Casey Snowden lives for baseball, almost literally—his dad and granddad run a school for umpires, where Casey and his best friend Zeke spend all their time. It helps Casey forget his absent mother, who keeps calling to re-establish visitation, and provides inspiration for his future career as an award-winning sportswriter.

Author Audrey Vernick (Water Balloon) brings joy and good humor to a story with some tough realities at its core. The novel culminates in a day when the town comes out to heckle the students while they call a game, to give them a taste of what their jobs will entail. By then, Casey’s faith in his favorite player, his own objectivity and his assessment of his mother have all been challenged, yet he’s resilient. The economic downturn has slowed attendance at the family’s school, but when his grandfather asks if Casey wants to stay, he doesn’t miss a beat: “That’s like asking if I think my blood will always be part of my body.”

A subplot involving Zeke’s reality TV obsession is funny and dovetails with the main storyline in a surprising way. The story Casey decides to write for his school paper leads him to realize he’s not as objective as he’d previously thought, but he takes his lumps with humility. The umpire’s need to confidently make a call in the heat of the moment is something we could all stand to work on.

Screaming at the Ump will be a hit with baseball fans, but this non-fan found it smart, funny, compassionate and a wise look at ethics and integrity in sports and daily life.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunny are back, and so are Madeline and her ex-hippie parents, Flo and Mildred, in this sequel to Mr. and Mrs. Bunny―Detectives Extraordinare! Imagine if Tina Fey wrote a middle grade novel, and you’ll have a sense of the nonstop quips packed into these pages. (For example: “Mrs. Vandermeer’s soccer-mom friends . . . knew that if they didn’t drive their children to some form of entertainment or find some way to keep them occupied every second from school closing until bedtime, the children . . . would resort to staring at the walls until their heads exploded. Suburban homes were very neat, and no one wanted to be picking brain bits off the walls.”)

You don’t need to have read the first book to roll with this one’s many punches. Young Madeline is starting to think about a college fund, but her parents have saved exactly $6.27 when they learn that they’ve inherited a candy shop in England. Meanwhile. Mrs. Bunny wants to be the queen of England. All of this makes sense in Polly Horvath’s rollicking world, and everyone ends up aboard a cruise ship.

Wild adventures ensue, including a stop in the British Museum. Near the end, before Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles appear, there’s a pivotal scene in a bookshop in which a certain popular author named Oldwhatshername shows up, signing her book about “a bunch of wizards” and a “British boarding school.”

The bookstore owner observes: “She looks so very elegant and svelte. Most writers look like they spend their days eating potato chips and sticking their fingers in light sockets.”

National Book Award-winning novelist Polly Horvath puts laughs and excitement on every page. Her latest is a page-turner, but be sure to take time to savor every bit of her wacky, yet sophisticated humor.

Twelve-year-old Jewel has never liked her birthday. Celebrating the day she was born is just another reminder to her family of the brother she never met, 5-year-old John, nicknamed Bird by her grandfather, who tried to fly off a cliff and fell to his death while her mother was in labor with Jewel. It’s more than loss and grief that surrounds Bird’s death; it’s superstition and blame that Jewel has never fully understood. Her grandfather hasn’t spoken since the day Bird died, and her father is sure the nickname “Bird” attracted a Duppy, a Jamaican spirit, that convinced him to jump.

Sick of living in the shadow of a ghost and never living up to her parents’ expectations, Jewel is ecstatic when she meets a new kid in the neighborhood who shares her love of science and climbing trees, who listens to her problems and worries and seems to understand. But when she brings him home, her parents are unnerved, and her grandfather is livid—because the boy's name just happens to be John.

Bird is a heartbreaking story of a girl trying everything she can to fill the hole her brother left in her family. While the majority of the book shows her parents as incredibly sad, too wrapped up in their own grief to notice the love and needs of the child they still have left, the most powerful sections describe their fleeting happiness. Each smile from her mother terrifies Jewel, because she never knows when the next one will come or exactly how to bring it about. Every declaration of pride from her father is hard-won and treasured.

Author Crystal Chan also paints a vivid picture of what it means to grow up in a mixed-race family. Jewel takes pride in her father’s Jamaican garden, but she’s frustrated when her neighbor expects her to be able to speak Spanish, and even more frustrated when strangers ask what she is instead of who.

Bird is a fast read but will stay with you. You’ll remember Jewel’s spirit, what John teaches her about space and the message that there are plenty of ways to show you love someone without actually saying those three words.

Molly Horan has her MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School.

BookPage Top Pick in Children's Books, February 2014

On the heels of solving her first mystery in the Newbery Honor book Three Times Lucky, Mo LoBeau faces more intrigue in her tiny North Carolina town of Tupelo Landing. Just when her adoptive kin buy the old Tupelo Inn, now abandoned and rumored to be haunted, her sixth-grade teacher assigns an oral history report to coincide with the community’s 250th anniversary. Extra credit goes to the student who can interview the town’s oldest member, so Mo decides to interview the ghost of the Tupelo Inn because “[t]here ain’t nobody older than dead.”

Helping Mo form the Desperado Detective Agency’s new Paranormal Division is her steadfast partner and classmate, Dale. As the sleuthing duo employs various methods of communicating with Tupelo’s mystifying resident, they discover that the ghost is a girl who may have been murdered, and that some of Tupelo’s finest—and not-so-finest—may know forgotten clues. As if solving another murder mystery weren’t enough to keep Mo busy, the town’s crotchety moonshiner complicates matters throughout.

As in Sheila Turnage’s debut novel, relationships are key in this Southern story: Mo and Dale’s sibling-like camaraderie; the budding romance of Mo’s adoptive parents, Miss Lana and the Colonel (now that the Colonel’s amnesia has cleared); and the ghost girl’s attraction to newcomer Harm, who eerily resembles his long-lost moonshining grandfather. Mo’s continuing letters to her unknown “Upstream Mother” help her sort out clues in the case—and in life. Small-town charm, clever dialogue and Mo’s unyielding wit are excellent reminders of why the first book was so successful. With The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, readers will fall in love with Mo and her endearing friends and family all over again.

The most exciting part of Carson Fender’s day was supposed to be his role in the fourth-biggest prank in Erik Hill Middle School history (it involved fainting goats). That all changed when a mysterious man pressed a mysterious package into Carson’s hands and ran away, only to be abducted by two men with painted white faces. In Codename Zero, by Chris Rylander, Carson learns quickly that crazy, frightening and awesome things can happen anywhere. Even in North Dakota.

Carson’s first task is to figure out where to deliver the package. He knows that it’s meant for someone at school, but the package makes things hard when it starts shouting warnings about “fail-safe measures” and “self-destruction.” Loudly. Every 15 minutes. From there, things get even stranger. Carson is thrust into the middle of a secret organization and must live up to his new codename: Zero. With the help of his friends, including conspiracy theorist Dillon and his sister Danielle, Carson must keep exchange student Olek safe from the strange men.

Codename Zero is a creative and exciting twist on the traditional spy novel. Readers will find themselves cheering for Carson as he learns not just how to be Zero, but how to be himself. Filled with great characters and an outstanding, original plot, Codename Zero will jump to the top of every aspiring spy’s reading list!

When your mom is the president of the United States, you’d think your life would be perfect. But, as eighth grader Audrey Rhodes is discovering, living at “1600” (as she calls her new home) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Having friends over becomes an issue of national security, a Secret Service agent follows her everywhere and class trips are out of the question.

Sulking around the White House one night, Audrey discovers a hidden compartment containing a diary written by a previous First Daughter, Alice Roosevelt. Alice’s desire to “eat up the world” and claim an independent identity for herself—including bringing her pet snake to state functions, dancing on the roof and sneaking a boy past White House guards—inspire Audrey to try similar antics, with results that don’t always end up as planned. Alice is often lucky in matters of the heart, whereas Audrey’s attempts to be more than friends with her attractive classmate Quint aren’t going nearly so well.

Parents who read Ellen Emerson White’s President’s Daughter books in the 1980s will appreciate the updated take on this wish-fulfilling premise. When Audrey Met Alice is a terrific work of blended realistic and historical fiction. An author’s note and bibliography provide the historical context, and an accompanying website includes supplemental resources, most notably a version of Alice’s fictionalized diary entries annotated with quotations from primary sources. The combination of humor, history, light romance and social consciousness make Rebecca Behrens’ debut novel a winner.

Fourteen-year-old Victoria Secord loves nothing more than her 16 Alaskan huskies. Like her dad, she loves racing, and she races to win. But after her father’s untimely death, Vicky and her mom are at odds. Vicky could never leave Alaska, but her mom keeps talking about moving back to Seattle.

Vicky is convincingly portrayed as a strong and spunky heroine who never flinches at taking responsibility for herself. When she takes off, hooking up her dogsled team without telling anyone, the routine outing takes a perilous turn, and a four-hour trek becomes a harrowing six-day battle for survival.

When she comes upon a snowmobile twisted around a tree, she uses everything her dad taught her to save the life of its only occupant, Chris, a “citified” boy who Vicky decides has no right to be out in the woods at all.

Vicky and Chris’ relationship evolves as they face hunger, hypothermia, wild animals and icy waters. As the story deftly skirts the line between teenage awkwardness and a looming closeness, they huddle together for warmth, snare rabbits for food and eventually find a trapper’s cabin that provides comfort and a brief respite from the snow.

Readers will feel empowered by Vicky’s boldness and will sympathize with her sadness over the loss of her father, her determination to make him proud and her first inklings of romance with her newfound friend.

Violet Diamond has always hated the way people look at her—like she doesn’t belong in her family. Her mother and older half sister are white, but Violet herself is biracial; her father, whom she never met, was African-American. Growing up in a small town outside Seattle, Violet only knows a handful of other people of color. But the summer after she finishes elementary school, Violet asks to meet her paternal grandmother, from whom her mother has been estranged since the car accident that killed Violet’s father.

Violet’s “Bibi” (Swahili for grandmother), a professional artist, lives in a primarily black neighborhood of Los Angeles. As Bibi and Violet build a relationship for the first time, Violet learns to appreciate their shared value of personal prayer, her family’s difficult history and her own racial identity, all while dancing to old records, cooking special-ingredient recipes and touring the city’s landmarks.

Brenda Woods, author of the Coretta Scott Honor book The Red Rose Box, was inspired to write Violet’s story by the circumstances of a biracial daughter of a friend. Although her friend’s daughter was unable to trace the African-American side of her family, Woods wanted to explore how a similar girl might feel in different circumstances.

Violet’s voice is delightfully perfect for a precocious, attentive 11-year-old. She loves learning new words (which she records in her word and wish journal), likes to ice skate and entertains potential career plans ranging from commercial pilot to gourmet chef. A cast of supporting characters, including Violet’s maternal grandparents, her sister’s French-speaking boyfriend, her friends and their families, a newfound (and annoying!) boy cousin and even a newly adopted kitten add texture to the story.

A book about a biracial preteen is as welcome as ever, especially at a time when breakfast cereal commercials featuring interracial families can still spark racist ire. The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond is overall funny, poignant and an important contribution to the diversity of middle grade literature.

In The Sittin’ Up, author Shelia P. Moses returns to Rich Square, North Carolina, made famous by her National Book Award finalist and Coretta Scott King Honor book, The Legend of Buddy Bush. In Moses’ charming, ever-thoughtful new novel, one death in the summer of 1940 has the power to transform an entire town.

Twelve-year-old Bean (nicknamed for his close friendship with skinny-as-a-pole Martha Rose) narrates the events that occur after his adopted grandfather, 100-year-old Mr. Bro. Wiley, the last of the region’s former slaves, takes his final breath.

Wiley, a gentle, loving man who offered guidance to his community, was respected by both blacks and whites alike and surely deserves a “sittin’ up,” or wake, like no other. Although the Depression has hit Bean’s sharecropping family and neighbors hard, the boy’s folksy vernacular describes the rich foods, colorful characters and revered traditions that still shape the Low Meadows. Just as the tears fall, so does the rain, bringing with it a threat of flood that could destroy Bean’s entire town. The boy strives to prove that he’s old enough not only to participate in the sittin’ up, but also to step up as a man and help save his family.

While most African-American children’s literature focuses on either slavery or the Civil Rights movement, Moses gives middle grade readers a glimpse of a time when slavery was recent enough to weigh heavily on the minds and hearts of African Americans, yet a more equitable future was also imaginable. Bean sees how many whites still mistreat the black townsfolk and how sharecropping is a looser form of slavery; nevertheless, he knows that an education will help him achieve his dream of becoming a doctor. Moses’ masterful storytelling shows how Wiley’s death could be the key that helps unite this community.

During school vacation, Nell is sent to stay with her aunt Liv and her two little cousins (along with some chickens, ducks and Maggie the pig) at Lemon Cottage. On the day Nell arrives, a mysterious girl on a magnificent black and white horse nearly runs her down. The mystery girl also steals Nell’s prized possession: a mechanical music box with a carousel and 16 horses, made by her dad before he abandoned the family and ran off to the lights of Las Vegas.

According to Aunt Liv, the horse must be one of the 99 horses that used to live next door. But those horses are boarded elsewhere now and soon will be sold at auction.

Nell begins to form a tenuous friendship with the mystery girl, a runaway named Angel, and Belle, the beautiful horse Angel tries to keep and protect. While riding together on Belle in the moonlight, Angel tells Nell a magical tale of 100 horses. Is Angel spinning a fable or trying to reach out for help?

In A Hundred Horses, a lyrical story of friendship and community, author Sarah Lean has crafted a perfect story for young readers who love horses and magic.

It all started with an email—an email that Wade and Darrell, stepbrothers and best friends who are as different as possible, were never meant to read. It was a coded email addressed to Wade’s father, written by Wade’s Uncle Henry shortly before he died under very mysterious circumstances. In The Forbidden Stone, the first book in Tony Abbott’s Copernicus Legacy series, Wade and Darrell—along with Wade’s father, Darrell’s cousin Lily and Lily’s friend Becca—travel to Germany to attend Henry’s funeral. However, once they arrive, they are drawn into a frantic race to uncover secrets guarded for hundreds of years.

But they are not running this race alone. A dangerous organization will stop at nothing to uncover the mysterious relics first. Wade, Darrell, Lily and Becca must stay one step ahead, solving mysteries, cracking codes and piecing together puzzles, many of which date back more than 500 years. They must travel throughout Europe and then the world, into places well known and forgotten, and follow the path that Nicholas Copernicus set for them, in order to gain the first of 12 artifacts.

Intricately written, meticulously researched and full of wit and humor, The Forbidden Stone is a thrilling start to what will surely become a must-read series.

Anyone who has read Catherynne M. Valente’s first book for young readers, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and marveled at the author’s fantastic prose and vivid imagination, was pleased to find that Valente had not lost her touch in the second book, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There. But her characters are so fantastical, her descriptions so alluring and her philosophies so poignant that surely Valente couldn’t do it again, could she? She has. The third book in the series, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, is as brilliantly written as the first two and an absolute thrill to read.

The protagonist, a girl named September who lives in Nebraska, first went to Fairyland when she was 12 years old—still a child, still easily borne into an alternate world. But now she is 14 and practically grown and not sure that she isn’t too old to get back in, even though it is her only heart’s desire. She needn’t have worried, for Fairyland needs her as much as she needs it. September rescued Fairyland from an evil Marquess in the first book, set things in order in Fairyland-Below in the second, and now she must travel to the Moon in Fairyland and save it as well. Luckily for her, her best friends Saturday (a boy born from the sea) and A-Through-L the Wyverary (part wyvern, part library) are waiting for her and ready to go adventuring.

As with any book, we could sketch out the plot, relay a few details and tell you of the self-discoveries that September makes, but it almost doesn’t matter with Valente’s books. It’s in the telling of the story itself that the magic happens. Reading this author transports you—her prose is magnificent, her narrative voice more than compelling. I cannot stop dog-earing pages for passages I want to remember and share. Like Oz and Wonderland, Valente’s Fairyland will draw you in, but unlike Dorothy and Alice (but much like September), you will not want to leave. The only thing I missed this time around are Ana Juan’s fantastic illustrations, but only because they weren’t included in my review copy.

In Valerie Hobbs' new novel, Wolf, Jack the border collie has landed in the perfect place. Loved by his teenage boy, Luke, he’s the top dog and responsible for safeguarding a small flock of sheep on the family farm. Jack has only one nagging concern. He’s growing old.

Soon, an unwanted visitor changes everything. A lone wolf, banished from his pack, lurks in the woods near Jack’s farm, and his constant, harrowing presence—stalking the sheep and hoping to mate with Jack’s granddaughter, Callie—gives a frightening edge to the book that compels the reader’s rapt attention.

This dramatic sequel to Hobbs’ popular novel, Sheep, alternates between Jack’s and the wolf’s points of view. In an unsettling voice, the wolf counts his journey in moons and his narrow gaze sees the world as rock-strewn hills, grassy slopes and woods for hunting. His reactions are visceral, his life an ongoing battle for survival. He is acutely lonely, “a feeling so unfamiliar that at first he confused it with hunger.” He’s drawn to the family farm by the slow-moving sheep that look like easy prey—far easier targets than the rodent that bit him, causing a wound that will not heal. Wolf’s austere existence is contrasted with Jack’s loving family and the day-to-day concerns of Luke and his friends.

Jack isn’t as quick as he used to be, and Wolf could have become another tired story of an aging dog’s quest for a blue ribbon at the state fair. But Hobbs foreshadows the drama to come with restraint, saying of Jack, “He would rather die than disappoint Luke.” As the fast-moving plot progresses, the tension is tightened like a string, with each incident, each phrase, increasing it slightly.

The contrast in tone between the two animals and the transparency of each canine’s thoughts and desires is gripping. Raised by humans, loving Jack wins our hearts, but it is the wolf, wild and terrifying, who ultimately wins our respect and our pity.