Sarah Jean Horwitz ups the quotient of magic, mystery, humor and heart in this riveting sequel to the well-loved series debut, Carmer and Grit: The Wingsnatchers.

Carmer, the gifted inventor and former magician’s apprentice, and Grit, the rebellious princess of the Seelie faerie court, may have escaped the clutches of the Mechanist and his dastardly plans to harness the power of the Fae for his own greedy purposes, but their adventures are far from over. The two unlikely allies-turned-friends are eager to leave the scene of their battle with the evil mastermind far behind them, so they hop into Carmer’s steam-powered house-on-wheels and hit the road. They end up in Driftside City, where they encounter Rinka Tinka’s Roving Wonder Show, the world’s most captivating flying circus. But when the two begin to suspect that stolen faerie magic might be the secret to the show’s success, they find themselves embarking on an investigation that will lead them to places and people they could never have anticipated.

This anticipated follow-up foray into the steampunk world of Carmer and Grit is packed with just as many elements of whimsy and awe as the first installment, from a circus made up of giant animal-shaped airships to faerie cowboys and underwater palaces. Add in a cast of intriguing, mysterious new characters and a dose of fright sure to produce goosebumps, and you’ve got the recipe for a sequel that's sure to have readers asking for more.

It’s a battle between corporate avarice and Wild Magic in The Boggart Fights Back, the third installment of Susan Cooper’s Boggart series.

It’s been five years since Allie and Jay Cameron visited their Granda in Scotland. The twin siblings are in for an adventure of mythic proportions soon after their arrival. William Trout and his monstrous corporation intend to convert the Loch Linnhe area—including Castle Keep, Granda’s store and his family home—into a luxury resort. Wasting no time, Trout’s crew sets to work by clearcutting ancient trees. Even though the whole Cameron family and the magical Boggart of Castle Keep, along with his cousin, the Loch Ness monster, get involved to put a stop to the disastrous demolition, all of their efforts are in vain—until Allie and Jay discover the truth about Trout’s plans. That’s when the real magic begins.

We then meet the Old Things: the Caointeach, Each Uisge, the Blue Men of the Minch, and the dreaded Nuckelavee. Newbery Medal winner Cooper has created another shape-shifting adventure with these mythical creatures, right in the heart of Loch Linnhe’s breathtaking landscape. Punctuated with all things Scottish, Cooper draws her middle grade audience into a fast-paced plot replete with lilting dialogue, Gaelic phrases, traditional songs, and “the defiant regular beat of a drum.” The Boggart Fights Back is an appealing read that provides readers with an appreciation for the environment and a chance to learn a bit about Scotland’s mythology in the process.

On the first day of seventh-grade science class, Natalie Napoli, the narrator of Tae Keller’s debut novel, learns that the scientific method begins with observation. And while Mr. Neely is a new teacher, and therefore “all optimistic and stuff,” Natalie finds herself drawn to his lesson on the scientific method. After all, she’s the daughter of a botanist who even wrote a book about miracle plants.

When Mr. Neely encourages Natalie to enter a city-wide egg drop contest, it makes her realize how much has changed since her botanist mother became depressed. “The old Mom would have loved this project. She would have sat with me for days, brainstorming different questions and experiments,” Natalie says. These days Natalie’s mother has all but disappeared into her room.

In attempting to apply the scientific method to her family’s situation, Natalie decides on a hypothesis and action plan. If her mom can once again connect with the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchid she once studied, maybe she would be “excited by science and life and questions” once again. Natalie’s experiments lead to a daring break-in at a botany lab, and, in the end, the hope of an emotional breakthrough of another sort.

Natalie is an engaging narrator whose struggles at home and with her peers ring true. Educators will be especially pleased by the STEM connections in The Science of Breakable Things, as well as illustrations of experiments related to the egg drop contest. And as for a conclusion, it’s irrefutable: Readers will be eager to see what Natalie chooses to investigate next.

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen.

“It was the summer of 1988, / When basketball gave me wings / and I had to learn / how to rebound,” says 12-year-old Charlie Bell. Though he dreams of heroics on the court, truth is, he’s not that good and avoids playing. His father just died, and he’s become closed off and consumed by grief. Frustrated, Charlie’s mother sends him off to his grandparents’ home for the summer. Charlie doesn’t want to go, feeling that “soaring above / the sorrow and grief / seemed impossible.” But because he’s only 12 years old, Charlie doesn’t understand that he’s not the only one suffering a loss. Charlie lost a father, but his mother lost a husband, and his grandparents lost a son.

This novel-in-verse, the prequel to the Newbery Medal-winning The Crossover (2014), includes comic-style illustrations by Dawud Anyabwile that portray Charlie’s hoop dreams, Granddaddy’s pithy reflections on life and plenty of homespun philosophy drawn from basketball. As Charlie begins to open up to the world and his place in it, he rebounds with the love and support of his family and friends. Charlie finds many things over the course of the summer—a restored sense of joy, a new sense of normal and his game.

This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fresh from winning the 2018 Newbery Medal for her previous novel, Hello, Universe, Erin Entrada Kelly brings readers another beautifully written story of hard-won friendship. Charlotte Lockard and Ben Boxer may live hundreds of miles apart—she’s in Philadelphia, he’s in Louisiana—but they have plenty in common. Both are passionate about their interests. Both excel at online Scrabble (which is how they met). Both are having a hard time navigating their first year of middle school, and they’re experiencing family crises. And even though they don’t know it, both Charlotte and Ben are each other’s only real friend.

Charlotte is busy navigating shifting allegiances at school and her father’s illness at home. Meanwhile, Ben launches a student council campaign, in part to distract himself from his parents’ divorce. When Charlotte and Ben chat during their Scrabble games, they inevitably overstate their happiness and understate their loneliness—but will their long-distance friendship give them the courage to be more authentic, both online and in real life?

Kelly’s novel takes on some challenging topics, from divorce to aging parents to bullying. Both Charlotte and Ben are flawed—they misrepresent themselves and are sometimes unkind—but these flaws are also what make their stories feel honest and real. For the kids who read this story, Charlotte’s and Ben’s stumbles will make their journey toward happiness so much more satisfying.

This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Twelve-year-old Candice is spending the summer at her late grandmother’s old cottage in Lambert, South Carolina, while her Atlanta home is being renovated. Her parents’ divorce, while amicable, has left Candice feeling adrift. It can be lonely to resettle in a new town, even temporarily. But then Candice meets Brandon, a shy, self-proclaimed book nerd like herself. While rummaging through the attic, the two unearth an old letter from the city’s mysterious benefactor that contains clues to a treasure hunt. The prize is a substantial sum of money. Candice is eager to solve the mystery, not just to alleviate her boredom but also to vindicate her grandmother—Lambert’s first African-American city manager—who was forced out of her job when she tried to solve this very puzzle. Armed with ingenuity and a love of reading, Candice and Brandon bike throughout town, interviewing longtime residents and combing through the town’s archives.

With a nod to The Westing Game, Varian Johnson has penned a smart mystery that deftly explores the history of racial segregation in the South, modern-day discrimination, friendship, love and bullying. Interspersed throughout the novel are the historical narratives of those at the center of the puzzle. Their unique voices and compelling backstories enrich the plot and provide context for the mystery. Beautifully written, this complex story will captivate an adult audience as well.

This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Tiffany Parks’ debut middle grade novel will create a frisson of excitement in readers with its promise of a secret passageway to a hidden room, a mysterious stranger and a long-lost diary. Even more irresistible is Midnight in the Piazza’s setting: Rome.

When 13-year-old Beatrice’s father decides to take a professorship in Rome, Beatrice is dismayed even though she loves history. However, the Eternal City exerts its magic on even the most reluctant resident, and Beatrice is soon smitten with its charms, including the wonderful Fountain of Turtles in the square outside her window.

When Beatrice hears of the legend and mystery surrounding the fountain, she is determined to separate fact from fiction. Stumbling upon the Duchess Mattei’s diary from the 1500s only creates more complications for solving the local lore. However, not all mysteries are ancient. While looking out her window one night, Beatrice sees someone tampering with the fountain. Since she doesn’t speak Italian, she finds an ally in a bilingual local boy. However, his behavior becomes suspect, and Beatrice begins to think she made a mistake in telling him of her investigation and the discovery of the diary.

Midnight in the Piazza is a pleasurable escapade in the vein of the Nancy Drew series. Beatrice is a clever sleuth, and the Roman landmarks that appear in this book are an added bonus, allowing readers to vicariously experience and learn about some of the greatest architectural treasures in the world.

Melba Pattillo Beals follows up her award-winning adult memoir, Warriors Don’t Cry, with a potent middle grade read that tells the extraordinary story of her childhood as a member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who first crossed the color barrier to integrate Central High School in 1957. A precocious child, Beals listened to the political conversations around her and understood far more than the adults anticipate. As a result of these conversations and the social injustices she and her family experience, she constantly questioned the rules of the Jim Crow South: the differences in drinking fountains, not being provided dressing rooms to try on clothing, and waiting for hours to pay for her purchases because white customers are allowed ahead of her.

Fear was also ever-present in her life. When the Ku Klux Klan rides through her neighborhood, attacking or taking people, she recalls feeling fear, but she also experienced everyday fears such as saying the wrong thing or looking the wrong way. At first, Beals felt safe in her house, but that fragile illusion soon crumbled. Church was the only safe harbor—until the KKK took the sanctity of that place away from her, too. After this horrifying event, Beals turned to her books and became an excellent student. Propelled by her grandmother’s advice that sometimes you have to go where you’re not wanted, Beals is accepted into the first integrated class at Central High School in Little Rock.

Beals includes a stirring epilogue summarizing that year and critical years afterward to help young readers put her story into the context of the larger civil rights movement. March Forward, Girl is sure to inspire young people to take action against injustices in their world.

A 17th-century German girl with a passion for caterpillars and butterflies may seem like an obscure topic for a children’s book, yet Newbery Honor winner Joyce Sidman has painted a stunningly beautiful and accessible portrait of the relatively unknown scientific illustrator and ecologist Maria Sibylla Merian.

Merian was born to a family of printers, but life wasn’t a world of opportunity for a young girl in her day. Still, she managed to absorb her father’s business knowledge and paired it with her passion for nature and drawing. She studied caterpillars and butterflies incessantly, with a fervor many thought odd. Seeking to understand each insect’s life cycle, she sketched and recorded their stages of development and the plants they ate. Her passion eventually took her to the Dutch colony of Surinam, where her observations led to her grandest accomplishment: publishing her own volume on the insects of the South American country.

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science is filled with Merian’s stunningly detailed and colorful botanical drawings created more than 300 years ago. Sidman’s arrangement of the story and its chapter titles (as well as one of Sidman’s original poetic stanzas) smartly draw a parallel between Merian’s growth as an artist and the stages of a butterfly’s life.

This article was originally published in the March 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

“When people on television talk about walls and documents, I never thought they were talking about my mom,” muses Jason Riazi, the 12-year-old narrator of Nadia Hashimi’s action-packed The Sky at Our Feet. Jason always knew his mother grew up in Iran, but he had no idea that she was an illegal immigrant until he watches immigration officials take her away.

Jason never met his father, an Afghan translator who was murdered while awaiting his American visa. Jason’s mom was already studying in America when Jason was born prematurely, but after her husband’s death, she was too frightened to apply for asylum.

After his mother disappears, Jason goes on the run, leaving his New Jersey home to seek help from his mother’s best friend in New York City. There, he meets an epileptic girl who joins him for an exciting avalanche of events and coincidences. As unbelievable as these circumstances may be, young readers will be swept up in Jason’s likable, sincere narration.

Hashimi’s unusual, riveting thriller provides a thoughtful look at the issues facing two tweens who feel like outsiders.

This article was originally published in the March 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Award-winning children’s author Tracy Barrett, known for her retelling of Greek mythology stories and fairy tales, takes a turn in the world of fantasy with her latest book, Marabel and the Book of Fate. As with her other endeavors, Barrett ably gives the genre a good tweak and skewers traditional expectations.

Marabel and her twin, Marco, are royalty in the kingdom of Magikos, a place where the king is guided by the Book of Fate. The book “predicts” any major event that will alter the course of the kingdom, but it can be a little vague on the details. Everyone assumes, for example, that Marco, firstborn of the twins, is the Chosen One who is prophesized to save Magikos. When he is kidnapped by an evil aunt at the twins’ 13th birthday party, Marabel isn’t content to wait and see if Marco rescues himself as the Book says the Chosen One will do. Teaming up with her best friend, Ellie, and a sassy-mouthed unicorn named Floriano, Marabel decides to brave the Impassable Forest and rescue her brother.

Barrett weaves in modern references (getting through the “magic detector” at the door to the party is much like getting through airline security) and generally turns the fantasy world on its head. There is enough mystery and adventure to keep middle schoolers interested, but like many books for this age, what Marabel will discover about herself won’t be too much of a surprise to the audience.

Funny and exciting, Marabel and the Book of Fate is a hit.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth-level Catholic school.

From critically acclaimed author Catherine Gilbert Murdock comes an enthralling medieval adventure story featuring an unlikely young hero sure to win readers’ hearts.

With a hump on his back and an uncanny ability with animals, Boy has never really fit in with the other residents of his small village. And it doesn’t help that his past is shrouded in mystery. He is bullied and mistreated by everyone from the cook to the herdsman, and his only companions are the goats that he cares for at the manor he calls home. But all of that changes the day that Secundus, a pilgrim on a quest across Europe to gather seven relics of Saint Peter, sees Boy effortlessly climbing and jumping from trees, and enlists his help on the journey. Unsure about his motives, Boy is initially fearful of Secundus and what this perilous expedition might entail. But as they travel on together, facing all manner of challenges and triumphs, Boy begins to unravel the secrets of his origin and come into his own in ways that he never could have anticipated.

With a unique, multigenerational friendship at its heart and a style of writing that creates a convincing and immersive medieval atmosphere, The Book of Boy stands above the crowded middle grade adventure bookshelves. Murdock artfully strikes a balance between action and emotion, making for a well-rounded reading experience that has something to offer everyone.

Award-winning author Natalie Lloyd whittles a fortune-telling nursery rhyme (“Monday’s child is fair of face”) into the wacky adventures of seven beguiling children.

Meet the Problim children, each born on a different day of the week: Mona, Toot, Wendell, Thea (Wendell’s twin), Frida, Sal and Sundae. An explosion demolishes the children’s Swampy Woods home, leaving them homeless. Fortunately, moving to another location shouldn’t be a problem, since they have the deed to Grandpa Problim’s Victorian mansion. Regrettably, they have no additional proof that will keep them in the house, and their parents, who are off on a mission, cannot vouch for them. Even more problematic is their next-door neighbor, Desdemona O’pinion, who covets the old mansion and will do everything in her power to turn the neighborhood against the children. With 21 days to come up with evidence of their rightful ownership, the children have to devise a plan to win over their neighbors before Desdemona’s clandestine plan to get rid of the children goes into effect.

Lloyd’s newest middle grade read is nothing less than a rip-roaring, rollicking ride through a wild and wacky world. Indeed, Lloyd has pulled out all literary stops to produce her inimitable cast. Replete with fascinating idiosyncrasies, including a numerically categorized list of farts from the youngest in the troupe, the seven children use their creativity to deal with life’s problems—of which there are plenty, especially with Desdemona continually stirring up trouble. Lloyd’s lyrical narrative and fun-loving storytelling are lightly sprinkled with rhymes, circus spiders, lively plants, a purple squirrel and even onomatopoeia—just to name a few.

The first in a new series that has silver-screen potential, The Problim Children flows from one crazy scene to the next with all the makings of a new favorite.