Maggie the worrywart is starting middle school—but her worries go beyond school. The news reports on a murderer in their neighborhood. The neighbor’s rabbits may soon be someone’s dinner. The neighborhood bully might get a gun for his birthday . . . well, there’s just not much that Maggie finds calm about her little world.

With her omnipresent worries, stream-of-consciousness thinking and constant “deal making” to ensure her safety (for example, she must do everything in even numbers to ensure her preferred outcome), Maggie’s not unlike most tweens, really. But her OCD demeanor definitely impacts her two sisters and everyone around her. She worries when Dad doesn’t come home on time—“Please don’t let Dad’s plane crash, please don’t let Dad’s plane crash,” she repeats. And everyday occurrences take on weighted meaning in Maggie’s overwrought life. Several short chapters focus on Maggie’s mantras and behaviors as she checked that all the doors are locked and that no one is under the bed.

Life is hard when you’re 11, and everything around you is changing—not all for the better—and you realize that many things are not within your control. While this book may be relatable to others anxious about school, friends and the community at large, the repetitiveness of Maggie’s behaviors and stream-of-consciousness writing may be off-putting to some.

Lisa Graff’s National Book Award nominated A Tangle of Knots was a delight, and the story continues in A Clatter of Jars. It may be surprising to readers to find that the main character is not the same, but as Graff so beautifully untied the “knots” in the earlier book, so does she bring all shards together in the new one.

It is five years after A Tangle of Knots, and the central characters are all present at Camp Atropos for Singular Talents. In this world, which is in all other respects like our own, people may be born with one unusual Talent. The abilities range from levitation of objects to being able to make the perfect cake for everyone you meet. The kids in Cabin Eight will discover that their Talents—or in some cases, their secrets—will soon be necessary to solve a mystery.

Graff’s writing is consistently excellent, and she once again deftly weaves each character’s story together until the denouement. Sometimes the reader can see where the disparate pieces will knock into each other, but sometimes not. It’s as if each character is a glass jar rattling against another until they all settle down. Graff’s prose and plot construction is as pleasing as ever, and A Clatter of Jars will appeal to a wide range of readers. 

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

Newbery Medalist Karen Cushman crafts a spellbinding tale teeming with an endless array of magical delights and charming characters, including a shape-shifting mouse and a wizard whose chosen method of soothsaying is with cheese.

Grayling meets these quirky characters and many others on her journey to discover the dark force that has been targeting the kingdom’s magic makers. Grayling and her motley crew must crisscross the kingdom in search of her mother’s stolen grimoire, the spell book they hope will hold the key to restoring peace and tranquility in the kingdom. And although she and her companions face innumerable dangers and trials along the way, Grayling soon realizes that her greatest challenge is to believe in herself.

In this world, magic is commonplace but no less enchanting. This adventure story has the feel of a classic fable, and Cushman’s writing brims with grace and warmth.

This article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Trust is a challenging concept for 12-year-old Ben Coffin, who has spent most of his life in foster care with people constantly coming and going like a revolving door. But how can a boy’s life not change when a stray dog enters, even “a girly little dog” named Flip? In When Friendship Followed Me Home, Paul Griffin brings his hard-hitting, realistic fiction, once reserved for teens, to the middle grade set.

Meeting Flip is equally as important as meeting spunky Halley, dubbed the “Rainbow Girl” for the colorful accessories she wears to complement her appearance after chemotherapy treatments. Together, the trio forms a fierce bond, but when tragedy strikes the only home that has made Ben feel safe, he is left to forge his own way again.

People come and go from Ben’s life, but they all have a meaningful impact and give him the sense of belonging he needs—and deserves. Even hardened readers will find it impossible to keep a dry eye at the bittersweet ending, which is full of love’s magic.

This article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Claire Legrand’s Some Kind of Happiness explores life’s awkward silences, ruined moments and hidden truths.

Eleven-year-old Finley navigates life like a prisoner. Held captive by a darkness from within, she struggles with terrible thoughts, night sweats and unexplained bouts of panic. Though overwhelmed by depression, she hides it well. Even her parents, busy with their lives and failing relationship, don’t know. The chronic sadness is Finley’s secret—as is Evermore, a land of her invention where twisted trees, trolls and a dark castle let her escape to a magical realm. 

When Finley is sent to live with grandparents she’s never met, she feels even more like a stranger in her own skin. However, once she sees the forest behind her grandparents’ house, she recognizes it as her Evermore—a wild place, a real place where she can be herself. Cautiously, she invites her cousins—and the Bailey boys, whom they’ve been told to avoid—into her world, and soon the summer’s trajectory takes on a life all its own.

Legrand’s greatest strengths are her elegant restraint and her visceral portrayal of her characters from the inside out.

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 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Things aren’t at all simple in Wolf Hollow, and that’s the great strength of Lauren Wolk’s first novel for middle school readers. Wolk has created a fascinating world in the mountains of Pennsylvania in 1943, where heroine Annabelle announces in the opening line, “The year I turned twelve, I learned how to lie.”

Throughout this novel, Annabelle is learning how to see the world, especially after she wins a camera and a lifetime supply of film and processing. Before long, the camera is borrowed by Toby, a hobo-like World War I veteran who forever transforms Annabelle’s vision, and whose photographs play a pivotal role in the unfolding drama.

Annabelle is being tormented by a new classmate in the one-room schoolhouse she attends. Betty Glengarry, a “dark-hearted girl who came to our hills and changed everything,” not only threatens Annabelle and her younger brothers, but her bullying spirals so completely out of control that a girl named Ruth suffers a horrifying accident.

Betty points a finger of blame squarely at Toby, prompting a tragic cascade of events in which only Annabelle is left to expose the truth. As Annabelle soon realizes, “The truth was so tightly braided with secrets that I could not easily say anything without saying too much.”

Wolf Hollow is fascinating and fast-paced, driven by Wolk’s exquisite plotting and thoughtful, fine-tuned writing. Reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, this isn't a book full of happy endings; instead, it gives young readers a ringside seat at real-life moral complexities. As Annabelle explains, “The year I turned twelve, I learned that what I said and what I did mattered.”

The bond between father and son carries heft and import—and also joy, contempt, resentment and much more. The relationship presents a challenging dynamic at any age, but the question of the most important thing a father can do for his son is answered in different ways by different people. In this collection of seven vignettes, Newbery Medal-winning author Avi returns to the short-story form to take on this weighty subject. 

In one of the heavier stories, “Dream Catcher,” Paul is forced to meet the grandfather he never knew. Infused with sharp humor, “Tighty-Whities or Boxers” shows readers Ryan’s ingenious way of learning more about his potential stepfather. And in the more somber yet hopeful “Departed,” Luke arrives home to learn his father has died, and he continues to be haunted by his ghost. 

The questions here are universal: Where is home? What is family? How should I feel? And the situations presented hit upon pertinent and relatable themes—acceptance (or lack thereof), respect, anger, uncertainty, death, change and dysfunction. But along with the harsh realities, Avi’s characters experience awakenings and life-changing interludes as they seek to answer the titular question: What is the most important thing for fathers and sons? 

Avi is a master of just about anything he writes, and this collection is superbly crafted and ideal for discussions.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Avi for The Most Important Thing.

This article was originally published in the May 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Timothy McGrother was born a boy but knows she is really a girl. Norbert Dorfman is battling bipolar disorder as well as being the new kid in town. Coming home from a Dunkin Donuts run, Norbert sees Tim in a dress and sandals, and his heart skips a beat for the girl with long blond hair and piercing blue eyes. The two meet again when Norbert spies Tim perched on the branches of the great banyan tree outside the local library. Norbert tells Tim that he prefers the name Dunkin, while Tim keeps mum about her preferred name, Lily. As an ensuing friendship unfolds, Lily and Dunkin each narrate their stories, exposing the good, the bad and the ugly that come with keeping secrets from themselves and from others. Despite their differences and conflicts along the way, Lily and Dunkin’s thread of friendship remains tight. 

Lily and Dunkin is a seamless blend of issues faced by transgender children and those who live with mental illness. Donna Gephart sensitively handles their choices and shows realistic consequences, holding nothing back when it comes to what it takes to be seen, and loved, for who you really are. But as these two eighth graders figure out their places in the world, friendship and honesty shape the true core of this strong coming-of-age novel.

This article was originally published in the May 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel is a charming, authentic and insightful account of an immigrant trying to make sense of America. The book also provides a peek at a moment in history when relations between Iran and the U.S. were severed due to the hostage crisis of 1979.

Delightful young Zomorod Yousefzadeh goes by Cindy, taken from “The Brady Bunch” television show. She is a new arrival to Southern California, where she must figure out the unwritten rules of middle-school conduct while serving as her mother’s interpreter. Her desire to fit in, combined with her kind-hearted embarrassment of her parents, leaves readers rooting for Cindy’s success.

This coming-of-age story takes a dark turn with the backdrop of heightening tensions between the U.S. and Iran. As an Iranian, Cindy is expected to be the expert on this political crisis, and she does her best to help people understand the situation. But she doesn’t fully succeed in her attempts to educate people, and she and her family become victims of a hate crime and racist remarks. While trying to discover the perpetrators of the crime, Cindy realizes she, too, was quick to unfairly judge a classmate.

After her award-winning memoir, Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas makes a humorous mark with her semi-autobiographical middle-grade debut.

This article was originally published in the May 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Award-winning author Frances O’Roark Dowell’s latest book is a page-turner, but not in the traditional sense. The plot doesn’t race along at breakneck speed, nor is there a life-or-death mystery to be solved. There are no car chases or spies or evil villains. Readers of Dowell’s previous books will understand that the appeal of Trouble the Water is the author’s top-notch character building and storytelling prowess. 

The town of Celeste, Kentucky, in 1953 is no hotbed of politics and civil rights. But to Callie, neither is it the worst place to live. The 11-year-old watches the black people live and prosper on her side of town and only quietly resents the new white school and the whites-only swimming pool. When the white boy Wendell comes to her side of town and wants to help her find the owner of a mysterious wandering dog, she figures that’s his business. Yet as their friendship blooms, tensions come to a boil.

Dowell has given us a true hero in the character of Callie, a girl just realizing what segregation means in her life. Understanding that she can’t change the world unless she’s willing to change herself first, Callie’s journey by way of a small mystery and meaningful friendship brings the past and present together in unexpected ways. The anticipation to see how Callie ends up in this turbulent time will keep you turning the pages, as promised.

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

This article was originally published in the May 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Children's Top Pick, May 2016

Genie Harris’ parents are “having problems” and are heading to Jamaica to figure things out. In the meantime, 11-year-old Genie and his older brother, Ernie, are to spend a month with their grandparents in North Hill, Virginia. Most of Genie’s story revolves around his blind Grandpop—his conflict with Genie’s father, his regrets over Genie’s Uncle Wood, his lonely seclusion in a room surrounded by caged birds, his intention to go through with a ritual to make Ernie a man on his 14th birthday, and the mystery of the yellow house out back, with a tree growing right through it and swarms of birds ever present.

Jason Reynolds’ middle-grade debut demonstrates the love of story apparent in all of his novels. With a palpable affection for his characters and their slowly unfolding stories, Reynolds writes with subtle humor and an ear for the apt simile (blind Grandpop’s eyes are “like fogged-up windows”) as he crafts one memorable scene after another. And if it’s Grandpop Harris who is blind, it’s Genie who learns to see and come to understand that even his “white-toothed crazyman” of a grandfather is brave. Though his family history includes suicide, a death in war, parents with problems and a grandfather with fears and regrets, Genie’s penchant for asking questions and observing those around him serves him well as he learns empathy and sees—in each of his family members and himself—the possibility of change and of making amends for the past.

This article was originally published in the May 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

When graphic designer Art Kane talked Esquire magazine into letting him take a photo of as many jazz musicians as he could gather in front of a Harlem brownstone in the summer of 1958, he wasn’t sure anyone would show up. But show up they did, 57 consummate musicians. The personalities whose faces lit up this rare Harlem photo are brought to life in Jazz Day, a beautifully illustrated nonfiction picture book, through the graceful poetry of Roxane Orgill and the vibrant paintings of Francis Vallejo.

Orgill’s language, paired with Vallejo’s vivid illustrations and biographical notes on many of the musician pictured, builds a rich backstory for Kane’s photo, which is presented as a black-and-white fold-out near the book’s end. Orgill’s rhythmic words capture the spirit of the crowd, from Count Basie to Maxine Sullivan, from Thelonious Monk to Dizzy Gillespie, detailing their clothes, their quirks and their sounds. And the crowd of boys who played around the musicians on the street all day? They get their due, as does photographer Kane.

Sadly, when Kane invited the musicians to show up and be counted on that hot summer day, he asked them to leave their instruments behind, and, similarly, the book doesn’t include an accompanying CD. Readers of Jazz Day will doubtless be inspired to search out the music of these American jazz icons. A detailed bibiliography accompanies Orgill’s poems. 

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

Action and adventure are the name of the game in The Nocturnals: The Mysterious Abductions, the first book of a new series featuring a squad of anthropomorphized nocturnal animals: Dawn the calm, resilient fox; Tobin the good-natured pangolin; and Bismarck, the French-speaking, know-it-all sugar glider.

This unusual trio decides to band together as the Nocturnal Brigade after suddenly being forced to scare off a menacing black snake. Soon they are joined by other animals―bats, a jerboa, coyotes, kiwis, a wombat and more―to investigate an even bigger problem: the mysterious disappearance of a variety of animals.

Adding to the exploits are the animals’ many personalities, as they navigate both their allegiances and natural suspicions of one another. “It is most confusing!” the ever-loquacious Bismarck proclaims. “Muy befuddling! Absolument absurd!”

Eventually, the group finds itself drawn deeper into the dizzying dangers lurking in a vast underground cave, where a crowd of crocodiles holds the missing animals hostage. The big finish involves a high-stakes (and creative) hockey-like game that pits the Nocturnals against the Crocs, led by a menacing reptile named Boris. The Nocturnals are literally playing for their lives, and by the end of the game, the seemingly evil Boris proclaims, “What a thrilling turn of events! My heart can’t handle it! My cold blood is boiling!”

Tracey Hecht’s first novel is an appealing page-turner for middle-school readers, combining a likable cadre of unusual animal characters with fast-paced, clever dialogue and, of course, plenty of suspense.