Lucky Luna is a sweet book about family, friends, and trying to get along. Written by award-winning author Diana Lopez, the story incorporates Mexican culture and folklore into a modern-day middl…
Life of Pi is a grand story about a small individual caught in a grand setting. Pi is a young man who has spent his life looking for truth and who finds it on in the lonely vastness of the Pacifi…
"Sometimes, I think people forget you can be happy and sad at the same time. But the world doesn't want to see sadness, so we learn how to push it down. Hide it. Keep it a secret. Even though we proba…
The Puppy Place comes highly recommended from an expert in middle-grade literature. (That is, a nine-year-old boy I know recommended it as "the best series" he had read.) These charming books eac…
Marcus Vega may be one of my new favorite characters of the summer. He’s a big kid. So big in fact, that kids at the school have started rumors he is the assistant principal. But Mar…
The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik is just that. A strange fasciniation that even days later, I can't tell if I actually like or not.
Noah seems to be your average high school cha…
The Second Life of Ava Rivers by Faith Gardner was actually quite good. It's told from Vera Rivers' point of view, the twin sister of Ava Rivers who goes missing one night, and describes the fami…
For all of those who lived through the events of September 11, 2001, yet struggle to explain them to our children, this would be the perfect novel to help them understand that day in history. Nin…
In Counting Thyme by Melanie Conklin, Thyme's life is basically thrown into upheaval as they move across the country to New York City so her little brother can be a part of a cancer trial. S…
Black Beauty is unique in that it was told from a horse's point of view decades before it was popular to write books with animal protagonists. Sewell successfully captures the probable emotions o…
The Foreseeable Future is the story of Audrey Nelson. Audrey has grown up in a family of academics. Her mom is a professor of political science. Her father is an English profess…
The Last Kids on Earth is a post-apocalyptic tale tame enough for kids yet witty enough to entertain adults. The story centers around Jack, who is alone in a world filled with monsters and zombie…
