Archives de catégorie : Middle Grade

THE (SUPER SECRET) SOCIETY OF OCTAGON VALLEY de Melissa de la Cruz

This new series from #1 New York Times best-selling author Melissa de la Cruz is The Mysterious Benedict Society for reluctant readers, chock-full of humor, adventure and mischief, and set at an exclusive, secluded, high-tech institute everyone wants to get into.

THE (SUPER SECRET) SOCIETY OF OCTAGON VALLEY
by Melissa de la Cruz
Disney-Hyperion, September 2023
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

You only get in if you’re EXTRAordinary…. A handful of sixth-graders have been chosen to attend an exclusive weekend at the Octagon Valley Institute, the mysterious, high-tech lab of the uber famous multimillionaire, genius, recluse Onassander Octagon. What will they do there? No one is telling. Which just makes everyone want to get in.
Edwin Edgefield has high hopes for the weekend—hopes he’ll meet other kids like him—kids who will accept him even though he’s got a photographic memory, genius level math skills and some very specific personality quirks. But when he meets the other kids, he starts to wonder if they’re all in the right place. There’s amateur rapper Kimmy, who’s obsessed with TikTok, violin-player Julie, who has zero social skills, and surfer dude Dilip, who’s well, a surfer dude. And then, strange things start to happen. Things that involve an escape room challenge, a zero-gravity chamber, a river full of piranhas and . . . some ninjas? Turns out the Octagon Valley is all about using teamwork to make the dream work, and these normally isolated kids might not all survive. But those who do will be treated to the greatest prize—and the biggest surprise—of their lives—a chance to be truly EXTRAordinary.

Melissa de la Cruz is the author of the #1 New York Times best-selling Descendants series, as well as many other best-selling novels, including Alex & Eliza, the Never After series and the Blue Bloods series. She recently launched her own imprint, Melissa de la Cruz Studio, which publishes fun, fabulous, feel-good stories for children. She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOLETIS, AMENOPHIS AND FRIENDS de Rafa Ruiz & Elena Hormiga

Translated from Spanish, this is a beautiful story for our times about rewilding and treating our planet with the kindness and care it deserves.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOLETIS, AMENOPHIS AND FRIENDS
by Rafa Ruiz
illustrated by Elena Hormiga
Neem Tree Press, October 2017
(via Randle Editorial & Literary)

The trees and grass are disappearing to make way for a new section of road. Toletis, his dog Amenophis, friends Claudia and Tutan are on a mission to find ingenious ways of replacing them and turning their little valley town, set deep in the mountains, lusciously green again. The odds are stacked against them. Can they succeed… with some very unusual help?

Rafa Ruiz is journalist and author who has a staunch commitment to culture, art and the environment, and the majority of his career has been focused on these three topics. He spent 10 years at Spanish newspaper El Pais and 15 years at their weekly supplement. He has written numerous children’s books and he co-directs the Mad is Mad art gallery in Madrid which gives a space to up-and-coming artists. He is also one of the partner-founders of the Press Association for Environmental Information (APIA).
Elena Hormiga is an illustrator with a sense of humour. Her fun pictures are imbued with irony and metaphor. She studied and worked as an engineer and later turned to illustration. She currently works creating images for stories, articles and posters. She also enjoys writing, cooking and origami.

BOOM BOOM de Jude Idada

“Agony and its relief, anxiety and serenity, despair and hope pulsate on the pages and bring into very vivid relief the human capacity to bear pain and overcome it. BOOM BOOM gives Sickle Cell Anaemia immense clarity in an absorbing and engulfing style’ – Judges’ Report, Nigeria Prize for Literature

BOOM BOOM
by Jude Idada
Swift Press, June 2023
(via Randle Editorial & Literary)

Osaik is an eight-year-old boy. He is charming and has an unusual ability to hear things no one else hears. But his world is thrown into disarray when a debilitating disease takes his mother from him. Despite his grief, he has to find a way of saving his little sister, Eghe, from the same disease. Alongside his dad, and Kompa his dog, they begin a race to get her all the help she needs. In this dramatic, fast-paced story of loss, faith, and hope, the limits of love, sacrifice, friendship, loyalty, and family ties are tested as the struggle to save his sister’s life brings Osaik and those around him to a new knowledge of the world they can see, the world they cannot see, and the part of themselves they never knew existed.

Winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature

Jude Idada is an award-winning screenwriter, actor, poet and playwright. BOOM BOOM is the first of his books to be published outside of Nigeria.

LASAGNA MEANS I LOVE YOU de Kate O’Shaughnessy

What are the essential ingredients that make a family? Eleven-year-old Mo is making up her own recipe in this unforgettable story that’s a little sweet, a little sour, and totally delicious.

LASAGNA MEANS I LOVE YOU
by Kate O’Shaughnessy
Knopf BYR, February 2023
(via Park & Fine Literary)

Nan was all the family Mo ever needed. But suddenly she’s gone, and Mo finds herself in foster care after her uncle decides she’s not worth sticking around for.
Nan left her a notebook and advised her to get a hobby, like ferret racing or palm reading. But how could a hobby fix anything in her newly topsy-turvy life?
Then Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else’s family recipes. Even though Nan never cooked, Mo can’t tear her eyes away. Not so much from the recipes, but the stories attached to them. Though, when she makes herself a pot of soup, it is every bit as comforting as the recipe notes said.
Soon Mo finds herself asking everyone she meets for their family recipes. Teaching herself to make them. Collecting the stories behind them. Building a website to share them. And, okay, secretly hoping that a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.
But when everything starts to unravel again, Mo realizes that if she wants a family recipe—or a real family—she’s going to have to make it up herself.

Kate O’Shaughnessy is a book nerd, animal lover, former chef, and an outdoor enthusiast. When she’s not writing, you can find Kate pottering in her garden, eating good food, hiking with her dog, and chronically mispronouncing words she’s read but never heard said aloud. She lives in California with her family. Kate’s first book was The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane.

PRINCESS PRIVATE EYE d’Evelyn Skye

The Princess Diaries meets Nancy Drew in this middle-grade novel about a New York foster kid who discovers she’s actually a long-lost princess―and must solve the mystery behind a threat to the crown.

PRINCESS PRIVATE EYE
by Evelyn Skye
Disney-Hyperion, May 2023
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

Twelve-year-old Gen Sun has bounced around New York’s foster care system ever since her parents died in a car crash ten years ago. No one seems to know anything about her birth family, and the only link she has to them is a baby blanket embroidered with her name.
But that’s all right. Gen is savvy and self-reliant, using her keen sense of justice and her ability to go unnoticed to solve mysteries in her neighborhood. She’s in the middle of solving one such mystery when her life changes forever: suited strangers reveal that Gen is actually the long-lost princess of a small, obscure country overseas.
In no time, Gen is whisked away to the kingdom of Raldonia. But becoming a princess overnight isn’t easy, and Gen’s American ways and no-nonsense demeanor don’t exactly endear her to the royal court. Before long, there are whispers that a legendary curse has been awoken by Gen’s sudden appearance.
And when plague-like events start befall the small country, Gen realizes she’ll have to crack her biggest case yet: catching the culprit out to dethrone her. And who knows? She just might find her place in the kingdom along the way.
Evelyn Skye brings a blend of wit and adventure to this middle grade series that asks: what truly makes a princess? And what makes a home?

Evelyn Skye is a New York Times bestselling author of novels for adults and young adults, including the forthcoming The Hundred Loves of Juliet and Three Kisses, One midnight. Her book The Crown’s Game was an Amazon Editor’s Pick, as well as an Amazon Best Book of 2016. Evelyn is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and daughter. PRINCESS PRIVATE EYE is her middle grade debut.