All the Lovely Bad Ones

All the Lovely Bad Ones
By Mary Downing Hahn

It was fun to read this creepy ghost story, recommended to me by Fiona, an avid reader and regular in our middle school library.

Brother and sister Travis and Corey are spending the summer at their grandmother's inn in rural Vermont--and to make things a little more fun they decide to revive some old ghost stories by pretending to haunt the grounds. Little do they know they are awakening real ghosts with their pranks! A group of orphaned children inhabited the "poor farm" centuries ago and were treated cruelly by the farm's mistress, Miss Ada. The ghost-children, "the lovely bad ones," still long for justice and to be peacefully laid to rest. The horrible Miss Ada continues to mistreat them, though, even from beyond the grave...it's up to Travis and Corey to put an end to this head ghost, and to restore peace at the farm. Will they be brave enough?

All American Boys

All American Boys
By Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

All American Boys is a timely, important, and super impressive book about how an isolated instance of police brutality towards a black teenager affects an entire community, and ultimately the whole country.
When Rashad, age 16, reaches into his bag for his cell phone at a corner store, a minor accident leads to a false accusation that he's trying to shoplift a bag of chips; he is brutally beaten up by a police officer who claims he is "just doing his job."
This event is captured on video and broadcast around the country on the news while Rashad recovers in the hospital...Meanwhile, Quinn, a classmate who witnessed the beating, tries to figure out what he should do in the face of this incredible injustice--especially because he is a friend and neighbor of the police officer.
Told in alternating voices, by two different teenagers--one black, one white--the novel is also written by two authors--one black, one white.

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu
By Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Sixth-grader Lucy would much rather play basketball than go to Chinese School. She knows she will hate it--and besides, why does she need to learn to speak Chinese anyway? She wants to be a basketball star!
When her great aunt comes from China to visit for an extended stay (months!) Lucy is even more horrified that she will have to share her room with Yi Po...who doesn't speak any English.
Lucy is sure her year is doomed. But she is in for some surprises, to help her deal with the challenges of family and school stuff!

To This Day

To This Day
By Shane Koyczan

To This Day is a spoken word poem by Shane Koyczan, beautifully illustrated in this powerful book by 30 different artists from around the world.
The video of Koyczan's poem about bullying--and being bullied himself--went viral on the internet in 2013. It is moving and inspiring.

The Mildenhall Treasure

The Mildenhall Treasure
By Roald Dahl
Illustrated by Ralph Steadman

Since I love all stories by Roald Dahl, I was curious when I found this on our library's shelves; I had never heard of it before. This true, short story is amazingly and beautifully illustrated, so it's really a picture book--and quite a great one!
Inspired by a news story from a newspaper he read in 1945, Roald Dahl interviewed an English farmer named Gordon Butcher who had accidentally uncovered a Roman treasure while working in the fields one day. Little did Mr. Butcher know he had stumbled upon an incredible, rare fortune, buried for over a thousand years...and then he was cheated out of it by a greedy neighboring farmer who knew what the treasure was really worth.

Here is an account of the of the same story and photos of the treasure from the British Museum, where it is kept to this day:
https://blog.britishmuseum.org/2012/03/29/roald-dahl-and-the-mildenhall-treasure/

Bad Girls

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves & Other Female Villains
By Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple
Illustrated by Rebecca Guay

I really enjoyed reading these short, lively accounts of real women (girls, in some cases) who made history--infamously--for different reasons and all in different ways.
The mother/daughter team of Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple present some of their own research process in the form of a brief, fun comic strip at the end of each chapter.
Each chapter is about a different "villainous" woman, and in the end, the reader is left to decide whether or not these women deserve their titles of "Sirens, Jezebels, murderesses, thieves...and villains."

Includes brief biographies of: Delilah, Jezebel, Cleopatra, Salome, Anne Boleyn, Bloody Mary, Elisabeth Báthory, Moll Cutpurse, Tituba, Anne Bonney & Mary Read, Catherine the Great, Mata Hari...and many others!

The Beast of Cretacea
By Todd Strasser

Maybe you've never read the classic Moby-Dick...I haven't (yet!)...but this sci-fi retelling of Herman Melville's epic adventure on a whaling ship may make you want to check it out!
Set in the future, when Earth is covered by a Shroud of thick pollution, food and all other resources are scarce.  Humans struggle to survive--at least most of them do.
Ishmael, age 17, has no other choice than to be transported to another galaxy to harvest resources from a different Earth-like planet--that way he can make money to get his parents off of Earth and somewhere safer.
Little does Ishmael know that by joining the crew of the mighty Pequod, dangerous adventures lie ahead: a giant, lethal underwater beast the captain of the Pequod is obsessed with hunting down, savage pirates, gentle islanders etching out an alternative way of life on land, new friends--and new enemies.
All of this for a boy who has never eaten solid food, taken a shower, nor seen the ocean...
A page-turner!

The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society
By Trenton Lee Stewart 

This is a very fun book (and series!) for people who love puzzles, mysteries, and secret missions...
Four specially-chosen, quirky, and orphaned children are sent to the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened to help solve a mystery they don't completely understand but are supposedly well-equipped to tackle. The challenge is for them to work together--and think WAY out of the box--to stop evil forces from controlling the world's population...hard to explain, but read it and enjoy!

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel
by Sara Farizan

From the publisher:
Leila has made it most of the way through Armstead Academy without having a crush on anyone, which is a relief. As an Iranian-American, she's different enough; if word got out that Leila liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when beautiful new girl Saskia shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would. As she carefully confides in trusted friends about Saskia's confusing signals, Leila begins to figure out that all her classmates are more complicated than they first appear to be, and some are keeping surprising secrets of their own.

Wildwood

Wildwood
By Colin Meloy
Illustrated by Carson Ellis

Since I used to live in Portland, Oregon, I particularly loved the setting of Wildwood. And since I love the music of the band The Decemberists, I had a hunch I would enjoy the writing by that band's lead singer and lyricist, Colin Meloy. And I did!
Wildwood is the first book in a trilogy of fantasy stories involving two 12-year-old kids, Prue and Curtis, who accidentally wander into an enchanted wood that borders the city of Portland. In these woods, talking forest animals and humans, some with (dark) magical abilities are preparing for a war--and Prue and Curtis find themselves more involved in the civil unrest than they could have imagined!
Full of adventure and wit, Wildwood will keep you reading and wondering how it will all work out...

The illustrations throughout the book by Carson Ellis are wonderful, too!

grayson

grayson

By Lynne Cox

A lovely little book! Lynne Cox recalls an incredible experience she had as a 17-year-old long-distance ocean swimmer: a baby grey whale, separated from its mom and lost, followed her around as she swam in the ocean near Long Beach, CA one morning.
The author describes the amazing ocean animals she saw and the wild experiences of that day in vivid detail, sharing the magic of the Pacific ocean with those of us who usually stay on the beach!

The Schwa Was Here

The Schwa Was Here
By Neal Shusterman

I really enjoyed this bizarre and fun story of a boy called the Schwa who is "partially invisible"; that is, no one seems to notice him--not his teachers, classmates, bus drivers...not even his own dad.
But one classmate, Antsy, who sometimes feels invisible himself, befriends the Schwa and they team up to use invisibility to their advantage. One adventure leads to another, and eventually there are some hard realities to face, and a real mystery to be solved so that the Schwa doesn't truly disappear.

Neal Shusterman wrote Downsiders, which I also loved.

I Lived on Butterfly Hill

I Lived on Butterfly Hill
By Marjorie Agosín

This is a fictionalized account of a real dictatorship that happened in Chile, a beautiful country in South America. In the novel an 11-year-old girl named Celeste, from Valparaíso (the "San Francisco of Chile") experiences the disappearances of friends and neighbors as the General takes power over her country. Eventually her own parents, who are doctors helping the poor, are forced to go into hiding--and Celeste moves north to Maine to live with her aunt until Chile is safer for her family.
I Lived on Butterfly Hill is slow-paced, written by a Chilean poet and writer, and it has lovely illustrations throughout the story.
Celeste's experience of living far away from her parents--not knowing where they are hiding, for two years--and learning to adapt in a new country is very moving. 

Akata Witch

Akata Witch
By Nnedi Okorafor

This book is kind of a Teens-Turned-Superheroes thriller set in Nigeria! Very original!
Full of magic--and black magic--strange twists and turns, realism and fantasy, I wasn't really sure how this wild story would unfold, up to almost the last page.
It has plenty of fantastical elements, but also stark realism--about fitting in, about racism, about being different, about accepting oneself...It's an interesting novel, for sure!

The Sleeper and the Spindle

The Sleeper and the Spindle

By Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Chris Riddell

I love other books by Neil Gaiman that I've read--Coraline, The Graveyard Book--so I was intrigued by this slender, new book with incredibly detailed and beautiful illustrations by Chris Riddell.
It is a fairy tale...of sorts! Or perhaps a few different fairy tales you may recognize, but twisted together, distorted, and combined in a surprising way--with a little dark magic thrown in.
Who says Snow White has to wear a dress? Who says it must be a man who kisses Sleeping Beauty? Who says any given princess is even good?
Read this book and be challenged in what you've heard of princesses who go to sleep for a hundred years, and the heroes who rescue them...

Wonderstruck

Wonderstruck
By Brian Selznick

This thick, heavy book may look intimidating at first glance--but you will race through Wonderstruck, both because the plot is so compelling and because half of it is told through pictures!
I enjoyed trying to figure out the connections between the text-only story of a boy who just lost his mother (and his hearing, from a lightning strike) and the drawings of a deaf girl, many years before, who runs away from home to New York City.
Full of curious characters, unusual museum artifacts, and unexpected friendships, Wonderstruck is an unconventional half-graphic-novel you will no doubt enjoy!

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Young Readers Edition

by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

What an inspiring story! What an impressive young man!
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is the true story of how William Kamkwamba--a young teenager driven by curiosity--built his own wind turbine out of junk to generate electricity for his home in rural Malawi, a small country in Africa. Not only did he succeed with this challenging project (and several others), he overcame many obstacles: like being kicked out of school because his family couldn't afford to pay, and a severe famine in his country that left him and his entire village starving for many months.
And, by the way, this boy completely taught himself the science necessary to build a windmill, with books from a small library...and no access to the Internet.

The False Prince

The False Prince
By Jennifer A. Nielsen

California Young Reader Medal
2014-2015 Middle School Winner!

I had a hard time putting this book down once I'd started it--and the twists and turns in the story really surprised me!

Four similar-looking orphan boys, selected and purchased by a wealthy and powerful nobleman, are forced to compete with each other to be the new--false--prince who will be installed on the throne. The royal family has been disappeared, the kingdom is on the verge of war, and the dubious noblemen has a bizarre plan that may prevent war...or maybe he's just planning his own path to power...?

Kepler's Dream

Kepler's Dream
by Juliet Bell

Unhappy Ella, 11 years old, is moving from California to New Mexico for the summer to live with a grandmother she's never met (or maybe she met her once, as a baby, who remembers?). Ella's mom has cancer, and needs a very serious blood treatment in Seattle, so Ella will be on her own--since her dad is pretty much never around.
While in her eccentric grandmother's isolated house, Ella learns a lot about a special, old book that her grandfather loved--he was an astronomer who died during a fishing accident when Ella's father was a young boy. When the book, Sonmium, written in 1608 by Johannes Kepler (!) goes missing, Ella is determined to unravel the mystery along with a new friend, Rosie.

Harlem Hellfighters

Harlem Hellfighters 
by J. Patrick Lewis and Gary Kelley

This gorgeous and intense picture book tells the true story--in free-verse poetry--of the 369th Infantry Regiment during World War I.
In 1917 a brave group of 2,000 black Americans enlisted and  became known as the Harlem Hellfighters; some of these young men played instruments in a famous band that brought the music of Harlem, New York, straight into the war raging in France.
Faced with racism in the United States, the Harlem Hellfighters returned victorious when the war was over, helping to make progress towards equal rights for all African Americans--that were still a long time coming.



Below, Lt. James Reese Europe, famous jazz
band leader, back with the 369th Regiment.
More photos and information about the Harlem Hellfighers at: www.archives.gov/education/lessons/369th-infantry