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In her novel The Empty Place, Olivia Cole explores the themes of identity, truth, family dynamics, and self-discovery. To do this, Cole creates her protagonist Henrietta Lightfoot. Henry is an indoor girl, an earthworm whose father, Joseph, is a butterfly—always fluttering off to some new adventure. To Joseph, adventure is outdoors, where one can wander and discover new places. He shares these places with his YouTube followers who tag along with him on his adventures when his own daughter will not. Instead, Henry prefers the safety of home, “her cluttered desk, dotted with dried hot glue” (44), and the familiarity of her friend Ibtihay UmarRead More →

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A typical adventure/survival story for middle grade readers, Off the Map by Meika Hashimoto will reaffirm the value of keeping one’s head in a stressful situation. Hashimoto tells the story of Marlo, her dog Cheerio, and her best friend Amos. Marlo has been abandoned, first by her dad and then by her best friend Amos; consequently, she feels unlovable and confused by why Amos left her stranded in the lunchroom at the end of the school year. When Marlo’s mother, a river guide in Alaska, suggests a canoe trip on the Yukon River, Marlo is super excited to escape into the wilderness to use herRead More →

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Players of Dungeons and Dragons (D and D) will likely enjoy Garth Nix’s recent novel for middle grade readers: We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord. Set in an alternative version of Canberra, Australia, in 1975, Nix’s novel features the Basalt siblings: Eila and Kim, who are friends with the Chance siblings: Bennie and Madir. On one of their excursions wading in a nearby lake, they encounter a peculiar object just beneath the surface. Resembling a “cut-off head with long hair” (10) or maybe an abandoned cannonball, the muddy object captivates Eila.  When Kim tries to wrestle the now glowing orb away from his ten-year-oldRead More →

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Readers of The Champions by Kara Thomas will enter the world of high school, where dance team and football team drama runs high. In this world, the Sunnybrook Tigers are legendary, but their legacy of winning is tainted by a shady past, and in some circles, Sunnybrook is known as the Town of Death. But the town’s identity is tied to the Tigers, so a lot of people have a vested interest in protecting the town’s reputation. Therefore, when senior Hadley Daugherty dares to write an article about “The Other Champions,” the dance team athletes that include Team Captain Alix Maroney, she is ridiculed. ButRead More →

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Fans of the Nevermoor series will likely fall in love with Steven Banbury’s debut novel for middle grade readers, The Pumpkin Princess and the Forever Night. Banbury’s magical novel opens as an orphan is attempting yet another escape from the orphanage. Pursued by the orphanage’s two hounds, Watcher and Curfew, our protagonist, logical and unafraid, plots and schemes as she flees. Desperate not to just run away, but to run to something keeps her dedicated to her escape plan as she seeks to find “the happiness she has always read about in books and wants so badly for herself” (13).  Fearlessly looking for a home,Read More →

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The writing life is one focus for Francisco X. Stork in his recent novel One Last Chance to Live. It tells the story of Nico Kardos who wishes to be a great writer. However, Stork’s book is also a murder mystery that explores the purpose of life. Seventeen-year-old Nico is finishing his senior year at Stonebridge Charter School in Hunts Point, New York, and his writing teacher Mr. Cortazar has assigned the class the task of writing 500 words per day in their journals. The practice is intended to teach self-knowledge, which “will make you a better person and a better writer” (18), according toRead More →

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Whether you work your fingers to the bone operating a quern, starve yourself until you are skin and bones, or turn to cannibalism and gnaw meat to the bone when the tuckahoe is gone, Alena Bruzas’ book To the Bone captures all of these idioms. Writing in the historical fiction genre, Bruzas retells the harrowing times of 1609-1610 at James Fort when the colonists find themselves suffering. To tell her tale, Bruzas features two teens: Jane Eddowes and Ellis Folk. Jane—full of spark, vitality, wit, and defiance—loves to draw and to pursue adventure. Ellis finds herself drawn to Jane. Because she lost her parents—her motherRead More →

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With a name like Grimsbane, a person is bound to find connections to death, destruction, woe, and gloom. And readers will find all that in Joan Reardon’s The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters. Set in Witchless, Indiana, this novel for middle grade readers features Anna and Billy Grimsbane, twin siblings who are about to turn thirteen. Billy is a “nerd extraordinaire” and a lover of scones. He is also organized, intelligent, and fearless. Anna, on the other hand, is more impulsive. She is also naturally agile, protective, and loyal. Both are eager to enter the family business, although for very different reasons. A family of witchRead More →

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Lamar Giles, author of Ruin Road, takes the idea of selling one’s soul to the devil to a whole new level. His novel further reinforces the moral: Be careful what you wish for, and even suggests that sometimes fear can be a good thing. Playing wide receiver, Kincade (Cade) Webster attends Neeson Preparatory School on an athletic scholarship and dreams of playing football for Ohio State. When he makes it into the pros, he plans to take his best friends out of Jacob’s Court with him: Gabby and Booker Payne. One night, while escaping an altercation on the bus, Cade walks into Skinner’s Pawn andRead More →