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Set in Rabbit, Utah, When Giants Burn by Beth Vrabel tells the story of two tweens who know that feelings aren’t temporary like their school counsellor Mrs. Freid claims. Both Hayes and Gerty know that “sometimes feelings twist and tunnel. Sometimes they wrap themselves into every bit of a person, locking them into a place where nothing else can grow” (214). Afraid of losing his mother to addiction and a life of crime again, Hayes is struggling to form a relationship with his ex-con mother. Untethered and unable to forgive and forget her abandonment, Hayes wears his anger like armor. An independent and largely self-sufficientRead More →

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Readers of Rick Riordan, C.S. Lewis, or other writers of fantasy will likely find The Lion of Lark–Hayes Manor a delight! Under the influence of Aubrey Hartman’s pen, readers will join the journey of sixth grader Penelope Woodlock (Poppy) who makes a hasty and soon regrettable bargain with a water nymph who has been banished from the Old World. Possessing a vivid imagination, Poppy, a creative and passionate book-lover, moves from Virginia to Oregon with her historic preservationist parents and her brother Luc. As Poppy struggles to adapt to the new environment and to the social dynamics of middle school, she finds solace in booksRead More →

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Readers will likely relate to the popularity food chain and power plays that transpire in junior high school. This social dynamic is the focus of Tae Keller’s middle grade novel Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone. With this book, Keller takes readers to the seventh grade classroom of Gibbons Academy in Florida and explores themes like identity, anxiety, friendship, bullying, and redemption. She also invites us to wonder whether we are truly alone in the universe and whether other life might exist beyond Earth. Mallory Moss is struggling to define herself—is she a fun, brave, and trustworthy friend or a timid, insecure, and fearful follower? BelievingRead More →

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With their book The Agathas, Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson present a spectacular mystery with a multitude of rich allusions to Agatha Christie. Told from the point of view of both Iris Adams and Alice Ogilvie, the novel is set in Castle Cove, California, a cozy coastal town where a person is either the served or the server and where the town seems curse with missing girls. Iris, who prefers to fly under-the-radar and has a “keep-to-myself-policy,” resents people like Alice–those who walk around like they live in a golden bubble. But after Alice stole an idea from one of her favorite mystery stories, disappearedRead More →

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Being of mixed race makes it difficult to know which part of the self to defer to or which part takes precedence. This is Anna’s dilemma in Malia Maunakea’s middle grade novel, Lei and the Fire Goddess. Anna Leilani Kama’ehu is of both western and Hawaiian descent. She has struggled to believe that her grandmother’s traditional stories about gods and goddesses are anything more than just stories. Likewise, she isn’t sure she wants the responsibility thrust upon her: that she is the keeper of the family stories or móolelo. Now that’s she’s twelve, Anna thinks her visits with her grandmother in the Hawaiian town ofRead More →

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Because Ronnie Riley believes that no one should feel alone for who they like or who they are, this nonbinary, neurodivergent author writes a book for tweens who might also need a safe place to discover themselves. Riley’s novel, Jude Saves the World features Dallas Knight, who is gay, and Jude Winters, who is nonbinary and lives with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The two twelve-year-olds share a “ride or die” friendship. When they welcome Stevie Morgan into their circle, challenges ensue. Another challenge for Jude—whose pronouns are they/them—is whether to share their identity with their grandparents. Jude’s mom says they’re not ready for thatRead More →

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Jason Reynolds’ recent novel Miles Morales Suspended is a genre-bending book written in both prose and verse. It is also a sequel to Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017). In typical Reynolds fashion, readers are invited to think about some deep topics, this time related to identity. Although we all aren’t able to transform into Spider Man like Peter Parker or Miles can, readers who think metaphorically can use their spidey-sense to detect layers of applicable meaning. A Puerto Rican mixed race student Miles Morales attends Brooklyn Visions Academy. Despite the school’s motto: “Vision is at the center of all we do,” some of the policies and instructorsRead More →

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In writing Hamra and the Jungle of Memories, Hanna Alkaf begins in the fashion of a traditional fairy tale. In her reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood, Alkaf borrows heavily from the Malaysian Muslim culture and weaves her magical retelling with Malay customs and cuisine. The star of this tale is thirteen-year-old Hamra, who is stubborn, sad, rebellious, and angry. She is tired of wiping up messes and cooking and listening to her grandmother say things that don’t’ make sense now that she is living with dementia. Hamra is tired of always having to be nice and good and polite and responsible. And she isRead More →

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Lydia Chass is not averse to pulling strings or to cracking the patina of politeness. But such behavior is frowned upon in Henley, Ohio, where kindness is a social contract. On the path to getting out of small-town Henley and into a prestigious journalism school, Lydia has always aimed high and never made a secret of it. However, that ambition gets derailed when she learns that she doesn’t have the history credits required to graduate, an oversight that Mr. Benson, Henley High School’s Guidance Counsellor, didn’t realize because he’s overly fond of Jim Beam and pill-popping. Now, Lydia has an independent study project “of appropriateRead More →