Back of Book: 

Hermes here. The Greek god— 

No. Don't put down the book—

I'm talking to you. 

I bring you a story that tells of the quick and the dead: 

the tale of a girl as precious as amber, 

the tale of a boy as common as clay. 

Rhaskos works in the stables. Worth less than a donkey, much less than a horse. But Rhaskos is clever and talanted, and beloved of his mother—who was been forced away from her son but is willing to do anything for him. 

Melisto is a girl. Wealthy, privileged, intended for a stifling marriage and dangerous childbirth. But first she is to spend a season serving Artemis, goddess of the hunt, as one of her little bears—a season for which she she may not return. 

From the exquisite pen of Laura Amy Schlitz comes a masterpiece of storytelling; the tale of a boy and a girl, told not just in their voices, but also in the voices of gods and mothers and the philosopher Sokrates. It brings to vivid life a world two millennia gone and wraps its readers up in an improbable, indelible friendship that crosses the boundaries of class, gender, and even of life and death. 

There they are: 

the girl as electric as amber, 

and the boy, indestructible as clay. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Fantasy 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

From an award-winning author of historical fiction comes a story of survival, crime, adventure, and horses in the streets of 19th century New York City.

Eleven-year-old Rocco is an Italian immigrant who finds himself alone in New York City after he's sold to a padrone by his poverty-stricken parents. While working as a street musician, he meets the boys of the infamous Bandits' Roost, who teach him the art of pickpocketing. Rocco embraces his new life of crime—he's good at it, and it's more lucrative than banging a triangle on the street corner. But when he meets Meddlin' Mary, a strong-hearted Irish girl who's determined to help the horses of New York City, things begin to change. Rocco begins to reexamine his life—and take his future into his own hands.

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

A disaster that changes their lives. A friendship that lasts a lifetime. 

On a spring morning, neighbors Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up to an angry red sky. A reactor at the nuclear power plant where their fathers work—Chernobyl—has exploded. Before they know it, the two girls, who've always been enemies, find themselves on a train bound for Leningrad to stay with Valentina's estranged grandmother, Rita Grigorievna. In their new lives in Leningrad, they begin to learn what it means to trust another person. Oksana must face the lies her parents told her all her life. Valentina must keep her grandmother's secret, one that could put all their lives in danger. And both of them discover something they've wished for: a best friend. 

But how far would you go to save your best friend's life? Would you risk your own?

Told in alternating perspectives among three girls—Valentina and Oksana in 1986 and Rifka in 1941—this story shows that hatred, intolerance, and oppression are no match for the power of true friendship. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Boy has always been relegated to the outskirts of his small village. With a large hump on his back, a mysterious past, and a tendency to talk to animals, he is often mocked and abused by the other kids in his town. Until the arrival of a shadowy pilgrim named Secondus. Impressed with Boy’s climbing and jumping abilities, Secondus engages Boy as his servant, pulling him into an expedition across Europe to gather the seven precious relics of Saint Peter. Boy quickly realizes this journey is not an innocent one. They are stealing the relics, and gaining dangerous enemies in the process. But Boy is determined to see this pilgrimage through until the end—for what if St. Peter can make Boy’s hump go away?

This compelling, action-packed tale is full of bravery and daring, stars a terrific cast of secondary characters, and features an unlikely multigenerational friendship at its heart. Memorable and haunting, Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s epic medieval adventure is just right for readers of Sara Pennypacker’s Pax, Adam Gidwitz’s The Inquisitor’s Tale, and Pam Muñoz Ryan’s Echo.

Features a map and black-and-white art throughout. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Fantasy 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him:

1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 

2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.

3. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!

Bud's got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him—not hunger, not fear, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself.  

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Newbery Honor–winning author Gennifer Choldenko deftly combines humor, tragedy, fascinating historical detail, and a medical mystery in this exuberant new novel.

San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. A fantastic time to be alive for lots of people... but not thirteen-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow’s snobby school for girls. Lizzie’s secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city—a side that’s full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague.

The newspapers, her powerful uncle, and her beloved papa all deny that the plague has reached San Francisco. So why is the heart of the city under quarantine? Why are angry mobs trying to burn Chinatown to the ground? Why is Noah, the Chinese cook’s son, suddenly making Lizzie question everything she has known to be true? Ignoring the rules of race and class, Lizzie and Noah must put the pieces together in a heart-stopping race to save the people they love. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Three ordinary children are brought together by extraordinary events. . . 

Giuseppe is an orphaned street musician from Italy, who was sold by his uncle to work as a slave for an evil padrone in the U.S. But when a mysterious green violin enters his life he begins to imagine a life of freedom. Hannah is a soft-hearted, strong-willed girl from the tenements, who supports her family as a hotel maid when tragedy strikes and her father can no longer work. She learns about a hidden treasure, which she knows will save her family—if she can find it. And Frederick, the talented and intense clockmaker's apprentice, seeks to learn the truth about his mother while trying to forget the nightmares of the orphanage where she left him. He is determined to build an automaton and enter the clockmakers' guild—if only he can create a working head.

Together, the three discover they have phenomenal power when they team up as friends, and that they can overcome even the darkest of fears. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

Aiden is the son of a fisherman on the south coast of England, and he's feared the ocean since his oldest brother's ship was sunk by a German U-boat.

But that doesn't matter when he and his best friend Sally hear chatter on their radio. Allied troops, including Aiden's surviving brother, are trapped in France, surrounded by German forces. The British military have come up with a daring plan to save as many troops as possible, bringing them across the Channel to safety—but they'll need every boat they can get their hands on.

Aiden's parents forbid him from going, but he and Sally know they can help, and set off to join Operation Dynamo on their own. It's a harrowing journey, and the pair are in grave danger as they help ferry troops from Dunkirk, searching for Aiden's brother all the while. It will take an entire village for them to realize that as long as people are willing to help those who need it, there's hope for a brighter tomorrow. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Hannah is tired of holiday gatherings—all her family ever talks about is the past. In fact, it seems to her that's what they do every Jewish holiday. But this year's Passover Seder will be different—Hannah will be mysteriously transported into the past... and only she knows the unspeakable horrors that await. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Science Fiction

Review: 🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse, singing, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". 

That is the day that Maud—"plain, clever, and bad" girl of the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans—is adopted into a real family, surprising even Maud herself. The elderly Hawthorne sisters, led by the charismatic Hyacinth, think that Maud Flynn is absolutely perfect, and Maud follows them eagerly into a brand-new life, expecting to be pampered and cherished beyond her wildest dreams. 

Once she settles in with Hyacinth, Judith, and Victoria to live out an orphan's fantasy, however, Maud learns that "perfection"  has more to do with the secret role she can play in the high-stakes and eerie "family business" than her potential as a beloved family member. Maud persists in playing her role in the hopes of someday being rewarded with genuine affection. But the burden of keeping secrets and and perpetuating lies grows heavy even for Maud, and she must ultimately decide just how much she is willing to endure for the sake of being. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Fantasy 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

England, 1940. Barney’s home has been destroyed by bombing, and he and his mother are traveling to the countryside with all their worldy belongings in one suitcase. When German planes attack, their train is forced to take shelter in a tunnel and there, in the darkness, a fellow passenger―a stranger―begins to tell them a story about two young soldiers who came face to face in the previous war. One British, one German. Both lived, but the British soldier was haunted by the encounter once he realized whose life he had spared: the young Adolf Hitler.

The British soldier made a moral decision. Was it the right one? Readers can ponder that difficult question for themselves with Michael Morpurgo's latest middle-grade novel An Eagle in the Snow. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.

Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo.

Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, Echo pushes the boundaries of genre, form, and storytelling innovation to create a wholly original novel that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Fantasy 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico—she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances—Mama's life, and her own, depend on it. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

An epidemic of fever sweeps through the streets of 1793 Philadelphia in this novel from Laurie Halse Anderson where "the plot rages like the epidemic itself" (The New York Times Book Review).

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out.

Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease. 

Book Number: Stand Alone  

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

Thirteen-year-old Nathaniel Dunn is an indentured servant in colonial Virginia. Life is hard, and it's about to get harder when Nathaniel is sold. But in a twist of luck, he meets Basil, a kind, elderly schoolmaster. An arrangement is struck lending Nathaniel's labor to a Williamsburg carriage maker with strong loyalist ties in a town increasingly led by patriots such as Thomas Jefferson. Basil introduces Nathaniel to music, books, and philosophies that open his mind and heart to daring new attitudes on equality. 

The year is 1775. Colonists are enraged by England's taxation. When Virginia organizes a protest embargo on British goods, patriots and loyalists clash. Soon Patrick Henry's impassioned words, "give me liberty or give me death" become the sounding call. Should Nathaniel and Basil join the fight? And what is the meaning of "liberty" in a country that depends on indentured servants and slaves? Nathaniel grapples with the choices a dawning nation lays before him and the possibility of facing his closest friend in battle as the American Revolution explodes in Virginia. 

L. M. Elliott's gripping account captures the hopes and dilemmas of a boy caught up in this crucial turning point in American history. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Based on the true story of a boy in Brooklyn who became neighbors and friends with his hero, Jackie Robinson.

Stephen Satlow is an eight-year-old boy living in Brooklyn, New York, which means he only cares about one thing-the Dodgers. Steve and his father spend hours reading the sports pages and listening to games on the radio. Aside from an occasional run-in with his teacher, life is pretty simple for Steve. 

But then Steve hears a rumor that an African American family is moving to his all-Jewish neighborhood. It's 1948 and some of his neighbors are against it. Steve knows this is wrong. His hero, Jackie Robinson, broke the color barrier in baseball the year before.

Then it happens—Steve's new neighbor is none other than Jackie Robinson! Steve is beyond excited about living two doors down from the Robinson family. He can't wait to meet Jackie. This is going to be the best baseball season yet! How many kids ever get to become friends with their hero? 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children. Their adventures take them on a chase through France: they are taken captive by knights, sit alongside a king, and save the land from a farting dragon. On the run to escape prejudice and persecution and save precious and holy texts from being burned, their quest drives them forward to a final showdown at Mont Saint-Michel, where all will come to question if these children can perform the miracles of saints.

Join William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne's loyal greyhound, Gwenforte... recently brought back from the dead. Told in multiple voices, in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales, our narrator collects their stories and the saga of these three unlikely allies begins to come together. 

Beloved bestselling author Adam Gidwitz makes his long awaited return with his first new world since his hilarious and critically acclaimed Grimm series. Featuring manuscript illuminations throughout by illustrator Hatem Aly and filled with Adam’s trademark style and humor, The Inquisitor's Tale is bold storytelling that’s richly researched and adventure-packed. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Fantasy 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

They tell Jip he tumbled off the back of a wagon when he was small, and no one ever came back for him. He never had a reason to question this tale—but then a stranger shows up and begins asking about him around town. Who is this man, and could he possibly know something about Jip's past? 

Book Number: Stand Alone  

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Longing to fulfill his dream of becoming a voyageur, Jean Pierre Petite Le Rouge stows away in one of the canoes traveling from Montreal to a far away trading post. He's so excited he can't stay hidden long and soon finds himself perched on the bow of the canoe, whiskers in the wind, singing his heart out. 

The voyageurs are not amused to find a pesky squirrel among their crew. He rides, but does not paddle? He eats, but does not cook? On the portages, he doesn't carry anything—sometimes it is he that is carried! And he's a terrible singer. What kind of voyageur is that? Fortunately, his kind crewmate Jean Gentille takes pity on him and lets "Le Rouge" ride in his vest pocket. 

But when they finally arrive at the trading post, Jean Pierre Petite Le Rouge is in for a terrible shock—the voyageurs have traveled 1,200 miles to collect what? Furs! Skins! The pelts pf his fellow fur-bearers! Heartsick, he believes he will have to give up his dream of becoming a voyageur. Unless, of course, he can find a way to change their minds. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Fantasy

Review: 🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

From the author of Catherine, Called Birdy comes another spellbinding novel set in medieval England. The girl known only as Brat has no family, no home, and no future until she meets Jane the Midwife and becomes her apprentice. As she helps the sharp-tempered Jane deliver babies, Brat—who renames herself Alyce—gains knowledge, confidence, and the courage to want something from life: "A full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world." Medieval village life makes a lively backdrop for the funny, poignant story of how Alyce gets what she wants. A concluding note discusses midwifery past and present. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

"We are a family on a journey to a place called Wonderful." 

That's the motto of the Malone family of Gary, Indiana. Twelve-year-old Deza Malone is the smartest student in her class, told by her teachers that she's destined for a special path. Her older brother, Jimmie, is no angel, but he can sing like one, and when he does, people stop to listen. 

The Great Depression has hit Gary hard, and there are few jobs—especially for black men like Mr. Malone. After their father leaves Gary to find work, Deza, Jimmie, and their mother set out in his wake, always holding out the hope that they will catch up to him. The pluck with which the endearing, sometimes comical Deza faces the twists and turns of the family's journey proves that she truly is the Mighty Miss Malone. 

Newbery Award-winning author Christopher Paul Curtis has written a heart-wrenching, suspenseful new classic about one unforgettable family during the turbulent days of the Great Depression. 

Book Number: Stand Alone (Note: Deza Malone is a character in Curtis' other book Bud, Not Buddy. If you have any interest in reading this novel, I would prescribe reading that one first. They aren't heavily connected, but the references are golden. If you I previously read Bud, Not Buddy, I would recommend reading this book.)  

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

 Back of Book: 

He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Filthy son of Abraham.

He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself, and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels.

He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi, with tall, shiny jackboots of his own-until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind.

And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.

Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable—Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II—and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young Holocaust orphan. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

When thirteen-year-old Lora tells her parents that she wants to join Premier Castro's army of young literacy teachers, her mother screeches to high heaven, and her father roars like a lion. Lora has barely been outside of Havana—why would she throw away her life in a remote shack with no electricity, sleeping on a hammock in somebody's kitchen? 

But Lora is stubborn: didn't her parents teach her to share what she has with someone in need? Surprisingly, Lora's abuela takes her side, even as she makes Lora promise to come home if things get too hard. But how will Lora know for sure when that time has come? 

Shining light on a little-known moment in history, Katherine Paterson traces a young teen's coming-of-age journey from a sheltered life to a singular mission: teaching fellow Cubans of all ages to read and write, while helping with the work of their daily lives and sharing the dangers posed by counterrevolutionaries hiding in the hills nearby. Inspired by true accounts, the novel includes an author's note and a timeline of Cuban history. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Sixteen-year-old Valya knows what it feels like to fly. She’s a pilot who’s always felt more at home soaring through the sky than down on earth. But since the Germans surrounded Stalingrad, Valya’s been forced to stay on the ground and watch her city crumble.

When her mother is killed during the siege, Valya is left with one burning desire: to join up with her older sister, a member of the famous Night Witches—a regiment of female pilots who fly light plains through curtains of fire to bomb crucial targets.

Using all her wits, Valya manages to get past the German blockade and find the Night Witches’ hidden base. That’s when the real danger starts. The pilots have been assigned a critical mission, one with the power to inflict serious damage on the Nazis. Valya will give anything to fight for her country, but when the person she loves most goes missing, she must make a choice between duty and the deepest desires of her heart.  

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review:  🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

As the German troops begin their campaign to "relocate" all the Jews of Denmark, Annemarie Johansen’s family takes in Annemarie’s best friend, Ellen Rosen, and conceals her as part of the family.

Through the eyes of ten-year-old Annemarie, we watch as the Danish Resistance smuggles almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark, nearly seven thousand people, across the sea to Sweden. The heroism of an entire nation reminds us that there was pride and human decency in the world even during a time of terror and war.

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

With the United States on the verge of World War II, eleven-year-old Gusta is sent from New York City to Maine, where she discovers small-town prejudices—and a huge family secret.

It’s 1941, and tensions are rising in the United States as the Second World War rages in Europe. Eleven-year-old Gusta’s life, like the world around her, is about to change. Her father, a foreign-born labor organizer, has had to flee the country, and Gusta has been sent to live in an orphanage run by her grandmother. Nearsighted, snaggletoothed Gusta arrives in Springdale, Maine, lugging her one precious possession: a beloved old French horn, her sole memento of her father. But in a family that’s long on troubles and short on money, how can a girl hang on to something so valuable and yet so useless when Gusta’s mill-worker uncle needs surgery to fix his mangled hand, with no union to help him pay? Inspired by her mother’s fanciful stories, Gusta secretly hopes to find the coin-like “Wish” that her sea-captain grandfather supposedly left hidden somewhere. Meanwhile, even as Gusta gets to know the rambunctious orphans at the home, she feels like an outsider at her new school—and finds herself facing patriotism turned to prejudice, alien registration drives, and a family secret likely to turn the small town upside down. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

Dakota Territory, 1880. 

When Hanna arrives in the town of LaForge, she sees possibilities. Her father could open a shop on the main street. She could go to school, if there is a school, and even realize her dream of becoming a dressmaker—provided she can convince Papa, that is. She and Papa could make a home here. 

But Hanna is half-Chinese, and she knows from experience that most white people don't want neighbors who aren't white themselves. The people of LaForge have never seen an Asian person before; most are unwelcoming and unfriendly—but they don't even know her! Hanna is determined to stay in LaForge and persuade them to see beyond her surface. 

In a setting that will be recognized by fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, this compelling story of resolution and persistence, told with humor, insight, and charm, offers a fresh look at a long-established view of history. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Survive. At any cost. 

Ten concentration camps.

Ten different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly.

It's something no one could imagine surviving.

But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face.

As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner— his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087.

He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could have never imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror. He just barely escapes death, only to confront it again seconds later.

Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will—and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside?

Based on an astonishing true story. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

Shadow on the Mountain recounts the adventures of a 14-year-old Norwegian boy named Espen during World War II. After Nazi Germany invades and occupies Norway, Espen and his friends are swept up in the Norwegian resistance movement. Espen gets his start by delivering illegal newspapers, then graduates to the role of courier and finally becomes a spy, dodging the Gestapo along the way. During five years under the Nazi regime, he gains―and loses―friends, falls in love, and makes one small mistake that threatens to catch up with him as he sets out to escape on skis over the mountains to Sweden.

Preus incorporates archival photographs, maps, and other images to tell this story based on the real-life adventures of Norwegian Erling Storrusten, whom Preus interviewed in Norway. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

Although he faced his responsibility bravely, thirteen-year-old Matt was more than a little apprehensive when his father left him alone to guard their newly built cabin in the wilderness. When a regegade white stranger stole his gun, Matt knew he had no way to shoot game and no way to protect himself. It was only after meeting the proud, resourceful Indian boy that Matt began to discover new ways to survive in the forest. And in getting to know his friend, Matt also began to understand the heritage of life of the Beaver clan and their growing problem in adopting to the white man and the changing frontier. 

Elizabeth George Speare has written a compelling survival story, filled with wondergul detail about living in the wilderness, that explores the relationship between the white settlers and the Indians in the 1700s. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

The Spanish Slavers were an ever-present threat to the Navaho way of life. One lovely spring day, fourteen-year-old Bright Morning and her friend Running Bird took their sheep to pasture. The sky was clear blue against the red buttes of the Canyon de Schelly, and the fields and orchards of the Navahos promised a rich harvest. Bright Morning was happy as she gazed across the beautiful valley that was the home of her tribe. She tumed when Black Dog barked, and it was then that she saw the Spanish slavers riding straight toward her.  

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book:

In the bleak winter of 1940, Nazi troops parachuted into Peter Lundstrom's tiny Norwegian village and held it captive. Nobody thought the Nazis could be defeated—until Uncle Victor told Peter how the children could fool the enemy. It was a dangerous plan. They had to slip past Nazi guards with nine million dollars in gold hidden on their sleds. It meant risking their country's treasure—and their lives. This classic story of how a group of children outwitted the Nazis and sent the treasure to America has captivated generations of readers. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟

Back of Book: 

In June 1861, when the Civil War began, Charley Goddard left his farm and enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers. He was fifteen. He didn't know what a "shooting war" meant, or what he was fighting for. All he knew was that he didn't want to miss out on a great adventure.

The shooting war meant the horror of combat and the wild luck of survival. It meant knowing how it feels to cross a field toward the enemy, waiting for fire. Waiting for death. And Charley learned: This is how it's done. 

When he entered the service he was a boy. When he came back he was different. He was only nineteen, but he was said to have a "soldier's heart". 

Battle by battle, Gary Paulsen shows one boy's war through one boy's eyes and one boy's heart, and gives a voice to all of the anonymous young men who fought in the Civil War. Readers will finish this book and know: This is how it's done. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

In the 1940s world of elegant, luxury automobiles, the Tin Snail is no beauty. But it’s facing a tough challenge: to carry a farmer and his wife, a flagon of wine and a tray of eggs across a bumpy field in a sleepy French village—without spilling a drop or cracking a shell.

And then an even bigger challenge comes along—staying hidden from an officer of the occupying Nazi army, who is bent on stealing the design for the enemy!

Loosely inspired by real events, this debut novel from successful screenwriter Cameron McAllister is the story of a brave little car that helped to win a war.

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟

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Missouri, 1849: Samantha dreams of moving back to New York to be a professional musician—not an easy thing if you’re a girl, and harder still if you’re Chinese. But a tragic accident dashes any hopes of fulfilling her dream, and instead, leaves her fearing for her life. With the help of a runaway slave named Annamae, Samantha flees town for the unknown frontier. But life on the Oregon Trail is unsafe for two girls, so they disguise themselves as Sammy and Andy, two boys headed for the California gold rush. Sammy and Andy forge a powerful bond as they each search for a link to their past, and struggle to avoid any unwanted attention. But when they cross paths with a band of cowboys, the light-hearted troupe turn out to be unexpected allies. With the law closing in on them and new setbacks coming each day, the girls quickly learn that there are not many places to hide on the open trail.

This beautifully written debut is an exciting adventure and heart-wrenching survival tale. But above all else, it’s a story about perseverance and trust that will restore your faith in the power of friendship. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟  

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Forging documents, smuggling people over the border, carrying coded messages for the French resistance—the teenagers of Les Lauzes find ways to help the refugees in their midst. For the first years of World War II, the remoteness of their village offers them a certain amount of protection, and the townspeople take on the task of sheltering Jewish children rescued from French concentration camps. But as the Nazi occupiers infiltrate every corner of France, the noose tightens, and the operation becomes increasingly dangerous. 

First, a policeman is sent to spy on their doings and uncover the village "scoundrels"—the teenagers, pastors, and others who have been aiding visitors. And when the Gestapo arrives with a list of names, the young people must race against time to get their new friends to safety. 

Based on a true story, Village of Scoundrels tells how ordinary people opposed the Nazi occupation and stood up for what was right, in spite of intensifying peril. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

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There are two things Trevor loves more than anything else: playing war-based video games and his great-grandfather Jacob, who is a true-blue, bona fide war hero. At the height of the war, Jacob helped liberate a small French village, and was given a hero's welcome upon his return to America.

Now it's decades later, and Jacob wants to retrace the steps he took during the war—from training to invasion to the village he is said to have saved. Trevor thinks this is the coolest idea ever. But as they get to the village, Trevor discovers there's more to the story than what he's heard his whole life, causing him to wonder about his great-grandfather's heroism, the truth about the battle he fought, and importance of genuine valor. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

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Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, Kenny, and Byron, Kenny's older brother, who, at thirteen, is an "official juvenile delinquent."

When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra-Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. Heading South, they're going to Birmingham, Alabama, and toward one of the darkest moments in America's history. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 

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When Theo gets off a bus in Destiny, Florida, he's left behind the only life he's ever known. Now he's got to live with Uncle Raymond, a Vietnam War vet and a loner who wants nothing to do with this long-lost nephew. Thank goodness for Miss Sister Grandersole's Boarding House and Dance School. The piano that sits in Miss Sister's dance hall calls to Theo. He can't wait to play those ivory keys. When Anabel arrives things get even more enticing.  This feisty girl, a baseball fanatic, invites Theo on her quest to uncover the town's connection to old-time ball players rumored to have lived there years before. A mystery, an adventure, and a musical exploration unfold as this town called Destiny lives up to its name.

Acclaimed author Augusta Scattergood has delivered a straight-to-the-heart story with unforgettable characters, humor, and hard questions about loss, family, and belonging. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟 

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In West of the Moon, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Margi Preus expertly weaves original fiction with myth and folktale to tell the story of Astri, a young Norwegian girl desperate to join her father in America.

After being separated from her sister and sold to a cruel goat farmer, Astri makes a daring escape. She quickly retrieves her little sister, and, armed with a troll treasure, a book of spells and curses, and a possibly magic hairbrush, they set off for America. With a mysterious companion in tow and the malevolent “goatman” in pursuit, the girls head over the Norwegian mountains, through field and forest, and in and out of folktales and dreams as they steadily make their way east of the sun and west of the moon. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical | Fantasy 

Review: 🌟🌟

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Nothing ever happens in Toby’s small Texas town. Nothing much until this summer that’s full of big changes.

It’s tough for Toby when his mother leaves home to be a country singer. Toby takes it hard when his best friend Cal’s older brother goes off to fight in Vietnam. Now their sleepy town is about to get a jolt with the arrival of Zachary Beaver, billed as the fattest boy in the world. Toby is in for a summer unlike any other, a summer sure to change his life.

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟

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Award-winning author Sid Fleischman blends the broadly comic with the deeply compassionate in this memorable novel, winner of the Newbery Medal.

A Prince and a Pauper... Prince Brat and his whipping boy inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws. The two boys have nothing in common and even less reason to like each other. But when they find themselves taken hostage after running away, they are left with no choice but to trust each other. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟

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Maggie Stephens's stutter makes school especially hard. She will do almost anything to avoid speaking in class or calling attention to herself. So when her unsympathetic father threatens to send her away for so-called "treatment," she reluctantly agrees to her mother's intervention plan: a few weeks in the fresh air of Wildoak Forest, visiting a grandfather she hardly knows. It is there, in an extraordinary twist of fate, that she encounters an abandoned snow leopard cub, an exotic gift to a wealthy Londoner that proved too wild to domesticate. But once the cub's presence is discovered by others, danger follows, and Maggie soon realizes that time is running out, not only for the leopard, but for herself and the forest as well.

​Told in alternating voices, Wildoak shimmers with beauty, compassion, and unforgettable storytelling as it explores the delicate interconnectedness of the human, animal, and natural worlds.

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟 

Back of Book: 

There was something strange about this country of America, something that they all seemed to share and understand and she did not. 

Kit has grown up on the island of Barbados, loved and pampered by her grandfather. But after his death, Kit must leave. It's not proper for a sixteen-year-old girl to live by herself. She'd heard stories about her aunt and uncle who live in the colony of Connecticut. These are the only relatives that Kit knows of. So, alone and desperate, she sets sail to live with them in New England. 

When she arrives, Kit is shocked by the gray, damp landscape, but even more stunned by the Puritanical lifestyle of her uncle's household. Fitting in is not easy—until she meets Hannah Tupper, an older woman who lives alone and is the only person who lets Kit be herself. 

But the colonists believe that Hannah is a witch. If they discover Kit is her friend, they will think the same of her. Kit must choose: should she abandon her only friend, or stand by her and risk losing everything. 

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

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Ben and Rose secretly wish for better lives. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother's room and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing.

Book Number: Stand Alone 

Genre: Middle Grade | Historical 

Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟