Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli has created another middle grade masterpiece with Dead Wednesday, a riveting tale about the awkward transition between middle school and high school and finding the confidence to be yourself along the way. It’s a serious story of life, death and mortality that speaks to tweens in an authentic and frequently funny voice.

As he did in his Newbery Honor novel, Wringer, which depicted a town’s ritualistic requirement that 10-year-old boys wring the necks of wounded pigeons shot during an annual festival, Spinelli places another seemingly ghastly tradition at the center of Dead Wednesday. In this case, 14-year-old Robbie Tarnauer, known as Worm, is thrilled to finally be participating in “Dead Wednesday,” a day in which eighth graders wear black T-shirts and take on the identities of the town’s teenagers who have recently died. Adults spend the day ignoring them, treating them as though they’re dead and therefore invisible. 

It’s intended, of course, to be a solemn affair that warns rising high school students against dangerous, reckless behavior and its deadly consequences. For the kids, however, Dead Wednesday is a day of strange freedom and pranks. 

Worm receives the identity of 17-year-old Becca Finch, who suddenly, mysteriously appears in her pajamas on his desk at school. She can interact with him but is invisible to others. “Worm,” she informs him, “we have to work together on this. I don’t know what’s going on any more than you do.” Worm and Becca get to know each other and eventually enjoy each other’s company. In a particularly moving passage, Becca explains the events leading up to her death and addresses the aftermath.

Spinelli takes an odd situation and makes it odder, but in his talented hands, the unbelievable becomes not only believable but also unputdownable. Worm is a shy, thoughtful and self-conscious protagonist whose quips will immediately draw readers in. He usually wears a watch, “a kind of compass that positions him in time and space,” but as he interacts with Becca, it becomes clear that all bets are off. Dead Wednesday is about how we choose to spend what time we have and how quickly that time can be lost. “You taught me more in one afternoon than I learned in my whole life,” Worm tells Becca. These are unforgettable characters, and Dead Wednesday is another award-worthy book from an author cementing his legacy. 

On the very first page of Lesa Cline-Ransome’s Being Clem, a knock at the door brings terrible news: Clem’s father has been killed in the 1944 shipyard munitions accident that will become known as the Port Chicago disaster. Clem’s mother, unable to find anyone willing to hire a Black secretary, is soon behind on the rent, and his older sisters, busy with friends and boys, have little time for their little brother’s grief. 

When Clem skips a grade to attend middle school, he begins hanging out with Lymon, a new boy in town. But when Lymon begins to bully another new boy, Langston, who shares Clem's affinity for the local public library, Clem must make a difficult choice. Should he go along with Lymon, despite his misgivings, or stand up for the new boy—but risk losing a friend in the process?

As if all this weren’t enough for one boy to deal with, Clem's swimming lessons aren’t going smoothly either. How can Clem grow up to be a Navy man like his father when he’s afraid of the pool? Clem may know all the answers in school, but there's still so much he doesn't understand.

Although Being Clem can be read independently, fans of Cline-Ransome’s previous books Finding Langston (which received a Coretta Scott King Honor) and Leaving Lymon will appreciate the daring narrative choice to place Clem in friendships with her two previous protagonists—who are, in turn, one another's enemies. 

Cline-Ransome also fills Being Clem with rich details from 1940s Chicago, including the real-life, award-winning DuSable High School swim team, whose members were Black and against whom some white teams refused to compete. Cline-Ransome explores societal issues of race, class and gender alongside Clem's more internal struggles to express difficult emotions like fear and sadness. Being Clem gains poignancy from Clem’s personal journey as he mourns the father for whom he is named and whose legacy he hopes he will one day honor. 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Being Clem author Lesa Cline-Ransome reveals the real-life inspiration behind Clem and his friends.

Eleven-year-old Loah Londonderry lives in a ramshackle house with an “alarmingly crooked turret.” Her classmates regularly dare each other to peek into her house’s windows, and Loah usually responds with a timid wave.

Loah’s mother, an ornithologist, is doing fieldwork in the Arctic, so Loah is being looked after by the Rinkers, a brother and sister who are “old, scrawny, and white as napkins.” Miss Rinker is strict, but her brother, Theo, the purveyor of bedtime gummy bears, is Loah’s favorite.

Loah’s mother has been gone for 67 days (and counting) when their turret-topped home comes to the unwelcome attention of Mr. Wayne J. Kipper, the local housing inspector. Then an accident lands Theo in the hospital just as Loah learns of her mother’s plan to go off the grid and risk a dangerous solo pursuit of the rare bird that is Loah’s namesake. When all seems truly lost, Loah is befriended by a rangy, outspoken homeschooler named Ellis.

The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe is an appealing coming-of-age story with broad emotional range. Author Tricia Springstubb writes with a deft hand, and her moving and complex third-person narration contains frequent humorous asides to the reader.

The novel is set against a lush backdrop of the natural world, full of the calls and movements of the birds that Loah’s mother has devoted her life to studying. Readers will learn about arctic terns, hairy woodpeckers and chickadees, and there’s even a supporting turn at a critical moment by the family of vultures who live in the turret. The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe is a lovely reminder of the importance of paying attention to nature and protecting the creatures that share our world.

Una and Julien live very different lives. Una is the wealthy magister’s daughter, while Julien is the son of a poor botanical forager. But these two children have something in common: They each possess the rare supernatural gift of a heightened sense, Una for scent and Julien for sound. Their gifts shape how they interact with the world around them and add a layer of wonder to ordinary, everyday life. But when Julien’s father is imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and Una becomes embroiled in Julien’s fight to free him, both children begin to realize that their gifts may be useful in ways they never could have imagined. In fact, they might even hold the power to save lives.   

The Other Side of Luck, Ginger Johnson’s second middle grade novel, is a captivating feast for the senses. Johnson describes sights, smells and sounds in exquisite detail. Julien hears “the singing of sprouts and seedlings stretching and swelling, the hymn of flowers unfurling, the fusion of trees and grasses as they harmonized in their upward reach,” and Una perceives the scent of her father’s unexpected laughter as “spicy, aromatic and somewhat peppery.” 

Despite these sensory delights, Johnson’s story deals with weighty themes of grief, loneliness and identity while exploring complex family dynamics. When Una was 7, her mother died. Afterward, her distant father practically vanished from her life, first because of his grief and then because he remarries a woman who seems to have no interest in a maternal relationship with Una. Una now longs to connect with her mother’s family, whom she has never known. Julien, on the other hand, is close with his loving father, but he misses the mother who died giving birth to him and struggles to keep a brave face in light of his father’s worsening illness. Yet through loss and sadness, neither Una nor Julien loses sight of the beauty in their life, and their gifts become a lifeline to hope. 

Immersive and sensitive, The Other Side of Luck will be enjoyed by middle grade fantasy readers in search of a story full of magic and heart.

Nina Hamza sets an incredibly high bar by placing three classics of children’s literature at the heart of her debut middle grade novel, Ahmed Aziz’s Epic Year. Fortunately for readers, she more than delivers, soaring over the bar with ease. 

Twelve-year-old Ahmed Aziz must move with his family to his father's Minnesota hometown so that his father can receive experimental treatment for a rare genetic liver condition. Ahmed feels displaced and lost, and his Muslim faith and brown skin don’t ease the transition. In Minnesota, he says, “I hated having to explain myself with an adjective. I didn’t feel like an Indian American, and it didn’t matter that I had never been to India, because the color of my skin meant I needed to explain.”

Ahmed’s new English teacher, Mrs. Gaarder, was the best friend of Ahmed’s uncle, who died at age 12 of the same liver condition that now threatens Ahmed’s father’s life. Her class provides the book’s narrative focus: a yearlong group competition in which students will study Louis Sachar’s Holes, Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia and E.L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. At the end of the year, students will challenge her in “Are You Smarter Than Mrs. Gaarder?”—a competition no student has ever won. Ahmed, who’s never enjoyed school and doesn’t like to read, is less than enthused. 

Ahmed Aziz’s Epic Year features not just a riveting and complex plot but also a large cast of fully realized characters anchored by the likable Ahmed, who has a fresh, funny and authentic tween voice. Hamza delves deeply into Ahmed’s fears of loss and grief as he learns more about his uncle, and she portrays a prolonged and dire medical crisis with notable sensitivity. 

The author’s depiction of realistic school scenes, friendships and rivalries is also excellent. At school, Ahmed gets to know a broad group of students, most notably a bully named Jack, who unfortunately lives next door. Their superbly developed relationship provides many opportunities for Ahmed to compare his own experiences to those featured in the books he is studying.

Ahmed Aziz’s Epic Year marks Hamza as a writer to watch and provides engaging opportunities for readers to discover common ground with Ahmed and with the characters he meets during his epic year. Hamza hints at a sequel when Mrs. Gaarder reveals that she’ll lead a similar exercise in her class next year with a study of three of Shakespeare’s plays. We can only hope this is the case.

“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.