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Set in Florida, Gods and Comics by Kat Cho offers readers insight on Korean mythology while also telling a story about the power of belief. Cho weaves her tale through the perspective of Grace Xavier Bak, a seventeen-year-old overachiever who designs webtoon episodes and is prone to anxiety attacks. As Grace works under the pseudonym Cho Sun, she unveils panels that feature Haemosu, the Korean sun god, and Yuhwa, his love interest. The “two teenage gods are trapped in human bodies, cursed to navigate the modern world” (1) while attending high school. Grace creates the episodes in part as a homage to her halmeoni whoRead More →

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Set in West Fork, Colorado, at Meddlehart Academy, A House of Vipers is Emma Jackson’s debut young adult novel. A boarding school for young people with wealthy parents, Meddlehart has a hidden treasure story, but is there really a buried treasure or is the story just one to entice the youth to join the Order of the Vipers? With mystery at its core, Jackson’s book has a three-pronged plot: a tragedy, a treasure, and a love triangle. Five students are bound by the loyalty of friendship and a bond like family, so when Sutter Heyward seeks the support of his friends: Carter Sterling, Grayson Hendricks,Read More →

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Set in Massachusetts, Found Sound by Meg Wolitzer and Charlie Panek begins with Felix Frank almost missing his fifth grade graduation since it’s easier to ignore the world than to listen to it. As a middle child, Felix feels like his parents don’t ever listen to him. His younger brother, Miles, is a genius who is always inventing something, and his older brother Dylan is now 20 but left home on unsettling terms. This leaves Felix feeling somewhat guilty as well as ignored. After a septic tank explosion causes the closure of the Fun in the Sun program that Felix had signed up for, heRead More →

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Readers of Carl Hiaasen and Katherine Applegate will likely enjoy the Mystery on Macaw Mountain by María José Fitzgerald. Set in 2007 in Copán, Honduras, Fitzgerald’s novel for middle grade readers features two pairs of siblings who are cousins. Teresa Paz-Murcia (aka Tessa) is a ten-year-old fourth grader who is animal obsessed and super organized. Her brother, Nico, on the other hand, is an accident-prone, thrill-seeking twelve-year-old who is better at remembering feelings than faces. Both are involved in the macaw-reintroduction project by default, as their mother is hoping to ceremoniously release the birds to the world-famous archaeological park where she digs up Mayan relics.Read More →

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Chanel Miller clearly recalls the tumultuous time of middle school. Her recent novel targeted towards tweens, The Moon without Stars touches on several very real and raw issues experienced by this age group. Perhaps the best litmus test of Miller’s knowledge is her analogy about the swimming unit in physical education: “While I appreciate that the school prevents death by drowning, they haven’t considered death by humiliation” (102). Although home is kind for seventh graders Scott Mango and Luna Noon, it is also a place of “unspoken stress, unmet longing, and dissatisfaction” (57). The two twelve-year-olds are both looking for a “cure for happifying [their]Read More →

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An investigative journalist himself, Jumata Emill writes a young adult thriller: I Don’t Wish You Well about how secrets never die. Set in Louisiana, the novel features Pryce Cummings, a journalism major at Whitmore University who hasn’t been able to snag a summer internship and is forced to return home to Moss Pointe. Hoping to advance his career prospects and to keep from growing bored, he consults his advisor Dr. Morrison about doing a podcast on a five-year old story: The Trojan Mask Murders. The murders had become the town’s cautionary tale against homosexuality, but Pryce, a closet homosexual himself, wants to prove that thereRead More →

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Caldecott Medalist National Book Award winner, Dan Santat adds Thick as Thieves to his Sidekicks series. In this installment, Harry James Blake, aka Captain Amazing whose kryptonite is a peanut allergy, is trying to retire from the Society of Superheroes (SOS). In order to assist Harry in the transition, his sister Kelly decides to take him on a five-day vacation to the Crochet-Con: the Biggest Ball of Yarn. While the siblings are gone, Harry’s sidekicks Fluffy, Shifty (or is his name Gus?), Roscoe, and Manny will hold down the fort. After a data breach at SOS headquarters, Whipley arrives by Next Day Delivery. The sidekicksRead More →

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Told in five parts with an epilogue, A Year Without Home is a poignant novel written in verse by V. T. Bidania. Targeted towards middle grade readers, Bidania’s book tells the story of eleven-year-old Gao Sheng and her Hmong family during wartime. Although Gao Sheng is a classic name “meant for girls who are elegant, graceful, charming” (10), Gao Sheng claims none of those traits. She struggles against the gender roles imposed by her culture and wishes to be known as more than “a vegetable picker,” one expected to be a good and responsible daughter. Tired of being like the mab plant, useful and tough,Read More →

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A sophomore at Hero High School, Eliza Gordon-Fergus lives a regimented life.  Imposed by her scientist parents and monitored remotely, rules for everything from nutrition, sleep, and exercise to socializing and studying regulate Eliza’s behavior. Meanwhile, her parents conduct research at such places as Brazil or the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station. Although rules and routines feel safe, Eliza discovers that capable, brilliant, and independent are synonyms for lonely. She begins to yearn for family and maybe even a boyfriend, wondering  whether love is real and whether she trusts herself enough to be vulnerable and inept. Friends like Merri Campbell keep Eliza, who may beRead More →