“We’re all in the same boat, paddling through the chaos of seventh grade. Except everyone else’s oar is pink or blue and mine’s purple with glittery flecks of angsty confusion on it,” says Ash, who isn’t like most kids in their suburban Ohio middle school. Some days Ash dresses like and feels like a boy. Other days, they dress like and feel like a girl. Some people know them as Ashley, others as Asher. It’s all a little confusing, especially for Ash. Lately, they feel a lot of pressure to choose a single permanent name and gender identity.

Throughout Jules Machias’ debut middle grade novel, Both Can Be True, Ash explores their gender fluidity and what it means to be nonbinary in a culture that often demands people choose between pink or blue. Although Ash’s mom and best friend are supportive, a traumatic assault at Ash’s previous school has made them fearful of what might happen if they came out to their new classmates. Plus, they’re afraid of scaring away their crush, Daniel. Both dog lovers, Ash and Daniel grow close as they work together to save an old dog named Chewbarka from being put down.

Machias alternates between Ash’s and Daniel’s perspectives as both kids take tentative steps toward being fully themselves. Each serves as a gentle and appealing conduit for readers to discover issues that LGBTQ tweens face, as well as the right and wrong ways parents can support them. Machias highlights how Daniel is also bound by masculine gender norms, such as false notions that boys shouldn’t be emotional and definitely shouldn’t cry.

Both Can Be True illustrates how the many existing anxieties common during middle school multiply when one’s gender identity is in question and when gender norms are socially enforced. It’s a heart-wrenching but hopeful look at what everyone has to gain by embracing a more expansive understanding of gender.

Everyone knows the story of Peter Pan, right? Adventurous lost boys, mischievous fairies, murderous pirates and a bloodthirsty crocodile—but how did all these iconic characters come to Neverland in the first place? To answer this question, Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Sisters of the Neversea explores the island of Neverland and looks closely at the events that shaped Peter Pan himself.

Lily and Wendy have no idea that someone is watching them argue during what might be their last night as stepsisters. With Wendy and her dad moving to New York for the summer and Lily and her mom staying behind in Oklahoma, this might really be the end of their family. But everything changes in an instant when a mysterious boy named Peter, a wayward shadow and a persnickety fairy named Belle come in through their bedroom window.

After being whisked away to Neverland, Wendy and her little brother, Michael, find themselves among the Lost, a group of young boys who seem to be rapidly forgetting who they are and where they came from. Summoning all her bravery, Lily follows in pursuit, planning to rescue Wendy and Michael and somehow return home. Once Lily arrives in Neverland, she joins with a group of Native American kids whom Peter has taken from tribes across America, including Leech Lake Ojibwe, Black Seneca, Cherokee Nation and Navajo.

Leitich Smith, who, like Lily, is Muscogee Creek, fills Sisters of the Neversea with many of the hallmarks that readers expect from a Peter Pan story, including pirates, fairies, crocodiles and merfolk. But she also confronts and rectifies many of the harmful tropes and stereotypes of J.M. Barrie’s original story as well as those perpetuated by Disney’s animated film. Both Belle and Wendy admonish Peter when he uses an offensive word to refer to Native people, and they challenge his demeaning behavior toward girls, women and Native Americans.

Ultimately, the novel offers redemption not just for Peter but for many of Neverland’s other characters as well. With expertly shifting perspectives, an oft-broken fourth wall and subtle but firm remedies to elements of the story best left in the past, Sisters of the Neversea is a welcome new addition to the legend of Peter Pan.

One morning, Malian awakens from a dream to find a dog outside her grandparents’ home on the reservation, where she’s been staying since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s the same dog, in fact, that she’d been dreaming of only minutes before. She names him Malsum, which means “wolf” in the language of her people, the Penacook. 

Malsum may look fierce, but he proves to be a gentle and loyal protector. When a coughing mail carrier approaches the house, Malsum’s bark keeps him at bay. When a woman from social services shows up, checking to see if the home Malian is living in is “fit” for children, Malsum stands between Malian and danger once again, his lethal canines bared.

If Malsum is Malian’s protector, her grandparents are her lodestar. They provide the stories and histories that lead her to a deeper understanding of herself and her country. Their stories reveal how COVID-19 and the postal service worker who exhibits its symptoms are not only a threat but also a reminder of pandemics past, of smallpox and other diseases that decimated Native tribes. Their stories link the nosy social service worker to generations of mistreatment of Native people, whether through bad faith treaties that forcibly removed them from their lands or by so-called “boarding schools” that separated children from their families, languages and culture.

Joseph Bruchac’s Rez Dogs is a poignant reminder that history, story and identity are intimately intertwined. Bruchac centers the story of one Native American girl during the pandemic and, with it, the stories of her family and her people. This short, pithy novel written in spare verse brings the weight of history to bear on the present, revealing not only how history shapes us but how, through the stories we tell, we can shape history.

The bestselling author of the young adult novel Dread Nation brings her storytelling prowess to middle grade to create a story that will definitely cause you to start seeing things—namely, ghosts, but also the injustices suffered by generations of Black Americans.

In Ophie’s Ghosts, Justina Ireland transports readers back to the early 1920s, a time when Black Americans were fleeing the South to escape the poverty and persecution caused by the long arm of Jim Crow laws. The novel opens in rural Georgia, as 12-year-old Ophelia “Ophie” Harrison’s father wakes her up in the middle of the night and tells her to take her mother to her favorite hiding spot just beyond the tree line. From there, she witnesses a mob of angry white men burn her family’s home to the ground. The next morning, Ophie learns her father was murdered by the same mob earlier that day because he voted—and that’s how Ophie discovers she can see and speak to ghosts.

Ophie and her mother flee to Pittsburgh to live with Great Aunt Rose with hopes of starting over. Rose tells Ophie that the women in their family have been seers for generations, aiding the ghosts trapped in this world so they can transition onward to the next. It’s their duty to help bring the ghosts peace so the human world can remain peaceful as well. In Pittsburgh, Ophie and her mother take jobs at Daffodil Manor, where they meet Mrs. Caruthers, the wealthy estate’s sickly, irritable matriarch, and her benevolent son, Richard. Daffodil Manor is also home to a full staff of house servants and a whole host of ghosts. 

Ophie gradually befriends the kind but elusive ghost of Clara, a servant whose unsolved murder occurred in the manor, which keeps Clara tied to it, unable to pass on. But Clara’s ghost can’t quite remember the details of what happened to her, so Ophie is determined to uncover the murderer as well as their motive. In doing so, she risks unearthing secrets about the dead that threaten to put the living directly in harm’s way.

Ophie is a compelling, realistic heroine with a strong sense of justice and duty. The hopefulness and idealism she’s able to retain, in spite of the horrors she’s experienced and the death that surrounds her wherever she goes, ultimately become her saving grace. Though the story’s pacing is uneven at times, Ireland conceals a massive reveal so expertly that even the savviest readers won’t see it coming.

In an author’s note included in advance editions of the book, Ireland writes that she wanted to explore the question, “How do we grieve when the ghosts of our loss appear in the everyday suffering around us?” Ophie’s Ghosts offers a moving answer through Ophie’s unwavering sense of what is just—for both the living and the dead.

Nothing has been the same for Hazel or her family since Mum drowned in a kayaking accident. Hazel sees danger everywhere and never leaves the house without her blue “Safety Pack.” Her little sister, Peach, knows and feels much more than she lets on. And Hazel’s surviving parent, Mama, doesn’t laugh or smile as much anymore. Worst of all, Mama has spent the past two years moving them all from one state to another, even though Hazel desperately wants to go home to California. 

When they land in Rose Harbor, Maine, for the summer, Mama reconnects with an old friend from her childhood whose daughter, Lemon, is intent on befriending Hazel (whether Hazel wants to be friends or not). Suddenly it seems that Mama might have entirely different plans for their family than Hazel realized. 

Author Ashley Herring Blake’s first middle grade novel, Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, received a Stonewall Honor in 2019. Her third, Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea, is a masterful depiction of what it’s like to experience a deep loss as a child and the sometimes unexpected ways that grief can manifest in young people. Blake doesn’t hesitate to vividly describe the pain that Hazel feels but also fills the girl’s story with plenty of light and comfort, whether it’s the beauty of the sea or a growing connection with someone who understands how she feels. Blake often includes LGBTQ+ characters in both her middle grade and YA novels, and she incorporates a character’s nonbinary identity with the perfect balance of straightforwardness and sensitivity.

Blake’s gorgeous prose will stir deep emotions within readers, and her descriptions of the seaside setting are full of lovely sensory details. It’s heartwarming to watch Hazel heal with help from the sea, reawakening to her dream of becoming a marine biologist. This story of a girl navigating the choppy waters of grief toward a brighter shore is heart-rending but full of hope.

As an amnesiac shape-shifter, there are a lot of things Trouble does not know. They don’t know where they came from, or why the StarLeague is hunting them down and keeps calling them a dangerous escaped criminal. They don’t know the meaning of basic concepts like cows, lunch or art. But when Trouble stows away on the smuggler ship Hindsight, they make some important discoveries, including words like family, smile and home.

In Sarah Prineas’ Trouble in the Stars, readers join Trouble and the multispecies crew of the Hindsight as they evade the StarLeague’s relentless General Smag and his warship, the Peacemaker. Hindsight’s crew initially doesn’t trust their stowaway, and Trouble spends much of the book pretending to be a human boy and concealing their shape-shifting abilities. However, amid midnight snacks with Captain Astra, strategy games with the gruff lizardian Reetha and vegetarian meals with tusked cargo manager Telly, Trouble and the crew begin to bond. As Trouble's relentlessly good nature wins everyone over, a sweet and natural family dynamic forms.

Trouble’s ability to shape-shift makes them a wonderful and entertaining narrator. They take many forms throughout the book, and each results in a new set of senses and spectrum of emotion. They evocatively describe navigating by smell while in rat form and surviving the vacuum of space in the form of a blob of goo. They’re also quick to point out the quirks of the human form, such as the way human eyes leak water when they’re miserable. Trouble’s shape-shifting also introduces unpredictability to the book’s many action scenes, as they find themselves in a range of high-stakes situations that can only be solved through the clever use of Trouble’s ability. Escapes, chases and one fantastically elaborate heist keep the plot moving at a thrilling pace.

Trouble is skeptical when Captain Astra tells them that the stars sing if you "know how to listen." But as they learn more about themself and the universe, their remarkable empathy helps them discover endless ways to listen, to see and to connect with others. Trouble in the Stars is a hilarious and heartwarming look at what it means to be human, have a home and hear the stars sing.

Math. Science. Geography. These still make sense to Cora. They’re subjects with right and wrong answers, things that can be explained through reason and logic—unlike what happened to her sister, Mabel. In Newbery Honor author Jasmine Warga’s The Shape of Thunder, 12-year-old Cora and her former best friend, Quinn, are dealing with the repercussions of the day Quinn’s older brother brought a gun to school and killed four people, including himself and Mabel. Can Cora and Quinn heal their friendship after something like that? Or, better yet, can they actually change the past?

It’s been a year since the tragedy. Cora spends most of her time participating in Junior Quiz Bowl, meeting with her therapist and pushing her father to learn more about their family’s Lebanese heritage. Quinn spends most of her time alone. No one wants to talk to her, and her parents barely speak anymore, except to fight. When Quinn sends Cora a mysterious box on her birthday, it contains a glimmer of potential—to make things right, to rewrite what happened.

Alternating between Cora’s and Quinn’s perspectives, The Shape of Thunder provides a heartbreaking yet hope-filled look into two lives that have been forever altered by an act that neither of them committed. As they are drawn back together by their curiosity about and eventual belief in the possibility of time travel, Warga offers glimpses of the deep friendship Cora and Quinn used to share. Grief, anger, blame, fear and confusion swirl inside them both, and Warga excels at depicting how each girl experiences their emotions differently. Cora can’t eat pizza anymore because it reminds her of all the times she and Mabel ate it together, while formerly obedient Quinn takes a forbidden shortcut through the woods to get home from school each day because following the rules no longer seems important.

Moving and beautifully written, The Shape of Thunder is an important book that will push readers to consider what they would do in an impossible situation, and how far they would be willing to go to change it.

Pawcasso is a joyful graphic novel from acclaimed author-illustrator Remy Lai (Pie in the Sky) that abounds with silliness, camaraderie and a few white lies.

A dog wanders around town, holding a basket in his mouth. There’s a shopping list inside the basket, but why is the dog shopping on his own? Where is his owner? And where will he go next? Jo is bored, upset that her father has left on yet another extended work trip and eager for a distraction. When she sees the dog pass by her house, she slips out of her yard and follows him into the cleverly named Dog Ears bookstore, where a children’s painting class is being held in an upstairs meeting room.

The class is so enamored with the charming dog that they name him Pawcasso and invite both him and Jo back for the next class, under the mistaken impression that the dog belongs to Jo. Though she wonders where his owners are, Jo effectively adopts Pawcasso, going so far as to give him a bath after he rolls in something stinky. She quickly comes to love the attention she receives when everyone believes that Pawcasso is her dog.

But not all of Jo’s neighbors find Pawcasso charming. It turns out that the Duchamp family has submitted a petition to the city council that would require all dogs to be leashed, and the town quickly becomes divided over the issue. How can Jo protect Pawcasso when he doesn’t even belong to her?

All over town, children and adults work together to support their side of the debate in an excellent depiction of civic engagement. Characters respectfully stand up for their beliefs, gather support and follow through. Lai’s candy-colored, cartoon-style illustrations are a delightful complement to this cute, clever romp. The book is full of well-executed canine puns and jokes, including Jo’s fabulously phrased apology: “I made a Chihuahua-sized lie, but it snowballed into a Great Dane-sized lie.”

Readers who enjoyed Lai’s two previous illustrated middle grade novels will love Pawcasso, her first graphic novel. It’s a gentle story of community, forgiveness and redemption.

Libby lands in trouble at school for painting a blazing sunrise on a boring, empty wall. During her punishment, she comes across a trinket that belonged to her former art teacher, a rock with the message “Create the world of your dreams” etched into it. “Here is someone who got me,” Libby thinks, and pockets the stone. Ann Braden’s second middle grade novel, Flight of the Puffin, depicts how impactful it can be for a young person to feel ‘gotten’ by someone.

Chapters alternate between four children: creative Libby; football player Jack; math and puffin enthusiast Vincent; and T, who lives on the street with their dog, Peko. Braden builds moving portraits of these characters as they struggle with the unachievable expectations placed on them by their parents. For instance, Libby’s passion for spreading joyful, colorful art with a positive message isn’t appreciated by her mom, who takes away her art supplies, while Jake collects signatures for a petition. All four characters are united by their openness to new ideas to help heal their world.

The children empathetically portrayed in Flight of the Puffin demonstrate courage and strength as they remain faithful to who they are. In this emotional book, Braden movingly underscores the simple truth that everyone needs love, companionship and acceptance.

Newbery Medalist Karen Cushman (The Midwife’s Apprentice; Catherine, Called Birdy) loves to write about “gutsy girls figuring out who they are.” The titular character of War and Millie McGonigle is yet another outstanding creation.

Twelve-year-old Millie knows all too well what it’s like to endure a personal and a national crisis simultaneously. It’s September 1941. Over the summer, as World War II raged in Europe, Millie’s beloved grandmother died on Millie’s birthday. No wonder Millie feels that the world is “full of war and death.”

Just before she died, Gram gave Millie a diary and instructed her to use it to remember good things. Now Millie keeps her “Book of Dead Things” like a talisman, jotting down notes and sketches of things she sees, such as an octopus caught by a fisherman on the San Diego beach near her home. She’s also developed a ritual of writing her last name in the sand over and over, which she hopes will keep death away from her family.

Money is tight for the McGonigles, but everyone pitches in to help the war effort. After Mama becomes a welder and Pop gets a job as a clerk at the Navy Exchange, Millie is left to oversee her younger siblings, including Lily, who has weak lungs. Gram’s absent-minded cousin Edna also moves in, making the family’s tight quarters even tighter. As Millie seeks freedom outdoors, she finds joy in a new friend and develops a crush on an older surfer.

As always, Cushman exquisitely captures her story’s historical setting. Readers will feel the San Diego sun on their shoulders as Millie steers her rowboat into warm bay waters and the sand between their toes as Millie explores the mud flats. Millie’s winning first-person narration is filled with 1940s slang like “holy mackerel” and “good gravy,” as well as references to “The Lone Ranger,” Bob Hope and the ongoing fear of polio. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the McGonigles sleep in their clothes and keep suitcases packed in case they have to evacuate, and their blackout curtains make Millie feel as though there is “not a glimmer of light left on earth.”

Despite such serious topics, War and Millie McGonigle is a lively book filled with humor, love and transformation. Millie gradually learns to navigate her grief, deal with her fears and shift her focus from war and death to life and the living. Though Cushman roots the story in tangible details of the ’40s, it has much to offer contemporary readers. Gram, for instance, was a crusader who felt that all girls should know “songs of protest and the phone number of your state representative.” Millie follows in her grandmother’s footsteps and repeatedly intervenes to prevent bullying against kids of Italian and Japanese descent.

Reminiscent of Katherine Paterson’s sensitive portrayals of grief, War and Millie McGonigle acknowledges the suffocating enormities of fear, injustice and tragedy Millie experiences while revealing a path forward. As Gram tells Millie, “Life’s not hopeless. We can do something about what worries and scares us. . . . Despite the horror, people care, work together for a better world, and bravely fight back.”

In The One Thing You’d Save, a teacher named Ms. Chang invites her students to participate in a thought exercise. If their house caught fire, what one thing would they choose to save? Each child, along with Ms. Chang, considers, chooses and then explains their selection. The responses vary widely, ranging from the practical (a wallet, an expensive laptop) to the sentimental (a beloved hand-knit sweater, the program from a New York Mets game) to the lifesaving (an insulin kit).

Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park (A Single Shard) presents the story through narrative poems made up of first-person internal monologue and spoken dialogue. The students’ interactions range from playful to serious, lighthearted to profound, as they consider which objects are most important to them. Rich with youthful attitude, Park’s verses provide a wonderfully nuanced portrayal of the preoccupations, loves, losses and aspirations of a diverse group of children and their teacher. 

Debut illustrator Robert Sae-Heng’s grayscale images envision the objects the students describe, as well as scenes of their homes, the classroom, the night sky, the city and more, though the scenes never include the speakers themselves. Occasional full-spread illustrations offer wordless moments that encourage the reader to rest and contemplate before moving on. 

As the characters discuss, share and interpret their ideas, The One Thing You’d Save forms a delightful portrait of a group of learners in community with one another. In a brief note, Park explains that her verses are variations on a Korean poetry form called sijo, which consists of three lines of 13 to 17 syllables. She writes, “Using old forms in new ways is how poetry continually renews itself, and the world.” It’s impossible not to feel a sense of renewal from this thoughtful book.

“It’s not about winning; it’s about having fun.” That’s what parents and coaches always say—but it’s not always what they mean. In Rivals, Tommy Greenwald’s second novel set in the fictional town of Walthorne (after 2018’s Game Changer), having fun is immaterial when it comes to a high-pressure middle school basketball season between the Walthorne North Cougars and the Walthorne South Panthers. Everyone wants to win, and they’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Students from both wealthy Walthorne North and working-class Walthrone South have a lot riding on this basketball season. Cougar Austin Chambers wants to live up to his dad’s basketball legacy, but no amount of practice with his private coach is going to make him grow eight inches overnight. Panther Carter Haswell knows he’s talented enough to be an exceptional player, maybe even to win a college athletic scholarship, but skill and ability don’t always equate to passion for the game itself. And Alfie Jenks isn’t a basketball player at all. The self-professed “least-coordinated person ever born” dreams of becoming a sports reporter, but she soon learns that investigating the world of middle school athletics means uncovering truths that could shake her community to its core.

Along with appealing first-person narratives from Austin, Carter and Alfie, Rivals also incorporates epistolary elements including text messages, blog and message board posts and transcripts of radio interviews. As the drama of the season propels the plot forward, Greenwald explores the racial, gender and socioeconomic divides in Walthorne in ways that feel wholly organic to the story. He digs deeply and critically into the no-holds-barred, win-at-all-costs environments experienced by many middle and high school athletes. 

Rivals features plenty of thrilling basketball and all the turmoil of a fierce rivalry, but what lingers is its indictment of a harmful culture created by adults—parents, coaches and school administrators—that shapes youth sports and, ultimately, young people themselves. 

When 13-year-old Olivia climbs aboard her aunt and uncle’s RV with her prized camera and her 16-year-old sister, Ruth, she’s both excited and trepidatious. She has two big plans for this trip: first, to dig up a time capsule that she and Ruth buried in California before moving away three years ago; and second, to surprise Ruth by revisiting the places where they took photos together during their cross-country move to Tennessee, photos of them having a blast and doing the silly things sisters do, before Ruth started sliding into what Olivia has dubbed “The Pit,” a difficult and ongoing experience with depression. 

Although Ruth has changed since their last trip together, Olivia is still optimistic about her plans. After all, “who wouldn’t be excited about a cross-country road trip in an RV? Digging up buried treasure? And exploring pirate ships?” Ruth, for one. She’s acting distant, hooked up to her old iPod at all times, her energy and enthusiasm lagging. Olivia feels responsible for her older sister, and she tries everything to pull Ruth out of “The Pit.” As they travel across the country, Olivia struggles to understand that she can’t take responsibility for her sister’s mental health or happiness.

Author Sarah Allen’s second book, Breathing Underwater, uses accessible yet lyrical language to depict Olivia’s attempts to recapture the joyful memories she and Ruth shared in the past. Olivia’s first-person perspective sheds light on the swirling mix of love, guilt and responsibility that she feels for her sister. It also allows Allen to sensitively describe what depression looks like when it’s experienced by a young person, as well as the impact it can have on their family. Notably, Allen offers no quick fixes and no saccharine, orchestrated happy ending. Olivia cannot heal her sister, but the girls do find a way forward together in a way that feels authentic and true to who they have each become.

Breathing Underwater is a lovely, important book that will be an especially welcome balm for any young reader who loves someone with mental illness. Olivia’s love for her sister shines through on every page and reinforces what a powerful thing it is to simply be there for someone.