An autistic student discovers his hidden abilities in Mandy Davis’ powerful debut.

Ten-year-old Lester Musselbaum is not happy about attending public school after his mom gets a library job and can no longer home-school him. School is filled with plenty of unnerving situations, including Ricky the classroom bully. To his advantage, Lester is good at science, especially aerodynamics, but Lester’s interest in this field makes his mom uncomfortable, having lost her husband to a rocket explosion five years before. She worries that Lester will follow in his father’s footsteps.

When Lester enters the school’s science fair and wins, the achievement only exacerbates Ricky’s bullying. And when a classmate offers Lester a piece of advice to remedy the intimidation, it turns out that following through with his friend’s counsel is easier said than done.

Lester’s narration provides a view into the world of an intelligent boy with qualities of autism spectrum disorder. He’s an underdog determined to find a way, even when it doesn’t seem possible. With a constantly moving plot that unfolds in short chapters, engaging dialogue and a well-defined cast, Superstar is an inimitable story bound to become an award-winning favorite.

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Kelly Ferguson is a self-described “invisible”—a middle schooler several social circles removed from the popular kids—but she has a plan to change that. Since learning about the camp where popular princess Deanna spends her summers, Kelly has been saving up by doing every odd job she can find. Kelly is reluctant to try babysitting at first, but the promise of earning big bucks for watching Netflix all night is convincing. The only catch is that Jacob, the boy she’s babysitting, is adamant that there’s a monster under his bed. And he’s right. When Jacob is kidnapped by a group of scary creatures, Kelly gets swept along in the rescue efforts of a secret society of monster-fighting babysitters, sworn to protect the children in their charge. Together, Kelly and the babysitters must find Jacob, defeat an evil bogeyman and save the world from a never-ending nightmare, all before Jacob’s parents get home.

The first in a planned series of middle grade humor/horror books, Joe Ballarini’s debut is a cheeky romp full of truly disgusting trash monsters, a quirky and smart protagonist and the unique setting of a Rhode Island coastal town beset by mayhem. Kelly and her new companions are inspirational figures: sassy and determined in the face of the really scary stuff, despite their youth. Despite some awkward narrative moves (such as excerpts from video camera footage), A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting has more than enough charm to leave readers curious about Kelly’s next adventure.

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Frank (short for Francesca) is tired of being the target of Neil Noble and his cadre of neighborhood bullies. She can’t shake them, can’t avoid them and doesn’t know where to turn. But when lumbering, awkward outsider Nick comes to her rescue, Frank finds herself drawn to—and repelled by—his weirdness. There’s no reason the two should be friends, but in an eerie way, they both need to be friends.

Soon, Frank visits Nick’s house, where she unearths odd and uneasy secrets and learns more about his unusual family. What are the strange shadows Frank sees? Where is the mysterious, mellifluous music coming from, and what does it mean? Is Nick in danger, and if he is, can Frank save him like he rescued her? Drawn in by the enchanting atmosphere—a combination of skilled text and dark drawings—readers will be eager to follow the familiar and haunting music along with Frank.

Similar to Neil Gaiman’s tales that intertwine real life and fantasy— often with a very thin dividing line—A.F. Harrold’s latest novel offers a story of friendship, loyalty and the unknown. With a creep factor enhanced by atmospheric illustrations by Levi Pinfold, The Song from Somewhere Else will entrance those making their own journeys from tweendom to adolescence.

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Children’s Top Pick, July 2017

Toys. Books. Friends. Television. Fidget spinners. If you had to make a list of 10 amazing things about Earth in order to keep it from being destroyed, what would you pick? In Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Millions), this is exactly the situation Prez finds himself in after Sputnik, a strange little boy (or is he a dog?), rings the doorbell that isn’t there and invites himself into Prez’s world.

After his granddad gets into “a wee spot of bother,” Prez is taken to Children’s Temporary Accommodation (an orphanage) and then placed with the Blythe family on their farm. As talkative as Prez is silent, the Blythe family provides a good, if not peaceful, place for Prez to live. But everything is turned upside down when Sputnik enters their lives. Sputnik appears as a dog to everyone but Prez, and he telepathically “tells” Prez that he is an alien from another planet and is on Earth to keep it from being destroyed. Most importantly, he needs Prez’s help to go out into the world and discover the 10 things that will stop the destruction. Thus begins Prez’s most eventful summer ever.

Wrapped in humor and absurdity, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth deftly examines a number of issues, including dementia, foster care and how to see the beauty in common, everyday things. While not a simple, straightforward book, readers who take the time to explore Earth with Prez, Sputnik and Granddad will be rewarded with joy, laughter and the knowledge that it might actually be possible to find your own place in the universe.

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Award-winning author Gordon Korman has a knack for understanding the preteen brain. His characters’ voices have always had the ring of authenticity, allowing the reader to fully understand the motivations and feelings of the full cast. Korman’s latest standalone book, Restart, is no different.

The story begins with eighth-grader Chase Ambrose waking up in the hospital with amnesia. His mother, whom he doesn’t recognize, informs him that he fell off the roof of their house. Chase not only doesn’t remember that—he remembers nothing of his 13 years.

At first, Chase is desperate to get his memory back, but as he begins the school year and pieces together who he used to be, Chase starts to think that maybe it would be best not to know. Why are so many kids afraid of him? Why doesn’t he like the guys who used to be his best friends? Can he really start over as a “new” person?

Told in first-person chapters by Chase and several other characters, the story builds as the lost parts of a life are found and refitted. By using multiple voices—especially those of the bully and the victim—Korman has taken the subject of bullying to a new place. This refreshing perspective, along with his ability to uncannily tap into the middle schooler’s mind, makes Korman’s latest a must-have for any school or library.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through 8th level Catholic school.

Newbery Honor winner Patricia Reilly Giff explores a lesser-known side of World War II in her latest novel for middle grade readers. Set in the French border region of Alsace, which was passed between Germany and France during the 19th and 20th centuries, Genevieve’s War opens in the summer of 1939. Thirteen-year-old Genevieve has lived with various relatives since her parents’ deaths, and is about to return to the United States after a summer spent on her grandmother’s farm. Though she’s made a close friend in her chatty neighbor and has a crush on the pharmacist’s son, Genevieve hasn’t connected with the taciturn, hardworking Mémé. Nevertheless, when Mémé twists an ankle just before Genevieve’s departure, the teenager impulsively decides to stay to help her grandmother survive the occupation everyone knows is coming.

As the war drags on, Genevieve has plenty of reasons to regret her choice. The German army arrives, commandeering sleeping space in the farm and the family’s horse and cart. She fears for the lives of friends who join the resistance movement, and must question the loyalty of others. Yet over the years, Genevieve and Mémé build a grudging, mutual respect, and Genevieve gains a greater understanding of her father, who lived through a similar occupation and devastating war as a teenager.

Though the novel’s narrow focus doesn’t allow for a full view of the complex history of Alsace in WWII, it does capture small details of the way life changed for the Alsatian people under German occupation: wedding rings worn for a lifetime moved to the right hand, per German custom; children forced to speak German instead of French in school; the sudden mistrust of lifelong neighbors who might be spying for the occupiers. Genevieve’s mistakes, as well as her acts of bravery, will encourage children to imagine what they might do in a similar situation. Genevieve’s War provides an intriguing glimpse into a region’s turbulent past through the eyes of one American girl.

The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts by Newbery Medal winner Avi follows a few exceptionally bad days in the life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts, a bright, cheery, fleet-footed 12-year-old beset on all sides.

From the first pages it’s clear that the world has conspired against Oliver. His mother died when he was a small child, leaving him in the care of his wholly negligent father, who has abandoned him without a shilling to his name and no indication of when he may return. With his father away, the local religious and government authorities—all of whom are scoundrels, thieves or cheats—take it upon themselves to ensure Oliver is locked away in the poorhouse. And all this occurs before Oliver becomes entangled in an armed robbery and indebted to the most notorious criminal in all of England.

Given the sheer number of nefarious characters Oliver encounters, the story never lags. But after 300 pages of one enemy materializing after another, of one narrow escape following upon the next, the incessant drama begins to feel excessive. Despite an overabundance of external conflict, The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts as a whole succeeds due to Avi’s authorial prowess. His nimble turns of phrase, his lean yet heavily descriptive prose and, perhaps most centrally, the inimitable voice he has crafted for his narrator save this novel from a fate as bleak as its protagonist’s.

Quicksand Pond, hidden off the Rhode Island coast, is a place of lingering mystery and illumination for a pair of 12-year-old girls.

When Jessie Kettel arrives with her family to spend the summer in a rental cottage, she finds an old raft and meets Terri Carr, who tells her about two boys who drowned there and a long-ago murder in a huge house on the edge of the pond. The daughter of those murdered parents survived, and old lady Henrietta Cutting still lives in the house.

Jessie learns that the wrong person was imprisoned for the murders: Terri’s great-great-grandfather. The consequences of this injustice continue to the present, as Terri’s family is still considered “no good.” When Terri is forced to hide from her abusive father in a makeshift camp on the edge of the pond, she and Jessie form a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn-type friendship. Meanwhile, Henrietta watches the pair through binoculars, struggling to find a way to make her long-ignored voice heard. Gradually, Jessie finds herself becoming “sucked into” Terri’s messy, difficult life, and so she retreats from her friend just when she is needed most. Quicksand is everywhere, it seems.

When Terri is accused of setting fire to the Cutting home, history seems to be repeating itself. Jessie learns some wrenching lessons about discrimination and judgment, and her testimony becomes crucial to her friend’s future.

Newbery Honor winner Janet Taylor Lisle has written a riveting chronicle of a monumental summer, one with no easy answers.

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Before there was New York with its towering skyscrapers, solarbuses, robot crews and even mechanical snails to clean windows, there was the Old York of wealthy twin geniuses Theresa and Theodore Morningstarr. And before their mysterious disappearance in 1855, the eccentric pair left behind a puzzle that remains unsolved. In award-winning author Laura Ruby’s York, a modern steampunk mystery for tweens, three seventh-graders accept the challenge of the Old York Cipher.

Jewish twins Tess and Theo Biedermann, named after the legendary cipherists, and Cuban-American Jaime Cruz all live in one of the original Morningstarr buildings. When a sleazy real-estate developer buys the property and gives residents 30 days to vacate, the young sleuths decide to solve the cipher to find its treasure and save their homes. Chapters told from their various perspectives reveal each tween’s personality and strengths, from intuitive Tess’ “catastrophisizing” to Theo’s logical mind to artistic Jaime’s fascination with superheroes.

The search for clues takes these clever kids through forgotten parts of the city and into heart-racing adventures. Readers learn more about how codes and ciphers work along with the sleuths, who can’t help but wonder if the cipher is manipulating them. Enthralling details and nonstop action will draw fans to this series opener.

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Twelve-year-old Joplin lives with her divorced mom and her mom’s friend, Jen, in a basement apartment in New York. She’s bullied at school, and even worse, her best friend has dumped her. The death of Joplin’s famous grandfather—and the spreading of some unsavory publicity about him—gives her peers a golden opportunity to tease her, leaving her devastated and lonely.

In her grandfather’s room, Joplin discovers a metal tin crammed with pieces of an old ceramic platter. The plate, depicting a young girl standing by a pond and a windmill, is repaired and hung in her room. Joplin wishes the girl would be her friend, and the next day, the girl vanishes from the platter and waits for Joplin in the garden, where she introduces herself as Sophie. Around the same time, Joplin befriends Barrett, a boy from school. Suddenly Joplin has two friends, and together they try to return Sophie to being a flesh-and-blood girl in Holland. Their quest takes a sinister turn when they discover they are being stalked by a man who knows Sophie’s secret.

Joplin’s struggle to find her place after her grandfather’s death, both at home and at school, will ring true to readers. The magical platter offers an engaging vehicle to help Joplin sort fact from fantasy, reality from longing, and to learn the true meaning of friendship.

Billie B. Little is the Founding Director of Discovery Center at Murfree Spring, a hands-on museum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Children’s Top Pick, June 2017

Eleven-year-old Lauren Hall is short. And a geek. And also a boy stuck with a girl’s name. That might not be so bad if, like the grandfather for whom he was named, Ren was athletic. And so, even though he’d rather be reading comic books, Ren wakes up early every day to train for the upcoming cross-country team tryouts. If only he liked to run.

To make matters worse, Ren and his parents have moved into his late grandparents’ house, eight miles away from town and his best friend, Aiden. Aiden isn’t just growing taller; he seems ready to outgrow their friendship, too.

All in all, summer’s a disappointment—until the morning Ren sees pigeons tumbling through the sky above the neighboring farmhouse. The birds belong to his new neighbor, Sutton Davies. Sutton has bright, dyed-red hair and a fierce determination to make her Birmingham Roller pigeons into champions. It won’t be easy to train the kit of pigeons to execute in unison the distinctive backward somersault, especially now that her dad is in the hospital after a car accident. But maybe Ren can help.

Darcy Miller’s middle grade debut features a rural setting in southern Minnesota and engaging characters; especially welcome is a boy narrator navigating shifting social dynamics. Don’t be surprised if readers want to return to the library, eager to find out more about those fascinating birds known as Birmingham Rollers. Roll is a great summer book for pigeon fanciers—or any young reader who fancies a good story.

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Independence Cake.

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s hard for today’s digital-savvy teens to imagine life before smart phones. But that’s just what happens when Branton Middle School bans the devices due to student misuse and overuse. It doesn’t take long, however, for students to figure out other ways to keep their hands busy and their thoughts—both positive and negative—passed around.

Soon, yellow sticky notes dot school lockers. Then they start appearing everywhere, with sayings ranging from innocuous and funny to pointed and hurtful to downright mean. What no longer could be said anonymously via text is now sent, just as surreptitiously, on innocent-looking notes (which eventually become banned, too).

The lunchroom clique of Frost and his buddies get caught up in the war of words, and soon their own circle is threatened. New friends arrive, allegiances are formed (and broken), and along the way, the tight-knit group starts to wonder about their future. Will they remain friends? Will people stop taking sides? Will the sticky-note war continue? What happens when the words hit a little too close to home?

John David Anderson has put a contemporary twist on coming of age in the digital age, with a refreshing view of how sticks, stones and words can, indeed, hurt. Posted is a well-crafted middle grade novel addressing the timely topic of bullying.

Shari Green brings readers a touching follow-up to her well-loved middle grade debut, Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles.

Macy McMillan feels like her life is falling apart. First her mom decides to get married, sells Macy’s childhood home and forces her to move in with her new stepfather and younger stepsisters. And now Macy’s gotten into a fight with Olivia, her best friend since transferring to Hamilton Elementary from Braeside School for the Deaf. If only Mr. Tanaka hadn’t assigned that dumb family tree project and Olivia hadn’t started asking about Macy’s dad. And to top it all off, Macy’s mother wants her to help their elderly neighbor, Iris, pack up her huge collection of books for her upcoming move. Iris doesn’t even know sign language, so how can Macy’s mom expect them to understand one another? But soon, through the sharing of handwritten notes, beloved books and message-sending cookies, Iris and Macy have developed a language—and a bond—all their own. This unlikely friendship may be just what Macy needs to make it through the trials ahead.

Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess is brimming with charm and plenty of references to other great books to appeal to the story lover in all of us. Written in verse—a format that serves to heighten the emotional potency of the novel—this heartfelt story shines with genuine hope and the promise that, no matter what challenges lie ahead of us, there is always a bright destination if we keep ourselves open to the unexpected people and opportunities that can help us get there.