Life looks bleak for 10-year-old Nitty Luce, who, after escaping Grimsgate Orphanage, steals a pouch full of strange, shimmering seeds. Things take an even stranger turn when she encounters a circus elephant about to be hanged for supposedly killing her trainer. In a moment of mutual desperation, Nitty befriends the elephant, named Magnolious, and the pair makes a bold escape.

That’s the action-packed opening of Suzanne Nelson’s tender-hearted Dust Bowl fantasy, A Tale Magnolious. The runaways are taken in by a brusque, lonely farmer named Windle Homes in the dying town of Fortune’s Bluff. Nitty also befriends Twitch, a sickly boy determined to bring down dastardly Mayor Neezer Snollygost, who wants to flatten the town and build high-rises.

In an intriguing author’s note, Nelson explains that her fantastical novel was inspired by a photograph of a circus elephant named Mary who was publicly executed in 1916 in Erwin, Tennessee, after killing her trainer. Once Nelson saw the horrific image, she dreamed of a girl running through a town square, carrying a mysterious stolen object, finding shelter between an elephant’s front legs. The tale Nelson went on to write has an old-fashioned, Dickensian feel and plenty of vocabulary flair, with names like Miz Turngiddy and words like catawampus. It’s also an allegory about empowerment when adults are intimidated by an evil politician. In Fortune’s Bluff, it’s kids to the rescue, with the help of one mighty elephant.

This is a walloping romp that delivers an important message: “Each and every one of us has a say when it comes to what is right.”

No one expected 7th-grader Jamie Bunn to be called into the principal’s office. No one thought that quiet, artistic Jamie would be the one to violate her middle school’s strict Honor Code, especially not while trying to help a cute boy named Trey cheat on a test about Jane Eyre. And to make things worse, Trey’s sister, Jamie’s long-time nemesis, posts Jamie’s revealing apology letter to Trey for everyone to see.

Now, Jamie must live the consequences, which means summer community service at the Foxfield Public Library. There, she meets three caring adults who epitomize what we love about public libraries. There’s the warm and loving Sonia, an immigrant from Puerto Rico who makes everyone feel welcome; the committed director, Beverly, battling to save her library from budget cuts; and part-time worker Lenny, who loves to bake and harbors a not-so-secret crush on Sonia. Jamie’s perspective broadens further as she is drawn into the life stories of patrons like Wally, an elderly film lover who brings a flower each week and a homeless man she calls Black Hat Guy.

Tan’s debut novel is a warm-hearted look at some of the ways in which community libraries touch lives in unexpected ways. Jamie’s growth is believable and will ring true to young readers. And it goes without saying that book lovers of all ages can always make room for another story centered in a bookstore or library, especially one that features Jane Eyre.

In Laura Tucker’s All the Greys on Greene Street, Ollie, a gifted artist, is content living with her artist parents in a loft in New York City. But then her father leaves for France, accompanied by a woman whom Ollie and her mother playfully nickname “Vooley Voo.” One week later, the playfulness has vanished, and Ollie’s mother will not get out of bed. Ollie strives for normalcy as she attends school, hangs out with her two best guy friends and goes to visit Apollo, her father’s partner in his art restoration business. Due to her mother’s urgent, hushed phone conversations and a desperate man who appears at their door, it becomes apparent that a mystery surrounds Ollie’s father and his departure, which coincided with the disappearance of a valuable piece of art. This is a lot for 12-year-old Ollie to puzzle out, and she becomes fiercely protective of her mother and refuses to accept the truth of her mother’s depression.

There is a beguiling naturalness to Tucker’s depiction of Ollie and her troubles. Ollie is observant and reflective, allowing the reader full access to her emotional upheaval. Her best friends are genuine and loyal but clumsy in their attempts to help. Apollo is kind but distantly adult. Perhaps the most lovely element of the book is the infusion of art: Ollie’s art, rendered in pencil drawings, is sprinkled throughout the book, and there are discussions of art technique, art in museums and, most instructively, the provenance of art displaced by war.

All the Greys on Greene Street is a poignant and well-structured debut novel that’s sure to satisfy young readers.

Debut author Chris Baron steps into the arena of children’s literature with a beautiful novel-in-verse, All of Me. Baron takes on a number of difficult forms for middle grade reading—first-person narration, a theme of self-discovery, free-verse poems—but he does so with grace.

Ari Rosensweig has just moved to California from New York. That would be hard enough to deal with, but Ari is also bullied for being overweight, and his parents’ marriage is tenuous at best. Through the course of one summer between seventh and eighth grade, Ari makes a number of changes, most of which stem from his self-loathing and issues with body image. When Ari’s mother attempts to set him on the path of controlling his diet, he finds that it can lead to internal discoveries about himself as well as external changes in his appearance, but it can’t solve all of his problems.

Baron’s free-verse poetry is immediate and lyrical, allowing us access to Ari’s thoughts and feelings in a way that prose would not. Baron’s first-person narration allows the reader to experience Ari’s pain and revelations, both of which are balanced with moments of grace and beauty. All of Me is highly recommended for readers of all ages.

Her birth certificate says Roberta Briggs, but the 12-year-old who keeps a daily birding chart and leaves out strands of hair plucked from her brush for birds to make nests with is (fittingly) better known as Birdie. The last three years have been filled with changes since her firefighter father died in the line of duty and she and her mother moved from Philadelphia to live with her great-grandma Maymee. In Eileen Spinelli’s novel-in-verse, Birdie, this spunky tween has even more big changes ahead in her small town of Hadley Falls.

In Hadley Falls, life has a steady rhythm. Birdie hangs out with her best friend, Nina, and plays Scrabble with a boy named Martin on Saturdays. Birdie’s mother works days at a diner and spends evenings at home. Her quirky grandma Maymee plans the details of her own funeral. And through it all, Birdie keeps on smiling on the outside, even if her insides don’t quite match—and she still talks to her father’s photo at night.

Birdie has started to wonder if Martin could be her first boyfriend, but with the arrival of summer, suddenly Nina and Martin are a couple, her mother is dating police officer Fred, and even Maymee puts down her coffin catalogs and picks up curlers when a new gentleman arrives at church. Realistic verse expresses the disappointment, anger and fear Birdie experiences as she worries about losing her friends, her mother’s love and her father’s traditions. Yet with time, patience and community, the resilient girl learns that friends and family help the heart grow and that moving forward in life doesn’t mean forgetting the past.

Kate Allen’s noteworthy debut novel, The Line Tender, is a big-hearted story about friendship, grief and recovery set in the 1990s. Twelve-year-old Lucy Everhart’s summer is off to an exciting start when a fisherman in her town of Rockport, Massachusetts, catches a great white shark. Lucy and her best friend and neighbor Fred are overjoyed because they’re working on a field guide of local animals for their science project, with Lucy illustrating and Fred providing scientific data of specimens they encounter, and this will be an exciting entry. But the great white stirs up memories of Lucy’s mother, a shark expert who died of an aneurysm five years ago.

Unfortunately, another tragedy strikes and kills another loved one, and Lucy and her father, a diver for the police department, are left to piece their lives together once again. Allen seamlessly weaves in intriguing facts about marine biology throughout this story, and her narration is strikingly authentic and subtly nuanced, whether she’s describing a joyful afternoon trip into Harvard Square or the painful moments when Lucy’s grief is so all-consuming that she can’t eat for fear of choking.

Lucy’s heartache does help lead her back to her mother, “whom everyone seemed to know better” than she did. She becomes engrossed in a research proposal her mother wrote just before her death to tag and study great white sharks, whose numbers seem to be increasing off the New England coast. 

A grieving Lucy is buoyed by a cast of helpful adults, including her father, a kind neighbor, her science teacher, a guidance counselor, and a number of researchers who worked with her mother, including one who says, “All life is interconnected. If one species moves away or becomes extinct, the order shifts.” Numerous middle grade books deal with grief, but few do it so beautifully―and hopefully―as The Line Tender.

Gail Shepherd’s colorful debut novel The True History of Lyndie B. Hawkins takes place in 1985 in the town of Love’s Forge, Tennessee. As the story opens, 11-year-old Lyndie and her parents have lost their home and have had to move in with her grandparents.

Lyndie is an outspoken, curious girl who loves research, history and getting to the bottom of things, but her quest to discover the truth about her father’s job loss and her parents’ strained relationship isn’t easy. One thing Lyndie does know is that it’s best to keep her daddy’s habit of hiding George Dickel Tennessee Whiskey in his glove box a secret from her opinionated grandma, who isn’t so sure that her son, a wounded Vietnam vet, quite knows how to raise Lyndie into a proper young lady. As for Lyndie’s mom who’s moved into a small room alone: “When she’s not at her new job at Miller’s Department she stays holed up in that room chewing on Bayer aspirins.”

In addition to Lyndie’s troubled family situation, her best friend Dawn is dealing with the outcome of her own issues; Dawn’s family is taking in a boy named D.B. who’s just come from a reform school. Eventually, both Lyndie’s father and D.B. realize they cannot outrun their past, and that they instead must undertake the long, hard work of trying to recover.

This richly voiced story explores themes of PTSD, the hope of redemption and the importance of friends and family. Full of humor and insights, The True History of Lyndie B. Hawkins will give middle school readers much to think and talk about.

In the follow-up to her acclaimed debut, The Secret of Nightingale Wood, author Lucy Strange explores the harrowing history of England at the start of World War II through the eyes of a young, fearful girl.

Eleven-year-old Pet has grown up on the southeast coast of England with her mother, father and older sister, Mags. Her tight-knit family tends to their village’s lighthouse and has always led a quiet, happy life. But as the 1940s begin and the war moves ever closer, Pet’s beloved cliff tops turn from an idyllic place for a child to roam and play to a battleground of barbed wire and a target for bombings. As the war rages, everyone in her family seems to have a secret to hide, which strains their bonds when they need connection the most. Pet, a girl prone to freezing up in times of fear, will have to learn to be braver than she’s ever been if she hopes to untangle the mysteries shrouding her family. 

Set during one of the most momentous periods of world history, Our Castle by the Sea is a powerful novel, and the steady pace of the narrative will keep readers engrossed. Strange’s incorporation of coastal English folklore and legend adds a layer of depth to both the narrative and characters, making for a rich and immersive reading experience. At the heart of the story is Strange’s heroine, however unlikely, as well as her journey of growth and change during a time that absolutely necessitated it.

Reminiscent of both Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, bestselling children’s author Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Greystone Secrets: The Strangers is the first installment in the author’s latest intricately written and emotionally resonant sci-fi series.

When the three young Greystone siblings—Chess, Emma and Finn—hear the news that three siblings on the other side of the country who share their exact first and middle names, as well as their birthdays, were kidnapped, they can’t help but find it odd. Then, when their mom goes on a “work trip” out of town the very next day, they become even more suspicious and take the investigation into their own hands.

As they dig around the house for clues, they soon discover a coded message from their mom that leads them to a hidden room in their basement. But as they’re padding around for answers to the mysteries, the Greystone siblings accidentally find themselves in a whole different, parallel world—one that’s eerily similar to their own but strange enough to be dangerous if they don’t stay smart and stick together.

Adventures, mysteries and puzzles abound, and Haddix’s high-concept middle grade novel deftly uses her understanding of young readers’ innermost thoughts and emotions to bring her characters to life as they learn the importance of trusting themselves—and each other—in order to survive.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Margaret Peterson Haddix.

In The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, author Ashley Herring Blake (Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World  ) once again sensitively explores the intense emotions of adolescence.

In the aftermath of her heart transplant, 12-year-old Sunny decides to seize this second chance at life with gusto. But Sunny never could have imagined the adventures this new heart would afford her. First, there’s the reappearance of her missing biological mother, Lena, who left Sunny in the care of Lena’s friend Kate eight years earlier. But Lena exhibits little of the vigilant love that pours from Kate, and many of Sunny’s big questions about Lena remain unanswered. Then there’s the heartache lingering from Sunny’s former best friend’s betrayal. But this particular problem may be assuaged by the arrival of Quinn, a bright girl who cheerfully signs on as Sunny’s new BFF. 

This leads to the third big issue in Sunny’s life: kissing. Sunny is keen to have her first kiss. The problem is, she doesn’t like any of the boys she knows. When she dreams of that first kiss, Sunny dreams of kissing a girl.

Sunny is deeply reflective on the pain of parental abandonment and the taboo surrounding same-sex attraction, and she expresses her thoughts through song lyrics that she scatters about town. Her journey of self-discovery is authentic, peppered with fear and daring, mistakes and triumphs. This is a lovely novel for young readers who are exploring their own sexual orientations, as it honestly examines both the social risks and the happy potential for self-acceptance and romance. 

Debut author Aida Salazar’s The Moon Within is an important coming-of-age tale of a girl learning about her changing body and all of the questions and revelations that come along with it. 

Celi Rivera is a mixed-race girl with black, Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage, and she’s on the brink of womanhood. She’s dealing with her first attraction to a boy, her best friend’s questions about gender identity and, most infuriatingly, her mother’s insistence that she participate in a moon ceremony when her first period arrives. Celi prefers to keep her journey private, but her mother can’t understand why Celi doesn’t want to celebrate these exciting changes with her community. Soon, a rift forms between mother and daughter, but can the two find some common ground and mark this event in a way that honors both of their wishes?

Salazar’s use of verse in this story adds a layer of raw emotion and honesty that makes the reading experience all the more poignant. The Moon Within is both unique and universal, relatable to women and girls everywhere and singular in its context within Latinx culture. Salazar handles this story with beauty and grace, giving young girls a picture of what it means to stand in your own power and reclaim your own story. 

Actor Thomas Lennon—who has appeared in TV’s “Reno 911!” and films such as Memento—and acclaimed illustrator John Hendrix (The Faithful Spy) have teamed up for a rollicking new fantasy adventure series.

Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles follows 14-year-old Ronan, a new recruit in a secret unit of the Irish police focused on the crimes of leprechauns. Ronan’s parents have been jailed for theft, but Ronan is convinced they were framed by the faerie folk. Overcoming his own shortcomings (severe food allergies, social awkwardness), Ronan sets out to prove his parents are indeed the innocent, bookish curators they claim to be.

Humor wins out over drama here, and Hendrix’s detailed maps and full-page illustrations of Ronan’s exploits contribute to the tongue-in-cheek nature of the tale. Footnotes that define Irish terms also add to the hilarity, but along with its high spirits and high jinks, Lennon’s debut novel is clearly rooted in an authentic love and appreciation of his Irish heritage. And best of all? Ronan survives to win a promotion just in time for his next adventure, which is sure to delight fantasy fans eager for a new hero.

National Book Award nominee Lisa Graff (A Tangle of Knots) deftly captures that brief moment in childhood when you’re young enough to believe in magic while also coping with very real, serious life concerns in her latest novel, Far Away, about a girl must decide what to believe in—and whom to trust.

CJ Ames has been on the road for pretty much all of her 12 years. She’s traveled to all 48 contiguous states on a huge tour bus with her Aunt Nic, who has developed a growing reputation as a medium. Nic’s ability to communicate with the spirit world comes in handy for CJ since her mother, Aunt Nic’s sister, died when CJ was a newborn. Fortunately for CJ, she’s been able to maintain a closeness with her mother thanks to Aunt Nic’s gifts.

But when Aunt Nic reveals that her mother is being drawn “Far Away” and will no longer be able to communicate with the living, CJ is distraught. Along with a new friend, she follows a series of mysterious signs that, she hopes, will help her find a tether that can draw her mother’s spirit back to her. But what she finds is something even more profound—and more devastating.

Far Away is a novel about learning to appreciate the truth, even when it’s not pretty, and knowing when to trust in portents—and when to trust the knowledge in your own heart.