Julian Twerski is not a bad guy. Really. That whole incident with Danley Dimple? That was a fluke. He didn’t mean for the kid to get hurt. It’s not worth going over again.

Yet, as part of his punishment, Julian has to write about it for his English teacher. From the start, he has trouble explaining the “Danley Dimple thing” and feels the need first to describe his life, his friendships—who he is. So begins Mark Goldblatt’s Twerp, an exploration of life as a 12-year-old in New York City in 1969, in the closing days of sixth grade.

We learn about the dangers of playing Cyrano for your best friend, finding out you might not be the fastest kid at P.S. 23 and making your own fireworks (with disastrous results). In fact, Julian will tell you just about anything you want to know—except for the one thing he’s supposed to be writing about. By the time he actually gets around to explaining what happened with Danley Dimple, we understand Julian, and we sympathize.

So drawn are we into Julian’s world, it’s sometimes hard to remember that an adult wrote this book. A wonderfully touching story that’s hard to put down, Twerp will appeal to readers of all ages.

In 1932, the same year Lizzie Hawkins turns 12, the Great Depression has hunkered down in Bittersweet, Alabama. No longer able to provide for his family or cover the mounting mortgage payments, Lizzie’s father disappeared and has yet to return, while her mother has become depressed, withdrawn and even mute. In Laura Golden’s tender debut novel, inspired by her grandparents’ experiences during the same time period, it’s up to Lizzie to run the family home, take care of her mother and avoid suspicion—or end up in an orphanage.

Golden shows the blessings of community and the burdens of gossip in a small town as the girl manages at first to keep her family secrets private. The ruse becomes difficult when best friend Ben, who also recently lost his father, makes Lizzie see that she’s not the only one facing tragedy. And jealous Erin, a bully reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Nellie Oleson, has her heart set on ruining Lizzie. Ever determined, Lizzie learns not only to accept life’s lemons, but also make lemonade with them—something her father espoused but never practiced.

From her desire to catch the local legendary one-eyed catfish to her love of Goo Goo Clusters, Lizzie’s stubborn yet resourceful spirit shines through in Golden’s splendid Southern storytelling. Perhaps guided by her mother’s favorite proverbs, which also serve as chapter headings, the girl comes up with an ingenious plan that may keep what’s left of her family together and help her fellow down-and-out townsfolk in the process. Readers will adore Lizzie’s tale, which certainly lives up to her town’s name.

When we last saw them, sisters Delphine, Vonetta and Fern were leaving Oakland after spending the summer with their mother. Now, in Rita Williams-Garcia’s P.S. Be Eleven, the sequel to the Newbery Honor-winning One Crazy Summer, we catch up with the Gaither sisters as they return to Brooklyn in 1968 and are reunited with Pa and Big Ma.

It doesn’t take long for the life lessons the sisters learned from their mother and the Black Panthers to clash mightily with the views of their grandmother, who wants to avoid creating a “grand Negro spectacle.” The oldest girl, Delphine, must find a way to live as her mother would want, while still respecting Pa and Big Ma, and keeping Vonetta and Fern out of trouble.

This balancing act becomes difficult very quickly. Soon after they arrive home, the sisters learn that their father is getting married. Vonetta and Fern love Miss Marva Hendricks right away, but Delphine wants to keep her distance. Adding to their struggle is Uncle Darnell, who returns home from the Vietnam War and lives with Pa, Big Ma and the girls as he fights his own internal battles. During all this, the girls stay in contact with their mother through letters—Delphine pouring out her heart, and her mother always ending her letters with a reminder to “Be Eleven.”

P.S. Be Eleven is a worthy successor to the unforgettable One Crazy Summer. The writing is just as powerful, and the story includes a convincing snapshot of the era, encompassing everything from the Civil Rights movement and Richard Nixon’s presidency to the beginnings of The Jackson 5. The story allows the girls to grow—learning new things, testing their ideals and discovering their true relationships with their mother and father, grandmother and many others. Williams-Garcia’s story offers a magnificent window into everyday life during the late 1960s and should not be missed.

Charlie Joe Jackson has a reputation as a guy who doesn’t like to read—and he’s proud of it. In his first book, Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading, we watched as he put more effort into avoiding the task than he would have if he had just read the assigned book. It looked like he might have learned his lesson from that escapade, but in his second outing, Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Extra Credit, he found new ways to get out of doing work—and into trouble. As a result of that misadventure, Charlie Joe now has to spend a large part of his summer vacation at Camp Rituhbukkee (“Read-a-Bookie”).

While he dreads the many scheduled classes and quiet reading times at the camp, he has a plan to help the “nerds” become cool like him. Charlie Joe is sure he can help them loosen up, not take themselves or their studies too seriously, and enjoy the summer. What he doesn’t anticipate happening is how much he will change himself. After reading a whole book—that he enjoyed!—he figures it was a fluke and not a sign that he is any different. As his friend Katie observes, however, Charlie Joe is fascinated by smart people and most of his friends back home are smart kids, so maybe he is more like them? Charlie Joe is repelled by the idea, but by the end of the book he has to admit that it might be true. Just a little.

Author Tommy Greenwald has written another winner with this third installment of the Charlie Joe Jackson series. Greenwald’s writing style is funny and smart, just like his main character. Almost every kid in school can relate to being a reluctant student at times, but also to reveling in cool academic discoveries. The kids at my library can’t wait for this book to hit the shelves.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a pre-K through 8^th grade Catholic school in Nashville.

Princess Imogene Eustacia Wellington only has two weeks to finish reading The Art of Being a Princess and prepare for her 13th birthday. According to the etiquette book, princesses are supposed to be kind and helpful. So despite never having kissed a boy before, Imogene agrees to kiss a prince who has been turned into a frog. Vivian Vande Velde turns this fairy tale on its heels—er, webbed feet—for the frog changes backs into Harry, the kingdom’s local rapscallion who was turned into a frog by a witch. This unusual transfer spell causes Imogene to take Harry’s place as a frog.

When the unsympathetic witch cannot undue her own spell, Imogene must take charge of her destiny. In an attempt to enlist the help of country peasant Luella and her new actor beau, the frog princess ends up kidnapped and traveling with an acting troupe. With chapter headings like “A Princess Must Be Assertive and Persuasive, Though Never Pushy” taken from her etiquette book, Imogene puts her own spin on how a real princess—or any female, for that matter—should behave. Even as a frog, her spunkiness croaks through as she manages to outwit the troupe’s unscrupulous ringleader and steer Luella toward her own independence.

Imogene’s unexpected journey also gives her a new appreciation for all walks—or hops—of life outside the castle. Adding a light touch to this reptilian coming-of-age tale are clever quips and observations. But is Imogene fated to spend her remaining years as a frog? This is a fairy tale after all, and a handsome prince, a kiss and a happy ending are all in order. Frogged will leap into readers’ hands as they try to discover who does the kissing and who (or what) is the next victim of the frog curse.

Admit it: Everyone thinks their name or nickname is embarrassing at some point in their life. Yes, even you! (For four years, my nickname was Kevy-Wevy, so I know of which I speak.) However, even the worst name pales in comparison to the hero of our story. In Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin, written by first-time author Liesl Shurtliff, Rump’s mother dies before she is able to tell him his entire name—all she can get out is “Rump.” And in a village where names have power and meaning, being stuck with this name does not give Rump much hope for the rest of his life.

In Rump’s village (aptly name The Village, located on The Mountain), gold is everything. Every day, almost all of the residents of The Village head toward the mines to dig, mine, pan and discover as much gold as they can. In return for their gold, they receive their rations from The Miller, who then gives the gold to King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife (or King Barf, as Rump likes to call him). Rump is not very good at finding gold, so he and his grandmother seldom have enough to eat. However, Rump thinks his luck has changed when he discovers a spinning wheel that allows him to spin straw into gold. And his luck doest change, but not in the way he had hoped.

Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin is the latest addition to the growing trend of fairy tale retelling. What sets this story apart is its creativity and characters. Never relying on convention, Shurtliff takes the traditional fairy tale and turns it on its head, interspersing humor with tenderness, action with insight. Rump shows the other side of Rumpelstiltskin, one of the most vilified characters in fairy tales, and reminds readers that in a good story, very little is as it seems.

Like many kids, Robbie Darko wants to be famous. But as he tells readers in the first lines of this fictional memoir, it’s hard to make an 11-year-old’s life sound exciting. We soon learn, however, that Robbie is oblivious to how interesting his life really is.

In Andrea Beaty’s funny new middle grade novel, Dorko the Magnificent, Robbie Darko, dubbed “Dorko” by the class bully, sets out to perform the greatest magic trick his town has ever seen at the upcoming school talent show. Much to his parents’ and teachers’ chagrin (and his classmates’ delight), Robbie uses every possible opportunity to practice his craft. This includes an assigned how-to speech, which already banned the use of: saws, fire, peanut butter and socks (don’t ask!), and his mom’s birthday party. But the arrival of Grandma Melvyn threatens to make Robbie’s grand plan disappear into thin air.

Until she moves into his room, Grandma Melvyn has just been that ill-tempered, smelly, distant elderly relative with the “Wicked Wobble Eye” who isn’t even anyone’s actual grandmother. She also has the extremely annoying habit of calling everyone “Trixie.” Little does Robbie know what tricks Grandma Melvyn, literally, has up her sleeves. When the classic tablecloth trick he performs in front of his whole family goes hilariously wrong, Robbie is stunned when Grandma Melvyn explodes with laughter and congratulates him on a job well done. She even calls him by his given name.

And then, the big reveal. Grandma Melvyn starts teaching Robbie incredible magician’s secrets. Pretty soon he can shuffle cards better than a professional blackjack dealer and his sleights-of-hand fool even the most perceptive audience. Joined by his best friend, Cat, who is impervious to Grandma Melvyn’s prickly personality, the three of them spend weeks working on a disappearing act that is sure to have the whole town talking for years to come. And, Robbie tells readers, it will also have movie producers banging down his door to buy his life story.

Robbie's first-person narration brings this hilariously entertaining story to life. Young readers will easily relate to his family struggles—just as they laugh with him at his numerous pratfalls. As in her debut novel, Secrets of the Cicada Summer, Beaty carefully weaves in just enough gravitas to make Dorko the Magnificent well worth a read.

Every night, 13-year-old Paolo Crivelli sneaks out of his villa in Florence to ride his bicycle. This stealthy act is even riskier because it’s the summer of 1944 and Nazi troops occupy his beloved city. Fully aware of Paolo’s clandestine adventures are his British-born mother (an enemy in the eyes of the Germans) and his sister Constanza, a typical 16-year-old who’s grown restless reading her outdated Vogue magazines and listening to Edith Piaf. His father, on the other hand, has disappeared, presumably with the Partisans, the anti-Fascist band of rebels that hides in the hills and carries out subversive missions.

Paolo’s evening rides become fraught with danger when his mother reluctantly agrees to help hide escaped Allied prisoners. Suddenly, no one can be trusted completely with the family’s secret, not the nosy neighbors, their live-in housekeeper, or the German lieutenant who shows a fondness for Constanza when the Gestapo starts searching the house. The boy’s chance encounters with the Partisans and their leader, Il Volpe (“The Fox”), heighten the suspense as they battle to liberate Florence.

Inspired by a courageous family she met in Florence just after World War II, Shirley Hughes, the author of more than 50 picture books and illustrator of more than 200, had longed to tell this story for years. Amazingly, Hero on a Bicycle is her debut novel. With a style that recalls children’s classics, Hughes writes with a keen appreciation for children’s sensibilities, but never insults them by avoiding the harsh realities of war. Her captivating historical fiction reveals a few of the many unsung heroes of World War II, some with guns and bombs as ammunition, and others with only a bike.

Holly Black, co-author of the best-selling Spiderwick Chronicles and author of several fantasies for teens, aims her latest book, Doll Bones, squarely at the middle-grade audience. Zach, Poppy and Alice have just the right mix of hanging-onto-childhood imaginations and coming-of-age interest in the world beyond make-believe.

For several years, the three friends have been playing an ongoing game with their action figures, but real life is starting to get in the way. When Zach’s father intervenes and prevents Zach from continuing the game, the friendship is challenged and may not be reparable.

The game they’ve been playing becomes more important, however, when Poppy reveals that her mother’s antique china doll—the “queen” of their story—has been haunting her dreams. Poppy steals the doll from the forbidden cabinet in her home, insisting that she and her friends go on a quest as mandated by the “queen,” and from then on, their childlike make-believe starts to become disturbingly real.

This is a spooky story, and the adventure the three embark on is thrilling, but the real drama is the underlying sense of these preteens letting go of childhood and moving into their grown-up selves. Conflicts at home, difficulties relating to each other and secret feelings all combine to make this a great book for those “in-betweeners.” Black’s prose is fluid and lyrical while maintaining its characters’ 13-year-old vocabulary, which will no doubt help the book find a delighted audience in middle-school readers everywhere.

Having freedom in a legal sense doesn’t always mean you’re free. That statement was especially true for Southern slaves freed as a result of the Civil War. Although these men, women and children couldn’t be forced to work any longer, that didn’t keep plantation owners from paying wages, and then charging rent, food costs and other fees that kept the workers forever indebted. This is the reality of life for the characters in Sugar, the powerful new novel by Coretta Scott King Honor Book recipient Jewell Parker Rhodes. This group of men and women, including a 10-year-old orphan named Sugar, live and work on Louisiana’s River Road plantation, harvesting sugar cane and doing what they must to survive.

Sugar isn’t content with this life, however. She longs to play with other children, meet new people and not work from sunup to sundown. Sugar doesn’t always follow the rules, either. She befriends the white plantation owner’s son, Billy, and escapes on adventures with him that break every rule and boundary set for them both. It is not until the plantation owner brings in Chinese laborers, though, that Sugar’s indomitable spirit and unique outlook on life are most appreciated.

This forced immigration of Chinese workers to Southern plantations is a little-known fact in American history. Rhodes takes this glossed-over event and adds human faces to it. Sugar, Mister Wills, Beau and Master Liu are just a few of the many characters young readers will come to know and better understand. It is Sugar’s story, however, as a strong-willed, independent and tolerant child that will have the greatest impact. With compelling characters and suspenseful storytelling, this is well-crafted historical fiction that will appeal to anyone who loves a good story.

For The Vine Basket, her first novel, Josanne La Valley drew on personal experience to present the heartfelt story of a young girl in Xinjiang, a region the Uyghur people call East Turkestan. On a trip to visit local craftspeople, the author met a young Uyghur girl who offered her a peach as the girl’s grandfather wove a traditional willow basket. When La Valley learned that girls in this region are forced to leave their families to work in Chinese factories, she was inspired to create the character of Mehrigul, who is caught between helping her family and her own dreams of an education.

One day in the market, a foreign lady from America named Mrs. Chazen buys one of Mehrigul’s baskets made from old grapevines and is interested in purchasing more. Mehrigul is excited—this could mean money for corn meal or even for school fees for herself and her little sister.

But lately, since her brother left, things have been difficult in her family. Her mother is distant and depressed. Her father is likely to throw any extra money on gambling or drinking wine. Not only that, Ata thinks little of his daughter’s skills. “It’s men who are craftsmen, not women,” he tells her scornfully. In her father’s eyes, Mehrigul knows she is worth more to the family as a factory worker.

Mehrigul is up against tremendous odds until the day her grandfather, Chong Ata, takes a stand. His belief and support help Mehrigul to begin to believe in her own worth and speak up for her own future. The Vine Basket is sure to evoke young American readers’ curiosity about this culture and would be a wonderful book to begin to explore questions about the lives of women and girls in other parts of the world.

All My Noble Dreams and Then What Happens, Gloria Whelan’s stand-alone sequel to Small Acts of Amazing Courage, chronicles the adventures of a British girl with Indian allegiances. Set in 1921, the story features 17-year-old Rosalind’s struggle to respect her British military father while staying true to her passion for Indian independence. Raised in India, Rosalind believes in the Indian hartal, the Congress Party’s movement of resistance, and secretly plays teacher to her own school of Indian boys while she is supposed to be studying English literature.

Rosalind manages to escape her father’s discovery of and retribution for these small subversive acts, but when her family is invited to meet the Prince of Wales in Calcutta, Rosalind may not be able to stifle her unpatriotic opinions about India’s oppression. Entrusted with a letter from Gandhi to the Prince of Wales by her friend Max, she must decide whether to risk punishment and the shaming of her family in order to show the prince the true struggles of India that exist under the glittering façade of wealthy maharajas and exotic gaming expeditions he sees on his trip.

India was given its independence from Britain in 1947, a quarter-century after the setting of the book. By exploring this early time in history, Whelan, winner of the National Book Award for her 2001 book Homeless Bird, sheds light on the long battle for Indian independence often overlooked in children’s history books. It is an eye-opening look at the troubling practices of racism and oppression so prevalent at the time, told through the eyes of an insightful and caring girl.

By choosing to trust her instincts of right and wrong, Rosalind sets a courageous example for children of all ages. All My Noble Dreams and Then What Happens may spark conversation about injustices almost one hundred years ago in a far away nation. More importantly, it can get kids thinking about what injustices are accepted in society now and what they may be able to do to bring about their own small changes to the world.

Like many of the books by Newbery-winning author Patricia MacLachlan, White Fur Flying is a simple tale, but with hidden depth. In a few short chapters, the young narrator Zoe will tell us all we need to know about her family and their mysterious new neighbors, and bring us happily to the book’s satisfying conclusion.

Zoe Cassidy’s younger sister Alice likes to write stories, but, according to Alice, it is Zoe who knows those stories. When the new neighbors include a boy who doesn’t speak, Zoe can see right away that fear and sadness are the cause of his silence. She is also the first one to notice that her family’s rescued Great Pyrenees dogs make the new boy, Phillip, feel safe and comfortable.

It is no surprise that the rescued dogs end up rescuing Phillip, but MacLachlan tells the story in such a sweet and funny way that we don’t really mind the fact that we can see the ending coming from a long way away. Many younger, inexperienced readers won’t see it coming and will simply be excited and touched when Phillip finds his voice.

A master storyteller like MacLachlan can make a lot happen in a short amount of time without making the action seem rushed or forced. Young elementary students who have already read Sarah, Plain and Tall and Waiting for the Magic will be eager to read her latest book—and they will not be disappointed by this gentle, uplifting story.