the world with a goat and a boy.

The Newbery Medal-winning author of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! gives readers a virtuoso performance in verse in this profoundly original epic pitched just right for fans of poetry, history, mythology, and fantasy.

Tanya Guerrero's All You Knead Is Love is a contemporary middle grade coming-of-age novel about a twelve-year-old multiracial Filipino and Spanish girl who goes to live with her grandmother for the summer, gaining confidence through a newly discovered passion for baking, perfect for fans of Hello, Universe and Merci Suarez Changes Gears.

A tale based on true events follows the coming-of-age of a girl who is motivated by an act of racism at school to learn about her ancestral heritage and her grandparents’ experiences as lost children during the Korean War.

Missing her mother who has returned to Turkey to resolve an immigration problem, sixth-grader Sila welcomes a very large distraction in her life when she helps a surprising new friend rescue a circus elephant.

This thrilling true story follows two Brits who were plagued by mysterious illnesses, accidents and death after uncovering Tutankhamun’s tomb, which is said to be cursed, while battling for ownership of the treasures within.

A boy struggling with anger over his parents’ remarriages orders a mysterious blank book that invites him to write about the people he would make go away, before finding himself in a mysterious alternate world populated by strangely familiar beings.

A companion to the award-winning Amina’s Voice finds Amina discouraged by the lack of interest her Greendale friends show in her visit to Pakistan before giving a class presentation about Malala Yousafzai.

When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She's alone--left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned. With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. As months pass, she escapes natural disasters, looters, and wild animals. But Maddie's most formidable enemy is the crushing loneliness she faces every day

Hoping to adopt a pet to find a sense of belonging in her busy family, Maggie is disappointed to discover she is severely allergic to anything with fur and tries to find a pet to love anyway.