by Charles Hawes Philip Marsham goes to sea as an honest sailor in a merchant fishing vessel, which is taken by pirates in the Atlantic. Forced to join them or die, Philip and the crew have a series of misadventures before they are captured by a British naval ship and brought back to England for […]
by Garret Weyr A young girl befriends one of Vienna’s remaining dragons, and together they confront the mystery of the dragons who disappeared at the end of World War II. This was a beautiful book, told from the perspectives of both Maggie and the dragon Grisha. It explores friendship, being different, love and loss, and […]
by Gail Carson Levine A young girl named Elodie leaves home to begin her apprenticeship. She hopes to become an actress, but instead ends up as the assistant to a dragon private investigator. I really enjoyed this book—it was a fun, light mystery with a fascinating cast of characters, all of whom had something to […]
by Tiffany Schmidt When bookworm Merrilee transfers to a new, co-ed private school, she soon discovers that the boys there are eerily like the boys she swoons over in her books. But being part of a romance story is not at all what she expected. I loved this nerdy, slightly cheesy rom-com. The witty banter […]
by Charles J. Finger This is a collection of folktales from South America. The author learned the tales from native storytellers during his own travels. I love fairy- and folktales, telling how things came to be the way they are, animals talking… This book has all of that. Each of the stories was new and […]
by Adam Gidwitz In this first volume of the Unicorn Rescue Society, two children discover something extra strange on their most unusual field trip. I first heard about this series on the Books Between podcast, in an episode where she shares her students’ top 20 favorite books. It definitely deserves to be on the list—it […]
by Kristen D. Randle When Ginny and her family move across country at the same time that her favorite brother goes to college, she feels totally lost and alone. In the midst of her upheaval, she is drawn to Smitty Tibbs, the strange boy in her homeroom who hasn’t spoken a word to anyone since […]
by Carole Estby Dagg Eleven-year-old Terpsichore Johnson moves to Alaska with her family as part of FDR’s New Deal program to resettle families on relief onto their own farms. Terpsichore has to deal with all of the usual challenges of moving and making new friends along with less common challenges like not having electricity or […]
by Julie Buxbaum After her father’s tragic death in a car accident that still haunts her, Kit needs space. She finds refuge at the lunch table of David Drucker, a quiet outsider with Asperger’s (although he’ll be the first to tell you that’s not an actual disorder anymore). An unlikely friendship forms, which opens both […]
by Gwendolyn Clare In this steampunk alternate history where scriptology—creating alternate worlds with words—is an actual science, Elsa comes from her scribed homeworld of Veldana to Earth to try to find and rescue her abducted mother. She learns a lot about Earth, friendship, and her own abilities along the way. This book made me want […]