Book Finder

A fragmented family and a shared love of space brings brothers, Houston, and Robbie closer than ever. When Houston is accepted into a prestigious junior astronaut program, he must find a way to bring his younger brother along in the face of Robbie’s disabilities for a powerful story of inclusion and fraternal love.

An indigenous boy must travel up a mountain to collect obsidian for flint knapping, a trek from which his brothers did not return. There he meets a golden eagle, actually a god named Savik. This is a beautifully told and handsomely illustrated story of the origin of the Iñupiaq messenger feast celebrated by native Alaskans.

Short stories, ideal for reading aloud or independently, are followed by information about the animal and region in the narrative, subtly presenting issues related to climate change. Handsome illustrations throughout both illuminate and engage.

Fefa struggles with words. She has word blindness, or dyslexia, and the doctor says she will never read or write. Every time she tries, the letters jumble and spill off the page, leaping away like bullfrogs. How will she ever understand them? But her mother has an idea. She gives Fefa a blank book filled with clean white pages. “Think of it as a garden,” she says. Soon Fefa starts to sprinkle words across the pages of her wild book. She lets her words sprout like seedlings, shaky at first, then growing stronger and surer with each new day. And when her family is threatened, it is what Fefa has learned from her wild book that saves them.

Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail. All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him. So he tries his best to do his worst — and fails at failing. Now the Magisterium awaits him. It’s a place that’s both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future. The main character in this adventurous middle grade fantasy has a limp that’s realistically present yet never overtakes the story.

From fried dumplings to fortune cookies, here are the tales behind your favorite American Chinese foods. Do you know the stories behind delectable dishes—like the fun connection between scallion pancakes and pizza? Or how dumplings cured a village’s frostbitten ears? Or how wonton soup tells about the creation of the world? Separated into courses like a Chinese menu, these tales — based in real history and folklore — are filled with squabbling dragons, magical fruits, and hungry monks. This book will bring you to far-off times and marvelous  places, all while making your mouth water. 

What if a school’s mascot is seen as racist, but not by everyone? In this compelling middle-grade novel in verse, two best-selling authors tackle this hot-button issue. In Rye, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An eighth-grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye’s mascot should stay or change. Now six middle schoolers — all with different backgrounds and beliefs — get involved in the contentious issue that already has the suburb turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly. Told from several perspectives, readers see how each student comes to new understandings about identity, tradition, and what it means to stand up for real change.

On the night of November 20, 1969, eighty-nine young Native American activists crossed the San Francisco Bay under cover of darkness, calling themselves the “Indians of All Tribes.” Their objective? To claim the former prison island of Alcatraz, basing their actions on an 1868 treaty that said abandoned federal land could be returned to Indigenous peoples. Taking a stand on an island reclaimed as “Indian Land,” these peaceful protestors brought worldwide attention to the issues facing present-day Native Americans, as well as the centuries of unjust federal Indian policy.

Ryan Hart loves her family and friends. She’s looking forward to summer vacation, spending time with loved ones, and her first trip to sleepaway camp! The Hart family is experiencing a lot of changes, and Ryan needs to grow her patience in many ways, find ways to share the love, meet new challenges, and grow into the leader her mom and dad named her to be. This summer and the start of fifth grade just might give Ryan the chance to show how she grows and glows! This is Book 2 in the Ryan Hart series.

Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she’s ever going to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn’t really welcome and she’s tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people want to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. Maybe there are some things she could show other women about understanding the world and finding ways to be real, to make a difference.

All Amara wants for her birthday is to visit her father’s family in New York City — Harlem, to be exact. She can’t wait to finally meet her Grandpa Earl and cousins in person, and to stay in the brownstone where her father grew up. Maybe this will help her understand her family and herself in new way. But New York City is not exactly what Amara thought it would be.  As she explores, asks questions, and learns more and more about Harlem and about her father and his family history, she realizes how, in some ways more than others, she connects with him, her home, and her family.

Maggie’s stutter complicates her relationship with her father who wants to send her for “treatment.” Instead, Maggie will spend some time with her grandfather near Wildoak forest where she comes across a snow leopard abandoned by a wealthy Londoner. It is there she finds self-acceptance and a way to communicate for herself and the animal. Inspired by an era when exotic animals could be purchased from a London department store, this moving novel is unforgettable.    

Maya is a talented girl who excels at both soccer and playing the flute. She loves both her sport and her music but must decide which to focus on in her increasingly complicated family life. Readers will root for Maya and cheer her on as they will likely see much of themselves in her story.

Two tweens are suspended for fighting in school. Their story is told in verse from two points of view: Ebony (aka Eb) and Flow (real name De’Kari). Their lives gradually unfold in readable free verse and as readers come to understand them, and both Eb and Flow begin to realize they share a lot in common, ultimately reaching détente in this plausible and moving novel.

A unique account of the amazing Thai cave rescue told in a heart-racing, you-are-there style that blends suspense, science, and cultural insight. On June 23, 2018, twelve young players of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach enter a cave in northern Thailand seeking an afternoon’s adventure. But when they turn to leave, rising floodwaters block their path out. The boys are trapped! Before long, news of the missing team spreads, launching a seventeen-day rescue operation involving thousands of rescuers from around the globe.

As assistant to Mangkon’s most celebrated mapmaker, twelve-year-old Sai plays the part of a well-bred young lady with a glittering future. In reality, her father is a conman—and in a kingdom where the status of one’s ancestors dictates their social position, the truth could ruin her. Sai seizes the chance to join an expedition to chart the southern seas, but she isn’t the only one aboard with secrets. When Sai learns that the ship might be heading for the fabled Sunderlands—a land of dragons, dangers, and riches beyond imagining—she must weigh the cost of her dreams. Vivid, suspenseful, and thought-provoking, this tale of identity and integrity is as beautiful and intricate as the maps of old.

Princess Lina isn’t like other girls. She is a Windtamer who controls the wind and lives in a palace in the clouds. But she isn’t like other Windtamers, either, since her dad is a Groundling (a human) and her wind powers have a knack for turning icy cold. When Lina convinces her parents to let her go to her best friend Claudia’s human school, her powers really get out of whack, creating icicles in the classroom and snowdrifts in the gym. Written as Lina’s diary, this book touches on issues of feeling different, making friends and coming into your own and embracing what makes you special.

Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again. Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. 

Storms delay travelers at a Chicago airport but it is a lost toddler and a mistake by TSA staff that connects young Asian Americans in this series of interconnected short stories by a range of Asian American writers. Sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, the book highlights the diversity of Asian Americans as well as the biases they often confront.

As the Revolutionary War rages on, Isabel and Curzon have narrowly escaped Valley Forge—but their relief is short-lived. Before long they are reported as runaways, and the awful Bellingham is determined to track them down. With purpose and faith, Isabel and Curzon march on, fiercely determined to find Isabel’s little sister Ruth, who is enslaved in a Southern state — where bounty hunters are thick as flies. Return to the American Revolution in thisconclusion to the middle grade Seeds of America trilogy.

The Patriot Army was shaped and strengthened by the desperate circumstances of the Valley Forge winter. This is where Curzon the boy becomes Curzon the young man. He navigates the dangers of being a runaway slave in this second novel in the historical middle grade The Seeds of America trilogy.

When yellow fever strikes 18th century Philadelphia, 16-year-old Matilda’s life is forever changed. Contemporary readers are likely to see themselves in Matilda while being transported back in time through striking smells and sights of an earlier time.

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni’s Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Would you make a deal with a magical tiger? This coming-of-age story brings Korean folklore and magical realism to life as a girl goes on a quest to unlock the power of stories and save her grandmother.

Ten-year-old Elijiah Breeze, a.k.a. Jumper, is having the hardest summer of his life. His father has just died; his mother has moved them from the suburbs to New York City’s Harlem area; and he has to spend the summer at baseball camp. Basketball is Jumper’s game. He doesn’t know anything about baseball, or city life, or how to keep going without his dad. Jumper struggles in his new life, but he’s encouraged by the support of his coach and his grandma’s wisdom. He finds out it is possible to start over in a new place with new people … and still hold on to what’s important from his past.