Archives de catégorie : Middle Grade

THE VERY UNFORTUNATE WISH OF MELONY YOSHIMURA de Waka T. Brown

In the vein of When You Trap a Tiger and Coraline, this contemporary magical realistic retelling of the Japanese folktale The Melon Princess and the Amanjaku follows one girl who must save herself and her loved ones from a deceitful demon she befriended.

THE VERY UNFORTUNATE WISH OF MELONY YOSHIMURA
by Waka T. Brown
Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, July 2023

Readers will be taken on a riveting, chilling, and alluring adventure led by a shape shifting, mischief making creature who promises Melony the world and often delivers. But with that comes a price to pay, and readers will be shocked when they find out what that is!
Though the Amanjaku acts like your best friend, its true aim is to take over your life. While it helps you get whatever you want and assuages any feelings of guilt you have about it it will also take whatever it wants. Its true form is a gray, fuzzy, Muppet like creature, but it can shapeshift to look like anyone…
This novel has the best of both worlds—a relatable, accessible tween heroine trying to achieve her autonomy and figure out who she is, as well as a touch of the fantastic, which will hook genre readers looking to get lost in the possibilities of magic.

Waka T. Brown is a Stanford graduate with a Master’s in Secondary Education. An instructor at the Stanford Program on International and Cross Cultural Education, she has won the national Franklin Buchanan Prize and the national 2019 Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher award.

THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF DERELICTION de Jacqueline Davies

In this not-so-scary ghost story from Jacqueline Davies, bestselling author of the Lemonade War series, quirky, tool wielding Alice Cannoli Potchnik begins to repair the dilapidated mansion next door only to discover the old house is home to ghosts, and they need mending, too!

THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF DERELICTION
by Jacqueline Davies
Clarion/HarperCollins, July 2023

A motley crew of ghosts, some friendly and others curmudgeonly, bring comic relief as Alice repairs the House. This suspenseful, action packed mystery will keep readers guessing as Alice uncovers the secrets of the House and its ghosts. A spooky yet heartwarming and funny tale that delivers just the right amount of spine tingling scares. Perfect for fans of Mary Downing Hahn and The Vanderbeekers series.

Jacqueline Davies is the bestselling author of the Lemonade War series. She is also the award winning author of the Sydney and Taylor series, illustrated by Deborah Hocking, and Bubbles . . . UP!, illustrated by Sonia Sánchez, which was selected as an ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice.

THE WILDES de Roland Smith

A brother and sister travel the world helping to save endangered species in this new commercial middle-grade series.

THE WILDES: THE AMAZON (Book 1)
by Roland Smith
Sleeping Bear Press, March 2023
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

Ring and Asia Wilde’s life is anything but ordinary. Some of their closest friends are endangered monkeys and rare birds. Instead of attending middle school, they accompany their parents (scientists who work to save endangered species) on adventures around the world. They spend more time climbing trees, tracking animal prints, and taking on three-hundred-pound anacondas than they do filling out worksheets. But a research trip to the Amazon rainforest turns into a dangerous mystery when their mother goes missing. Who kidnapped Dr. Jane Wilde, and why? Ring and Asia have the skills to survive the jungle–but do they have what it takes to rescue their mom?

New York Times Bestselling author Roland Smith is a former Zoo Curator and Research Biologist. He has published more than twenty novels for young adults. He and his wife, Marie, who is also an author, live on a small farm near Portland, Oregon.

MAGNOLIA AND MISTER PANTS de Chanel Miller

From award-winning author and illustrator Chanel Miller, comes an illustrated middle-grade mystery about a girl and her dog reuniting lost socks with their owners.

MAGNOLIA AND MISTER PANTS:
NYC Sock Detectives
by Chanel Miller
‎ Penguin Young Readers Group, April 2023
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

It’s summertime in New York City and Magnolia Wu is stuck helping her parents at the family-owned Bing Qi Ling Bubbles Laundromat. While her classmates are off at summer camps and on vacation, Magnolia longs to escape the daily monotony of laundromat life. Luckily the Wu family keeps a sock board where all the lost socks get pinned. With her dog, Mister Pants, as her sidekick, Magnolia becomes New York’s leading Sock Detective, venturing into the city’s chaos to return every sock to its rightful owner.
Chanel Miller’s debut middle-grade illustrated novel celebrates boldness, curiosity, and community.

Chanel Miller is a writer and artist who received her BA in Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her critically acclaimed memoir, Know My Name, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner, as well as a best book of 2019 in Time, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, and People, among others. She is a 2019 Time Next 100 honoree and a 2016 Glamour Woman of the Year honoree under her pseudonym, “Emily Doe.”

CHILDREN OF THE BLACK GLASS d’Anthony Peckham

Howl’s Moving Castle meets Neil Gaiman in this propulsive middle-grade trilogy, set in a world as mesmerizing as it is menacing, following children on a quest to save their father who get embroiled in the sinister agendas of rival sorcerers.

CHILDREN OF THE BLACK GLASS (Book 1)
by Anthony Peckham
Simon & Schuster, Mars 2023
(via Writers House)

In an unkind alternate past, somewhere between the Stone Age and a Metal Age, Tell and his sister Wren live in a small mountain village that makes its living off black glass mines and runs on brutal laws. When their father is blinded in a mining accident, the law dictates he has thirty days to regain his sight and be capable of working at the same level as before or be put to death.
Faced with this dire future, Tell and Wren make the forbidden treacherous journey to the legendary city of Halfway, halfway down the mountain, to trade their father’s haul of the valuable black glass for the medicine to cure him. The city, ruled by five powerful female sorcerers, at first dazzles the siblings. But beneath Halfway’s glittery surface seethes ambition, violence, prejudice, blackmail, and impending chaos.
Without knowing it, Tell and Wren have walked straight into a sorcerers’ coup. Over the next twelve days they must scramble first to save themselves, then their new friends, as allegiances shift and prejudices crack open to show who has true power.

Anthony Peckham is a highly acclaimed screenwriter whose work includes Sherlock Holmes and Clint Eastwood’s Invictus. He is a Writers Guild of America Award winner and an NAACP Image Award nominee. Children of the Black Glass is his novel-writing debut.