Set during the Great Depression, Terry Lee Caruthers’s historical novel "Red and Me" is a bittersweet story about a spunky girl and her bighearted hound. From the moment ten-year-old Marlene sees a skittish abandoned stray whose red... Read More

In Torben Kuhlmann’s lovely illustrated novel "Earhart", a field mouse builds an airplane to fly around the world, mirroring the exploits of the famous aviatrix. A mouse inventor who manufactures machines in her underground workshop... Read More

A high school boy seeks his place in the world in Ned Wenlock’s absorbing graphic novel "Tsunami". Peter doesn’t fit in with his peers. A drawing assignment makes this clear: Gus, Peter’s neighbor, draws a wolf attacking sheep,... Read More

In Marcella Pixley’s aching novel-in-verse "Neshama", a lonely, gifted girl navigates middle school tensions and family secrets with some supernatural help. For Anna, who records ghost poems in her notebook and is ostracized at school,... Read More

A Latina girl sleuths on Capitol Hill to help her congressman friend in Kitty Felde’s entertaining, civic-minded mystery novel "Snake in the Grass". Fina is a California congressman’s daughter who is used to meeting her father’s... Read More

A girl competes in an intergalactic cooking contest in Nicolas Wouters’s graphic novel "Magda, Intergalactic Chef". Magda is hesitant about participating in her planet’s cooking tournament but does so to appease her family. Her... Read More

Moving to a cottage in the countryside unsettles a boy in Maggie O’Farrell’s fantasy story "The Boy Who Lost His Spark". Jem misses the city. He struggles with school: A learning disability is hinted at, and he’s prone to... Read More

In Kevin Garone’s zippy novel "I Know What UFO Did Last Summer", an alien-obsessed boy tries out his survival skills when a “spaceship” appears in a cornfield near his house. Twelve-year-old Marv, who lives in suburban Delaware,... Read More