Win “Coal” Keegan has just landed in his latest foster home, with a big, noisy, slightly nosy family named the McKays. They seem eager to welcome Coal, but he’s wary of trusting them. So, he doesn’t tell them that he went for a walk with chalk in his pocket to cover a nearby street with his art. He doesn’t tell them that a neighbor found Coal drawing, pulled a gun on him, and fired it. He doesn’t tell them the police chased him. And he definitely doesn’t tell them that when everything went down, Coal somehow turned invisible.
Audience: All
Since Grandpa died, Dally’s days are dull and restricted. She’s eleven and a half years old, and her exacting single mother is already grooming her to take over the family business. Starved for adventure and release, Dally rescues a mysterious envelope from her mother’s clutches, an envelope Grandpa had earmarked for her. The map she finds inside leads straight to an ancient vault, a library of secrets where each book is a portal to a precise moment in time. As Dally “checks out” adventure after adventure—including an exhilarating outing with pirates—she begins to dive deep into her family’s hidden history. Soon she’s visiting every day to escape the demands of the present. But the library has secrets of its own, intentions that would shape her life as surely as her mother’s meticulous plans. What will Dally choose? Equal parts mystery and adventure—with a biracial child puzzling out her identity alongside the legacy of the past—this masterful middle-grade fantasy rivets with crackling prose, playful plot twists, and timeless themes. A satisfying choice for fans of Kindred and When You Reach Me.
Audience: All
A group of children investigate the threat that prompted large-scale evacuations in this powerful and dramatic companion novel to the New York Times bestselling Alone told in multiple POVs.
After an imminent yet unnamed danger forces people across Colorado to leave their homes, a group of kids including an aspiring filmmaker and a budding journalist find themselves in the same evacuation camp. As they cope with the aftermath of having their world upended, they grow curious about the mysterious threat.
Audience: All
For Gemma's whole life, it has always been her and her mom against the world. As far as she knew, all her grandparents—and thus her ties to Taiwanese culture—were dead. Until one day when a mysterious man shows up at her door with two shocking the news that her grandfather has just recently passed, and the first clue to a treasure hunt that Gemma hopes will lead to her inheritance.
There's just one major problem: to complete the hunt, she has to go to her grandfather's home in Taiwan. And the only way she can get there is by asking her ex and biggest high-school rival, Xander, for help. But after swallowing her pride, Gemma finds herself halfway across the world, ready to unearth her life-changing prize. Soon Gemma discovers that the treasure hunt is about much more than money—it's about finally learning about her family, her cultural roots, and maybe even finding true love.
Audience: All/Older
Los Angeles, 1932: Lulu Wong, star of the silver screen and the pride of Chinatown, has a face known to practically anyone, especially to the Chow sisters—May, Gemma, and Peony—Lulu's former classmates and neighbors. So the girls instantly know it's Lulu whose body they discover one morning in an out-of-the-way stable, far from the Beverly Hills mansion where she moved once her fame skyrocketed.
The sisters suspect Lulu's death is the result of foul play, but the LAPD—known for being corrupt to the core—doesn't seem motivated to investigate. Even worse, there are signs that point to the possibility of a police cover-up, and powerful forces in the city want to frame the killing as evidence that Chinatown is a den of iniquity and crime, even more reason it should be demolished to make room for the construction of a new railway depot, Union Station.
Audience: All/Older