A Clatter of Jars by Lisa Graff
In this magical companion to the National Book Award nominee A Tangle of Knots, it's summertime and everyone is heading off to camp. For Talented kids, the place to be is Camp Atropos, where they can sing songs by the campfire, practice for the Talent show, and take some nice long dips in the lake. But what the kids don't know is that they've been gathered for a reason--one that the camp's director wants to keep hidden at all costs.
Meanwhile, a Talent jar that has been dropped to the bottom of the lake has sprung a leak, and strange things have begun to happen. Dozens of seemingly empty jars have been washing up on the shoreline, Talents have been swapped, and memories have been ripped from one camper's head and placed into another. And no one knows why.
With a camp full of kids, a lake full of magic, and a grown-up full of a secrets, A Clatter of Jars is story of summer, family, and the lengths we go to win back the people we love. Perfect for readers who loved Katherine Paterson's The Great Gilly Hopkins or Louis Sachar's Holes.
The Seventh Wish by Kate Messner
Kate Messner dazzles readers with a new magical middle grade novel perfect for fans of Lisa Graff or Wendy Mass.
Charlie feels like she's always coming in last. From her Mom's new job to her sister's life at college, everything seems more important than Charlie. Then one day while ice fishing, Charlie makes a discovery that will change everything . . . in the form of a floppy fish offering to grant a wish in exchange for freedom. Charlie can't believe her luck but soon realizes that this fish has a very odd way of granting wishes as even her best intentions go awry. But when her family faces a challenge bigger than any they've ever experienced, Charlie wonders if some things might be too important to risk on a wish fish.
With the same warmth and fun that readers loved in All the Answers, Kate Messner weaves fantasy into the ordinary, giving every reader the opportunity to experience a little magic.
Trouble the Water by Frances O'Roark Dowell
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From the award-winning author of Dovey Coe comes a sweeping tale of the friendship between a black girl and a white boy and the prejudices they must overcome in segregated Celeste, Kentucky, as the pair try to solve the mysteries surrounding a lonely old dog.
Eleven-year-old Callie is fearless, stubborn, and a little nosy. So when she sees an old yellow dog wandering around town by itself, you can bet she’s going to figure out who he belongs to. But when her sleuthing leads her to cross paths with a white boy named Wendell who wants to help, the segregated town doesn’t take too kindly to their budding friendship.
Meanwhile, a nearly invisible boy named Jim is stuck in a cabin in the woods. He’s lost his dog, but can’t remember exactly when his pup’s disappeared. When his companion, a little boy named Thomas, who’s been invisible much longer than he, explains that they are ghosts, the two must figure out why they can’t seem to cross the river to the other side just yet…
And as Callie and Wendell’s search for the old dog brings them closer and closer to the cabin in the woods, the simmering prejudices of the townspeople boil over.
Trouble the Water is a story that spans lifetimes, showing that history never truly disappears, and that the past will haunt us until we step up to change the present and stand together for what is right.
The Wrong Side of Magic by Janette Rallison
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The Ministry of SUITS by Paul Gamble
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The Phantom Tollbooth gets a modern-day spin in this magical middle grade fantasy filled with adventure and humor that will whisk readers away!
Eleven-year-old Hudson stopped believing in magic long ago. Until the day he is whisked away to the magical land of Logos--a land ruled by words, thoughts, and memories. A fairy might ferry you across the river for the price of one memory, or it's possible freshly baked homonyms will be on sale two for the price of one, and look out for snarky unicorns, as they are sure to judge the pure of heart. Upon arrival, Hudson is quickly saddled with a troll curse, and only his friend Charlotte can help rid him of the curse. But lo and behold she has an agenda of her own--find and rescue the missing Princess of Logos.
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Memo: For Ministry of Strange, Unusual, and Impossible Things Operatives Only
A series of strange incidents have been reported in Belfast:
* Oddball kids are going missing
* There are several unconfirmed signs of pirates.
* A wild bear known to be a very sore loser at musical statues has escaped from the museum and is on the rampage.
Fortunately, our newest recruits, Jack Pearse, a curious boy skilled at logical thinking and seeing what's actually there, and Trudy Emerson, the most dangerous girl in his school, are on the case. As per Ministry policy, they are currently being trained in the use of The Speed (patent pending) and will have full access to Ministry supplies (assuming they manage to navigate the paperwork without going insane), so we are confident that they will succeed in their mission to discover and foil this villainous plot.
Please provide all assistance possible, as a) they don't know who they are actually up against, b) the world is much stranger than they realized, and c) they are only 12 and have to be in bed by 10 p.m.
P.S.-Could all Ministry operatives who have borrowed dinosaurs in the past two weeks please return them? We're running low on inventory.
Lucy Bluecrowne and Maxwell Ault are on a mission: find the three pieces of a strange and arcane engine. They're not exactly sure what this machine does, but they have it on good authority that it will stop the war that's raging between their home country of England and Napoleon Bonaparte's France. Despite being followed by mysterious men dressed all in black, they're well on their way to finding everything they need when their ship, the famous Left-Handed Fate, is taken by the Americans.
And not just any Americans. The Fate (and with it, Lucy and Max) are put under the command of Oliver Dexter, who's only just turned twelve.
But Lucy and Max aren't the only ones trying to put the engine together, and if the pieces fall into the wrong hands, it could prove disastrous. Oliver is faced with a choice: help Lucy and Max and become a traitor to his country? Or follow orders and risk endangering that same country and many others at the same time--not to mention his friends?
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The Chicken Squad is back for their third (mis)adventure, and this time they’re facing off with whatever’s hiding in a mystery box in the backyard. A hilarious chapter book from the bestselling author of Click, Clack, Moo and Diary of a Worm.
Our fluffy, fearless young detectives are back out sleuthing because there’s a new cage in the yard, and the Chicken Squad is determined to figure out just who this new addition is. Because whatever it is, it’s definitely up to no good. So equipped with the latest surveillance gear—which apparently includes copious amounts of marshmallows—the chicks venture into the wild to get answers. Let’s just hope they can beat that giant raincloud that’s closing in…because everyone knows that chickens can’t swim!
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Award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford’s innovative history in verse celebrates the story of the Tuskegee Airmen: pioneering African-American pilots who triumphed in the skies and past the color barrier.
I WANT YOU! says the poster of Uncle Sam. But if you’re a young black man in 1940, he doesn’t want you in the cockpit of a war plane. Yet you are determined not to let that stop your dream of flying.
So when you hear of a civilian pilot training program at Tuskegee Institute, you leap at the chance. Soon you are learning engineering and mechanics, how to communicate in code, how to read a map. At last the day you’ve longed for is here: you are flying!
From training days in Alabama to combat on the front lines in Europe, this is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the groundbreaking African-American pilots of World War II. In vibrant second-person poems, Carole Boston Weatherford teams up for the first time with her son, artist Jeffery Weatherford, in a powerful and inspiring book that allows readers to fly, too.
The Ballad of a Broken Nose by Arne Svingen
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Bart is an eternal optimist. At thirteen years old, he’s had a hard life. But Bart knows that things won’t get any better if you have a negative attitude. His mother has pushed him into boxing lessons so that Bart can protect himself, but Bart already has defense mechanisms: he is relentlessly positive…and he loves opera.
Listening to—and singing—opera is Bart’s greatest escape, but he’s too shy to share this with anyone. Then popular Ada befriends him and encourages him to perform at the school talent show. Ada can’t keep a secret to save her life, but Bart bonds with her anyway, and her openness helps him realize that his troubles are not burdens that he must bear alone.
The Ballad of a Broken Nose is a sweet story about bravery, fear, bullying, sports, and music. But most of all it is about the important days of your life, days when everything seems to happen at once and nothing ever will be the same again.
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Noah Grow is a bird-watcher. If you're picturing some kid in a big floppy hat, peering up into trees through giant binoculars . . . well, good job. That's exactly what he does. Right now, Noah is on a quest to find a wood duck. According to his calculations, aka the Drake Equation, the odds are good-really good-for spotting one.
That's why he gets off the bus at the wrong stop. And that's how he ends up running down a hill, crashing into a fence, and landing right next to a strange, glittery disk.
Noah and his best friends, Jason and Jenny, soon discover that the mysterious disk is, well, mysterious. It gives Noah peculiar powers. As things go from odd to outrageous, Noah is swept up in a storm of intergalactic intrigue and middle-school mayhem. There's much more at stake than Noah realizes.
Bart King delivers a hilarious sci-fi adventure with just the right mix of heart and humor that will have readers looking out for birds-and strange alien objects.
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In this second book in the exceptional Curiosity House series by bestselling author Lauren Oliver and shadowy recluse H. C. Chester, four extraordinary children must avenge their friend’s death, try to save their home, and unravel the secrets of their past . . . before their past unravels them.
Pippa, Sam, Thomas, and Max are happy to be out of harm’s way now that the notorious villain Nicholas Rattigan is halfway across the country in Chicago. But unfortunately their home, Dumfreys’s Dime Museum of Freaks, Oddities, and Wonders, is in danger of closing its doors forever.
But their troubles only get worse. The four friends are shocked when their beloved friend, famous sculptor Siegfried Eckleberger, is murdered. As they investigate, they find clues that his death may be tied to the murder of a rich and powerful New York heiress, as well as to their own pasts.
This is the second book in the series and so boasts many wondrous and mysterious things inside, such as:
· Howie, the “Human Owl,” whose head turns just about all the way around
· A mean but important house cat
· Some perfectly ghastly wax sculptures
· A very thin boy named Chubby
· An awful mechanical leg
It continues not to have:
· A cautionary tale about running with scissors
· A list of time-consuming chores
· Nutritious and decidedly not delicious vegetables
· A perfectly sweet bedtime story about a wayward bunny
· Two wet kisses on the cheek from your aunt Mildred
From a compelling new voice in middle grade comes a reimagination of The Odyssey told from the point of view of Odysseus’s loyal dog—a thrilling tale of loyalty, determination, and adventure.
For twenty years, the great hero Odysseus struggles to return to Ithaka. After ten years beneath the walls of Troy, he begins the long journey back home. He defeats monsters. He outsmarts the Cyclops. He battles the gods. He struggles to survive and do whatever it takes to reunite with his family.
And what of that family—his devoted wife, Penelope; his young son, Telemachos; his dog, Argos? For those twenty years, they wait, unsure if they will ever see Odysseus again. But Argos has found a way to track his master. Any animal who sets foot or wing on Ithaka brings him news of Odysseus’s voyage—and hope that one day his master will return. Meanwhile, Argos watches over his master’s family and protects them from the dangers that surround a throne without its king.
School of the Dead by Avi
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From Newbery Medalist Avi comes the spine-tingling story of Tony Gilbert, who must solve a mystery surrounding the ghost of his uncle Charlie.
For most of Tony Gilbert’s life, he always thought of his uncle as “Weird Uncle Charlie.” That is, until Uncle Charlie moves in with Tony and his family. He’s still odd, of course—talking about spirits and other supernatural stuff—but Uncle Charlie and Tony become fast friends. Between eating ice cream and going to the movies, Tony is having more fun with Uncle Charlie than he ever could have imagined.
So when Uncle Charlie dies suddenly, Tony is devastated. So sad, in fact, he starts seeing Uncle Charlie everywhere! Tony recently transferred to the Penda School, where Uncle Charlie went as a kid. The school is eerie enough on its own without his uncle’s ghost making it worse. On top of which, rumors have been circulating about a student who went missing shortly before Tony arrived. Could that and Uncle Charlie’s ghost be related?
Full of twists and turns that get spookier by the chapter, School of the Dead is a fast-paced mystery that Avi’s fans will devour!
Goodreads
Which new covers are your favorite? Let me know in the comments!The Brothers Grimm’s enduring fairy tales are brought to life for a new generation of readers in their original, uncut, uncensored form, in a lavish new edition by the master of the gothic macabre—bestselling illustrator Gris Grimly.
Grimm.
The name alone is enough to call to mind any number of the timeless fairy tales collected by brothers Jacob and Wilhelm in the early nineteenth century. These folktales have been told and retold in many forms for over two centuries, and while the particular mix of fantasy, adventure, and wonder that defined their seven-volume collection has endured, the terror, violence, and darkness of the original stories have often been lost in translation.
Enter Gris Grimly, the modern master of gothic horror, who has faithfully reproduced the original text of a selection of tales—including “Rapunzel,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Little Red-Cap”—and adorned them with his own inimitable artwork. The result is a Grimm collection unlike any other, set in a world that is whimsically sinister, darkly vivid, and completely unforgettable. Gris Grimly’s Tales from the Brothers Grimm is the definitive illustrated compendium of these classic stories for a new generation of readers.
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