Grades 3-6
Mr. Luigi Lemoncello is holding the first ever library olympiad! Kyle and his friends are back and ready for the challenge, but this time it’s not all fun and games. Someone is messing with the library! Books are missing, and Mr. Lemoncello can tell that someone trying to censor them. Can he and the kids come together and figure out who?
Grades 2-3
In this children’s book, cats of all kinds are members of the MEOW Society. They come together to share stories about themselves and their ancestors. Those who love cats will eat this one up!
Grades 4-6
It’s the 1970s and everything depends on Raymie Clarke and what she does about it. Her father has run away with the dental hygienist, and she decides that now is the time to enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition. She thinks that if she wins, she will get her picture in the paper and her father will come home. Will her plan work?
Grades 4-7
The Fletcher family is back in this sequel to The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher. There are two dads, four adopted boys and 3 pets. They all go to Rock Island, whose tag line is “Welcome to Rock Island: Where time stands still.” However, this summer, things are a little different on Rock Island. The family’s favorite lighthouse is boarded up, and the boys can’t figure out how to save it. Their vacation just gets crazier from there! I recommend this middle grade novel for readers who love a good adventure!
Grades 4-6
In Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco by Judith Robbins Rose, Jacinta Juarez is a Mexican-American girl who moved back to Mexico soon after she was born. Now, at twelve, she’s living back in the U.S.
One day, she meets Kathryn Dawson Dahl, a reporter from 5 News when she comes for a visit at the Youth Center. Jacinta calls her “Miss,” and she quickly becomes Jacinta’s mentor and friend. Miss teaches her how to take discounted classes at the local recreation center and then she takes her to get a new bathing suit for the center’s pool.
Jacinta’s father warns her about her new friend, because he doesn’t want her to give too much information away about their family. Then Jacinta’s worst nightmare comes true when her Papi is deported. Will Jacinta’s world ever be right again? Read Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco by Judith Rose Robbins to find out what happens to Jacinta and her family!
Grades 3-5
Adventures with Waffles by Maria Parr is a book about Lena and Trille, two friends who are neighbors. They have lots of adventures and love doing everything together, including eating Auntie Granny’s waffles! Then Trille’s world feels as if it’s falling apart when Lena moves away, and Auntie Granny goes to a better place. Will anything ever be okay again? Read Adventures with Waffles by Maria Parr to find out!
Grades 4-6
This is Sunnyside Up, a graphic novel by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm. It’s 1976, and ten-year-old Sunny has just arrived in Florida to spend the summer with her grandpa, who lives in a retirement community.
In the beginning, Sunny is bored because Gramps thinks outings like going to the post office and the grocery store are fun.
Finally, Gramps reveals that there is a pool where he lives. There, she meets a boy named Buzz and thinks start looking up. They talk about comic books and collect runaway golf balls together.
To find out how the rest of the summer is for Sunny and Buzz, read Sunnyside Up by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm!
Grades 4-6
In It Ain’t So Awful Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas, Zomorod, also known as Cindy, is eleven years old, and is moving for the fourth time. It is the late 1970s and her family is from Abadan, Iran. Sometimes they move back to Iran, and sometimes it’s another city in California.
This time, they move to Newport Beach, California, to a condominium, where there are lots of rules they need to follow: take out the trash on Wednesday nights, don’t leave the empty bins out, and never, ever lose the pool key!
In addition to getting used to her new town, Cindy has to come with her mom everywhere so she can translate things from English to Persian and vice versa. Can she remember all those rules, translate things for her mom and fit in at her new school? Read It Ain’t So Awful Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas to find out!
Ages 12+
Twelve-year-old Hershey has to run away with her mother to a women’s shelter. She begins to wonder how she will keep up with her schoolwork let alone be in the school talent show with her best friend, and who will take care of her cat. How will she handle it all?
Grades 6-8
Twelve-year-old Autumn loves to write. So much so, that it is her dream to be published, and she doesn’t want to wait even a few years! She has a moleskine notebook that she writes everything in – poems, stories, journal entries, and whatever else is on her mind. She especially loves to write about (and to) her crush, Cameron, a boy in her journalism class. Autumn’s older brother Hunter is friends with Cameron’s older brother, and Hunter finds Autumn’s notebook and shares it with him. Autumn is mortified. How will she ever face Cameron again? Then she gets an assignment to write a “personal essay” for her journalism class. She decides to write it about her rocky relationship with Hunter. Then, to get back at him, she decides she wants to publish it, too. She enters it into a contest. If she wins, she has the chance for it to be published. But is she willing to risk spilling all of her family’s secrets to be published?
Thanks to Netgalley.com for a review copy of this book.
Michelle’s Bookish Life 